Exact time of new moon: Nov 13, 2023 at 3:27am CST
Frost descends heavily on the fields. A white blanket covers the once verdant green beds. The tomatoes have shriveled into little red and black raisins and the lettuce hangs pale and lifeless at the edge of the garden bed. We look out at the death in the autumn garden and reflexively wish for the spring. In our mind’s eye, we can imagine the blooming of the lilacs, the viburnum, the peony… but what we see in reality is it’s opposite.
The lilac branches and the viburnum stems are bare. The peonies have turned to a crispy brown awaiting the blade of the mower to reduce it to the safety of the ground. It is at this time where we can sink into darkness. It all ends in death, we may erroneously think. Six months of darkness in the barren wasteland of winter, we may think.
It is true. On the one hand, the garden is dead. Sure, there might be brussels sprouts and kale that could survive through the winter in some places, and greenhouses are a sign of our magic and ingenuity, but everything we planted in this year‘s garden has fulfilled its annual duty, and has provided the extent of its value. Or has it?
Because, on the other hand, death is not the end. Those tomatoes and lettuce plants get turned into the soil or thrown into the compost where they get broken down into their more elemental minerals. With the help of aerobic bacteria and worms, that death is magically transformed by these hidden forces into the basic building blocks of life. The lilacs and the viburnum and the peonies survive, thrive, and bloom because of the magical regeneration of last year‘s fallen leaves. Without the compost, without the nutrients in the soil, there can be no flowers. Without effectively emotionally processing our past experiences, both the traumatic and the blissful, there is no future growth.
Image by Darkmoon Art from Pixabay
It is here where we give thanks for the sacredness of Scorpio energy, and it is here, with this New Moon in Scorpio, exact early Monday morning, that we look at our lives and take care of whatever old flowers and rotting vegetables we have left over in our year’s proverbial garden. With passion and courage, we clear and remove them to their necessary place in the compost pile. There, the old fears, sorrows, angers, and regrets can be digested and transformed. With enough honesty, awareness, emotion, and integrity, the fear can be reborn into courage and the sorrow into gratitude. The anger can turn to empowered choice and regrets can change to wisdom, hard earned.
In this process, we focus on what is truly necessary, sacred, and beautiful. We only engage in things that are real and true for us, knowing that this is a time of deep healing and integration. Sometimes it can feel like we are ripping things out of our garden and getting dirt everywhere! Sometimes the rotten tomatoes are mushy and smelly. That’s ok. We get full of mud sometimes. Shit’s dirty. Clean it up. Give thanks for soap! Let’s give our garden a thorough cleaning and tuck it in with a bedtime story for winter. If this is done consciously, our flowers will, next year, blossom all the brighter.
– Courtesy of Evolutionary Astrology with Ryan Evans
Enjoy reading this article? Read more forecasts from Ryan Evans
