After leaving San Francisco yesterday we headed for the Redwoods in Northern California. I chose this spot and this date purposefully knowing Mercury would be Rx, knowing that it’s Samhain and knowing I need to be in nature at this time of year, every year.
Standing at the foot of these literal giants I fell silent; there’s nothing that could be said to enhance the moment and words would only get in the way of listening. Impressed by how spongey the Earth is underfoot, able to hold up all 350 ft of solid tree, I take in more of the surroundings as the forest begins to open up. Lying horizontal are several giants. No longer upright, yet no less participating, present and necessary. No less breathtaking.
I’m reminded of The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben. In it he describes the importance of dead trees to the ongoing sustainability of a forest. No longer vertical, trees still share energy and nutrients with each other, operating much like a family reliant on one another for survival.
Scorpio has in recent history become associated with death and transformation, due mainly to its also modern association with Pluto. But the natural progression of life’s cycle at this time of year does reflect this nocturnal, dying off and transforming phase (in the Northern Hemisphere where Western Astrology originated). Once Libra sets us straight with equal parts day and night, Scorpio Season alerts us to the irreversible descent from Autumn into the cold, dark depths of Winter. The reality of hibernation and retreat is undeniable.
If you can picture yourself as a tree, heavy with golden-red leaves, branches stretching wide having held nests, birds, moss and sunlight, with roots steadfast and deep as the branches rise…..what does this encroaching Winter hold for you? Will you drop a branch or two as the weight of an old story becomes too much to carry forth? How will the leaves that you have grown nourish you as they fall to your feet? How well has your bark protected you in the form of setting and upholding boundaries? Will you do next year differently, wishing you’d been clearer about how much energy you put out, or who you offered shade and shelter to, who you wish had found sanctuary in your forest? What will you mourn and what will you rejoice in the inevitable loss of?
This Mercury Rx phase began with Mercury and Venus snuggled up together at the 28th degree of Scorpio. From the outside this sounds like a night of sexy pillow talk laced with confessions that are bound with the Scorpio sanctity of confidentiality and trust, deep in the night sealed with a blood bond. And it likely was all that but when you look a little closer they’re lying in Saturn’s bed, which changes everything!
With Saturn currently in Capricorn this could be a bed of nails in a lighthouse, isolated yet aware of the responsibility of being both a navigation tool and a marker of the boundary between land and water. Highlighting the constantly moving line between our emotional needs and the reality of daily life and the limits we live within, they are imprisoned in some way, bound by the promises they’ve made each other and no matter how bonded they are with words they’re lonely in each others’ company.
Regardless of this consequential energy, they’re still being “nice” to each other because neither dares tell the other the truth for fear of upsetting the balance. Who would they call anyway, and what of the promises they’ve made?
There’s a lot that will be uncovered throughout this Rx journey with regards to what we’re bound to, consequences of prior choices and bonds that might need to be renegotiated or released for good.
Oct 31st – What’s on the table?
Nov 1st – Be like a tree and leaf!