Alchemy Rising!

Oct. 25 6:49am EDT: New Moon Solar Eclipse in Scorpio

It’s eclipse season! And this Scorpio new moon solar eclipse highlights themes of intensity, power, and opportunity for transformation. The potency of eclipses brings tremendous energy; this is a great time to set intentions for the next six months and beyond. Between now and the full moon lunar eclipse on November 8th, we have powerful support and influence in manifesting our dreams for co-creation.

Planetary energy is shifting, culminating, intensifying. At the time of the eclipse, Sun, Moon, and  Venus are all conjunct in Scorpio, ruled by Pluto, which governs things hidden, taboo, and that which gets us in touch with the experience of LIFE at its barest and most essential. We’re talking death, sex, and journeys to the underworld. It is a powerful sign associated with themes of rebirth and resurrection. 

Adding more underworld energy, Sun, Moon, and Venus, along with Mercury in Libra are all square with Pluto in Capricorn. This is the tension of the descent. We are Inanna, Sumerian Goddess and Queen of Heaven and Earth, called to the great below where we cannot return from unchanged. Each gate requires that we give up something of ourselves until we arrive stripped of it all, naked before Ereshkigal the Queen of the Underworld. 

A look of hatred: she kills us: Ereshkigal kills Inanna with her stare and hangs her on a meat hook.

This is the moment of alchemical transformation, which is what Pluto wants. Scorpio is the only sign with three symbols: the scorpion, the eagle, and the phoenix. We cannot rise above what has yet to be examined and integrated. We are Inanna and Ereshkigal both, and with Pluto square, it’s wise to examine our motivations and the reasons behind our intentions. This is an opportunity to drop the facades of identity, and acknowledge our shadows, the parts of ourselves once hidden beneath the surface, the scorpion poised to attack. 

To become the phoenix is a rebirth. All that doesn’t serve us, that doesn’t serve our highest potential and destiny is burned away. Inanna receives help: two homunculus figures made of the dirt beneath the god Enki’s fingernails come to her aid. They find Ereshkigal in pains of labor. The Underworld Queen rocks back and forth moaning, “Oh, my back. Oh, my belly.” And the figures meet her with compassion, mirroring her moans and movement, “Oh, my back,” they say, “Oh, my belly.”

We are the homunculus figures when we meet our shadows without judgment. 

Ereshkigal is touched. She feels relief at their compassion. She offers the pair whatever they want. They ask for Inanna, and take her back to the world above where she is alive again, alive and forever changed: deeper, wiser, more adept in understanding and compassion.

Pluto and Scorpio are associated with power, and as we finally move out of the Saturn/ Uranus square (marking a redefinition of structures and authority in alignment with our radical truths and highest visions), the power of Saturn calls us to build and create as the planet goes direct on the 23rd, just 2 days before the eclipse. From the ashes of whatever fell, may we build anew. May we call upon Saturn for the wisdom, commitment, and mastery to step into our own empowered authority and embrace the step-by-step tasks of manifestation. Keeping true to ourselves and in service to our highest visions for reality, Saturn (time keeper and farmer god) is where we reap what we sow.  

There is so much at stake. We are in the birth canal of a new dream. Mars fires things up on the mental plane, trining Sun/Moon/Venus/Mercury, which gives stimulation to our thoughts and ideas as we move into whatever this new phase or rebirth is for each of us. Mars also squares Neptune in Pisces and Jupiter (retrograding back into Pisces on the 27th!), suggesting tension and a need for negotiation between the mind and our deeply connected inner knowing. Things may feel unclear, and surface realities are not all what they seem. Pay attention to your dreams, your body wisdom’s inner knowing. Journal. Create art. And on October 30th, Mars will go retrograde, directing some of that energy inward, where we can reflect and integrate the momentum.    

We are living an alchemical opportunity. What is yours to transmute? With Venus conjunct Sun and Moon, we are reminded to incorporate beauty and creativity in whatever we make. There is a quickening. The approaching full moon brings yet more intensity, and I invite you to hold this time between phases as a sacred corridor for change. 

Keeping in mind the self-reflection and analysis Pluto calls for, may we use the tools we resonate with to set our intentions and manifest them: writing, speaking with our dreams, meditation, movement, art, dance, music, song, connecting with the earth, and RITUAL– whatever feels in alignment for you. May we call in the support of our communities, here and in other realms (And yes– we are doing this through Samhain, where the veils with the ancestors thin). May we be gentle with ourselves on these journeys. And may we raise our molten cups to the stars above, and become the transformation we long for. It is here. It is now. We live.

Blessed Be,

Sarah