Cut the lights and cue the clarity.
In the wee hours of Monday, Nov. 13, we are blessed by the dark in the form of a new moon in Scorpio.
This is the first time since 2021 that a Scorpio new moon hasn’t coincided with the chaos-as-catharsis energy of an eclipse.
Praise be.
This shift is one from reckoning to regeneration, making clay from the ashes of who we were — and writing a new story with the blood of who we are becoming.
To boot and to our benefit, this auspicious new moon falls on a Monday, the day of the week traditionally ruled by the moon, doubling down on the power and potential. Folks, we love to see it.
New moon meaning
The new moon equates to a clean slate, turning over the fresh dirt and blank page of a month-long lunar cycle. The sky goes dark and we go deep, especially under the influence of Scorpio.
A new moon occurs when the moon is in conjunction with the sun and thus no longer visible from our vantage on Earth. As such, the new moon always falls in the same zodiac sign that the sun is currently moving through.
In astrology, the sun symbolizes the ego, the essential self and our forward trajectory, while the moon represents our primal nature, need for nourishment and subconscious urges.
When these two bodies align in sign, it’s an opportunity to assess and progress. This week that opportunity takes shape in the fixed waters of death centric, obsession prone Scorpio.
Trines, oppositions and trauma triggers
Add to the mix that Mars, planet of action, aggression, sex and success will be in conjunction with the sun and moon in Scorpio. These three heavy hitters and deep feelers will form a lucky duck trine with Neptune in Pisces.
When the sign of rebirth tag teams the planet of dreams, we really can dissolve what’s been, discern what’s true and build a foundation for what it possible.
This holy trinity of sun (self), moon (emo nature) and Mars (action) will be opposing wild the f—k out Uranus in Taurus, an opposition that will test our abilities to work through, rather than remain at the mercy of, our wounding.
When the sign of rebirth tag teams the planet of dreams we really can dissolve what’s been, discern what’s true and build a foundation for what it possible.
Under these skies, pay close attention to your triggers. What makes you rage and where do you feel a lack? These are spaces that are asking for action, pleading to be sutured through searching.
Scorpio brings the unconscious to the surface and while you may be responding/reacting to the topical, Scorpio insists you dig deeper, to see in and through the dark and step closer to the kind of honesty and intimacy that terrifies you the most.
As Sarah Faith Gottesdiener writes, “To clear away what holds us back we have to know what’s kept us in stasis. The effects and influences of trauma are brutal…Often, trauma heightens our defense mechanisms to such a point where we don’t think it is safe to let anyone in. This defensive impulse can extend to our dreams, desires, needs, and certain aspects of our own selves: it feels safer to keep our dreams, needs, and desires far away — if we don’t try, we can’t get hurt.”
It’s a tall order and a righteous challenge to be sure, but Scorpio doesn’t play with the pedestrian and LIVES for terrifying intimacy — so step right up and dive right in.
Spiritual meaning of the new moon in Scorpio
The themes and threads of the new moon apply to all of us, regardless of sun sign. Where and how this energy expresses itself is dependent upon the house within your individual birth chart that Scorpio rules.
Scorpio is a sign that lives by the twin tenets of instinct and intuition, blessed/burdened with the ability to see beyond the veil and below the surface. Clarity is a sharpened knife and under this new moon, Scorpio is the whetstone.
Acutely and often painfully in tune, Scorpio knows deeply, intuitively and unshakably what is and what is not for them, a definitiveness we can all invite during this lunation.
This precision is aided and abetted by Saturn stationing direct in early November, helping all of us to bolster our boundaries and state our stances.
Clarity is a sharpened knife and under this new moon, Scorpio is the whetstone.
Scorpio is the sign of rebirth and we can invoke that process of beginning by unbinding ourselves from stagnation, cutting free of the patterns that become spirals, smiling in the face of the the fear that holds us still, and refusing to obey the silence that stifles truth.
Scorpio poet Denise Levertov writes, as only a Scorpio can:
“In the dark I rest,
unready for the light which dawns
day after day,
eager to be shared.
Black silk, shelter me.
I need
more of the night before I open
eyes and heart
to illumination. I must still
grow in the dark like a root
not ready, not ready at all.”
Get down to the root, bow to the need for night and set yourself to being born, sure and clean, in the sheltering dark.
Astrologer Reda Wigle researches and irreverently reports back on planetary configurations and their effect on each zodiac sign. Her horoscopes integrate history, poetry, pop culture and personal experience. She is also an accomplished writer who has profiled a variety of artists and performers, as well as extensively chronicled her experiences while traveling. Among the many intriguing topics she has tackled are cemetery etiquette, her love for dive bars, Cuban Airbnbs, a “girls guide” to strip clubs and the “weirdest” foods available abroad.