New Moon Solar Eclipse in Scorpio: Dancing with Darkness

”Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

--Dylan Thomas

The new Moon solar eclipse on November 13 (note: 13 is the number associated with Scorpio in the Tarot) sets the stage for serious psychological shedding -- if not total metamorphosis. Eclipses have away of speeding up change and evolution like crazy. Plus when you have a new Moon solar eclipse under the influence of the sign ruling death and rebirth (Scorpio), you can imagine how potent and alive the change gods are at this time.

This eclipse coincides with Mercury (retrograde), Saturn and the Sun in Scorpio -- emphasizing the archetype of transformation. Look to where Scorpio falls in your natal horoscope and expect nothing short of a total overhaul to that life department and psychological arena. Destroy to rebuild. Drain to refill.

What does it feel like to tear it all down and start from scratch? What truly sustains us when nothing else externally sustains us? These are the questions Jung asked in his darkest night of the soul. This is the perfect question for the collective at this most intense and uncertain juncture: How do we live with the threat of total annihilation on a daily basis?

Even if you don’t subscribe to the prophecy of the Mayan calendar, or put much heed in the ongoing destructive displays of Mother Nature or even think the world is in any more danger than it ever has been ... one simply cannot deny the feeling of darkness, chaos and destruction running rampant in the collective unconscious at the moment.

Priorities are of the essence. We could lose all of our belongings and security at a moment’s notice. Weeding out nonessentials is no longer a luxury but a dire -- if not an involuntary -- necessity. We’re realizing just what a burden material possessions are. We’re craving beauty, simplicity and an inner rootedness like never before, as we realize that external forms of support are too dicey, and home resides most reliably in our own bones.

Scorpio is connected to the 13th Major Arcana in the Tarot and the archetype of Death (Rebirth). Death is one of our greatest, if not most painful, teachers. Spiritual masters always speak of living in the moment, and to stop living like we have forever. Live like a bird on a branch of a tree that could break at any moment so that we don’t get too attached, knowing that anything could change at a moment’s notice. The recent destructive energy of Superstorm Sandy directly on the heels of Saturn entering Scorpio is a direct testimony to how powerful the tear-it-all-down-to-ash energy of Scorpio truly is.