On Saturday, November 18th there will be a New Moon in the sign of Scorpio. As with all New Moons, the Sun and the Moon will be conjunct, their energies twisting and coiling in climactic union.
This concrescence of solar and lunar energies presents a window of opportunity to begin a new cycle of emotional and creative energy. This is true for every New Moon, but each has a unique gift to offer for the purpose of nurturing your growth and development.
Now is the time when your innate alchemical power becomes activated, asking that the decadent and dessicated be sacrificed for the sake of your bright future. In Scorpio, the Moon’s gentle cycle of generation is overwhelmed by a much deeper transmutational tide. In astrology, the Moon in Scorpio is considered to be in its fall, where silvery softness becomes tarnished and blackened.
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Deprived of nurturing light, this New Moon in Scorpio brings into bloom a garden of the night. From the cold earth rise the flowers of evil, gleaming with thorns and dripping with narcotic sap. Under the spell of their indigo perfume, the veil between spirit and matter evaporates. In a disquieting haze, the familiar becomes transfigured into the strange. And before your dilated eyes arises a tangle of thorns, a violent crosshatch of obsession, despair and ennui.
We pay ourselves richly for our admissions,
And we gaily go once more on the filthy path
Believing that by cheap fears we shall wash away all our sins.
The stark visions of this New Moon in Scorpio will open your eyes wide to many ancient nightmares. A morbid sense of dread will emerge as you are forced to face what is monstrous and degenerate in yourself and the world around you.
In repulsive objects we find something charming;
Each day we take one more step towards Hell-
Without being horrified-across darknesses that stink.
Though the internet’s high definition artifice offers the greatest gluttony of human misery ever known to man, the societal conditions of 2017 can still be reflected with great clarity by many great artists and prophets of the past.
Ancient poets, cursed with apocalyptic visions saw what you see now as you lightly skim through your phone. Caught in a ceaseless stream of belligerent hustlers, war, and the screams of rape and murder, your cool indifference can only sink further into numbness. C’est la vie.
If rape, poison, the dagger, arson,
Have not as yet embroidered with their pleasing designs
The recurrent canvas of our pitiable destinies,
It is that our spirit, alas, is not brave enough.
In search of an artist who can inspire better understanding of the Scorpionic purgatory of the modern world, there is no finer example than the extraordinary French poet, Charles Baudelaire. Most famous for his poetical omnibus, Fleurs du Mal (Flowers of Evil), Baudelaire developed an original style based upon a stark reflection of industrial urban life in 19th Century Paris. He is often credited with coining the term, “modernity“, an effort to describe the loss of human connection in the industrial world. In Baudelaire’s Paris, lovers sigh at first sight and die at last sight through the windows of passing trains.
Filled to brim with the heartblood of Scorpio, Baudelaire is to the 21st Century imagination what Dante was to the Renaissance. His descent into hell is filled with many horrendous and inescapable lines. Fleurs du Mal summons a swallowing darkness, where the most painful truths and hypocrisies must be confronted before any hope for a new dawn can arise.
The preface to Fleurs du Mal, is a poem called, To the Reader, where Baudelaire accuses the gentle reader of being his consort in hypocrisy and degeneracy.
In a storm of imagistic violence, Baudelaire offers vivid descriptions of human evil, a menagerie of vice that covers every iteration of pathology and sin. But soon he reveals that these horrors are nothing, for it is not rape, murder, addiction, or salacious scandal that rule.
There is one uglier, wickeder, more shameless!
Although he makes no large gestures nor loud cries
He willingly would make rubbish of the earth
And with a yawn swallow the world;
Instead, Baudelaire declares that the real threat to humanity is Ennui, the French word that expresses a soul deadening spiritual condition of boredom.
He is Ennui! — His eye filled with an unwished-for tear,
He dreams of scaffolds while puffing at his hookah.
You know him, reader, this exquisite monster,
— Hypocrite reader, — my likeness, — my brother!
Baudelaire describes the state of Ennui as the ultimate demonic force, eating away at the marrow of integrity. The modern reader finds themselves to be blood-related to the image of Ennui, succumbing to desire while luxuriating in fantasies of death. Lost in a haze of indigo smoke, failing yet again to summon the strength and settling back into complacency.
And with a yawn swallow the world;
The modern world in the 19th and 21st Century, present a challenging voyage for the soul. Sailing into the end of history, it seems that there are only isolated kingdoms where valuable connection and meaning is lost. Somehow, the chorus of madness and pain fails to communicate and nothing has to be given for all to be taken.
Disenchanted, it is easy to react to these scenes with weak gestures of helpless apathy. But when you truly search your soul, as this New Moon in Scorpio demands, you find that there is knowledge of a destination beyond this, a new horizon fast approaching.
With eyes wide open to the unholy conditions of your times, the sadness that crushes your strength can become transmuted into courage. To succeed in this artful alchemy, it is your ennui, apathy, boredom that must be conquered.
For Baudelaire, it was the alchemy of art that vaporized the clouds of darkness to reveal the luminescence of spirit once again. For you, this power lies in whatever heart-throbbing creative impulses that rise from the depths of your soul. Even in a garden filled with poisonous blooms, declare your undying love and lust for life.
At this New Moon in Scorpio, you will be asked to defy the forces of Ennui with your seething devotion. With full knowledge of the transmutational tide that is turning, do not let yourself rest in forgetfulness or languish in despair. Instead, resolve to use this New Moon as an opportunity to rise up from the darkness to meet the golden dawn.
Much Love,
Rachel
Aeolian Heart
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