Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Something stung me!




You are walking outside in the chilly air and suddenly, as if out of a bad dream, you notice that the trees have lost all of their leaves and that they stand naked and bare against the sky. Underfoot, as the leaves begin to turn into mulch and decay, you now absorb that the earth feels cold. You look up and again gaze at the sky. Though it may look quite striking when the sky is a clear and pure cobalt blue, you observe that with the setting sun comes an understanding that you are now starting to live in a vista of gray, black and white hues. Welcome to the twilight zone! (This is when the theme music used to kick in when Rod Serling was still around smoking cigarettes.)

Here in Vermont “the twilight zone” tends to happen around October 23rd, which definitively ushers in the time of the astrological sign of Scorpio. By the time Halloween arrives on the 31st it is difficult to understand if we are all living or dead or somewhere in between. Make no mistake about it; this time of year is very much about death and dying. Reevaluation of all kinds of relationships tends to also begin during this time of year. Narratives of all kinds begin to fade, decay, or unravel.

If I may be so bold as to generalize and consider Scorpio a “November sign”, I believe that it is self evident that there is a starkness to Scorpio individuals, events and places that are unmistakable and unavoidable. November has a peculiar energy to it and the energetic field of a Scorpio is like no other, it is akin to a radiator that is suddenly turned on in the room; if you listen closely you can almost hear the hiss. It invades your space as if through your very pores. The Scorpio individual to me is like a tautly pulled guitar string that is being played with a violin bow. There is indeed an intensity in the room when a Scorpio walks in and whether the individual be a loud person or a quiet person, I believe that the guitar string quivering underneath is felt by everyone on some level. This feeling I also compare to the sense of starkness and razor edge clarity that one might receive from a visit with a Zen master – the interaction penetrates down to the very core of your being. A Scorpio native is adept at “piercing through” just like your favorite psychologist.

In beginning a discussion about the sign of Scorpio, perhaps it is best to start with a question concerning its monthly emergence. Is the month of November ever easy to take on by anyone? I would say not. It heralds in energetically the most demanding time of year. Is the Scorpionic circumstance, individual or place ever a laidback walk in the park? I think not. Scorpio intensity demands attention just as does the successful negotiation of the period from late fall to early winter. Successful participants find themselves alive and well in the New Year of 2009!

For North Americans and Northern Europeans alike, November simply put becomes an existential time. What is left for any of us when the leaves have all fallen, clouds drift overhead and a cold drizzle becomes virtually ceaseless? Home owners and renters alike start pulling down the storm windows and the living space gets sealed in tightly. That awful dry heat gets turned on. Homeless people try to move indoors somehow. I believe that this all causes a disconnection with the outside world that results in an additional existential uneasiness as the approaching winter begins to make itself known outside and human communication starts a drastic cycle of winding down. Does this not suggest the very process of something or someone dying and rotting away? Extreme as it sounds, I believe that we lock our own coffins every year as we shut ourselves into our homes in order to endure the oncoming winter. It is a practice run.

Now maybe it is only the wife and I who get SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), but I tend to believe that there are many other individuals like us out there. Even the most cheerful people among us become broody and self-reflective as the concept of mortality shows itself to be real in nature when the bare trees bend in the mounting cold winds. The body begins to feel stiff and cold and it seems harder to get up in the morning and to face the labors at hand. The pace of life has to slow down and for the first time since early summer, people begin to really feel tired and to sleep more.

All of this, then, becomes the very life blood of the Scorpio native. These folks do not go for the light and easy feeling and conversation that for instance a Libran like me loves … Instead, the Scorpio native will cut to the chase with force and precision as if time were indeed growing short. A surgeon performing a life saving operation under pressure typifies the intense Scorpionic figure putting out a particular energy into the world. Life is meant to be lived with passion and it is to be pursued with fervor!

I might go on a limb here and state that most Scorpio individuals are gifted at cutting, slicing, stabbing, and poking. There is a sharpness and penetrating approach to them that is unavoidable. One Scorpio in particular that I know has a perfectly lethal backhand volley. Scorpios enjoy negotiating layers and burrowing to the core of a particular individual or situation.

On another level, we might begin to examine Scorpio as a destroyer or an exploder. These two acts can be examined as good or bad depending on the circumstances. A nurse shooting up a patient with toxic chemotherapy could very well be looked at as a Scorpionic figure. She is acting out of a feeling to save the patient with lethality and precision. There is nothing more Scorpionic than this act. A weapons expert may be trying to do the same thing as he plants a car bomb under the car of particular individual. Both of these are Scorpionic acts which involve intensity, lethality, and precision with very different motivations.

I am not implying that all Scorpios are assassins or spies, but they very well could be! A Scorpio knows how to “fulfill a mission” and it is a rare thing that a Scorpio native will abandon a mission in that this is simply not what a fixed sign does. A fixed water sign will slowly flow forward inch by inch if necessary and make sure that “the Sting” takes place. Again, it is necessary to say that “the Sting” can be the successful completion of a client’s difficult natal chart just as much as it can be the disconnecting of a security system. Generally speaking, Scorpio does not suffer fools gladly, and this sign wants to reach its goals quickly and efficiently and to receive or make plans for another mission!

Through my own experiences with Scorpios, I have to say that the sex thing is connected to them somehow as well. And this statement can have nothing to do with promiscuity, but more with sexual expression. In another life long ago I played in a band in which our drummer was a stripper. She was also an excellent song writer. We were also roommates and from what I could tell, she was not any more sexual than any other person, but the stripping thing is obviously connected to the language of sexuality and money! Another Scorpio I know is an excellent acupuncturist and she can speak easily about the body and sex and about the energy centers within the body. Again, here we can see that Scorpio can be very much interested in the body and probably sex is most certainly one of the languages that the human body speaks.

Scorpios are amazing people and offer us many gifts of health, rejuvenation and understanding. Just don’t double cross ‘em! This month features two Scorpio songwriters who continue to penetrate us with their voices and instruments.