Welcome to the Scorpio New Moon. It’s a solar eclipse and a new chapter, one that will unfold over the next six months. Scorpio is power and transformation, decay and rebirth, intimacy and vulnerability, discomfort and discovery, secrets and taboo. The new moon solar eclipse is exact on October 25, 2022 at 6:49 am, 2 degrees of Scorpio. That’s 3:49 am Los Angeles, 11:49 am London, 12:49 pm Johannesburg, 9:49 pm Sydney, and 11:49 pm Auckland.
New moons are new beginnings and solar eclipses are doubly so. They mark a powerful transition point for the year, opening up a six-month frame of time lived through the archetype of the sign. The different planets are the seeds in this new beginning. Life can take a turn, sometimes dramatically so. All we know is that wherever this solar eclipse falls will not look the same come the next solar eclipse in 2023.
To understand this eclipse, have to first see it in contrast to Taurus, the sign opposite of Scorpio. If Taurus, as the first earth sign, is the fertility of life, the world in full bloom after the first energies of spring, then Scorpio is the world in decay. Days grow colder, nights grow longer. The leaves change colors and fall to the ground.
These two twin forces — life and death — are the building blocks of creation. And Taurus and Scorpio are two powerful ends of what’s called the fixed cross … Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius. The four pillars of the manifested world and the duality between matter (earth, water) and spirit (fire, air).
Yes, Scorpio is a sign about life and its many stages. But while things may die under Scorpio’s purview, they are reborn again and again through Taurus in a cycle without end.
Of course, Scorpio Season is a season to get a little spooky. That’s because Scorpio stands symbolically in the midpoint between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice. As a water sign, the veil is thin. We can feel things beyond this world. Our intuition is stronger. Our dreams more powerful. It’s not a coincidence that we mark this time with different cultural and religious celebrations to mark the divide between life and death.
Since this is a south node eclipse, the coming weeks and months are making us do our work. The south node is a point of release. It also marks a space where we have to work through our personal and collective karma. Scorpio work means that we have to face ourselves and do the deep emotional inventory. Whatever we’ve been putting off, whatever is unhealed, unaccepted, and unloved will need attention. And its through this work that we will have to weigh powerful options and make equally powerful choices with Mars in Gemini.
Whatever we’re working through around the eclipse and over the next six months has its roots in May 2018, March 2019 when Uranus first entered Taurus, but also in March 2020 and December 2020 when Saturn entered Aquarius — two signs that form the fixed cross. Eclipses are like points of crises in the story. We have to react and take action and navigate events that feels as though they’re pulling at the four corners of our lives.
While the solar eclipse isn’t in an exact opposition to Uranus in Taurus, it does activate a tight square between Saturn and Uranus, which means that the coming days, weeks, and months may feel like we’re being pulled in two different directions, one foot in a new life, one foot in an old life. There’s a demand to remake old structures and reinvent what’s not working. (Look back to February, June, and December 2021 for reference.)
Then there’s Mars in Gemini square Neptune in Pisces, an aspect that Mars will go back and forth with while it’s retrograde from October 30, 2022 until January 12, 2023. How do we find peace with the things that are hard to have peace with? How do we let go of the things that we can’t control? I think that’s the hardest lesson with Scorpio at the moment … to let go. It’s a sign that has a near obsessive need to strategize and outmaneuver. But with Mars square Neptune, we’re reminded that there are some things we can’t control.
If you want to learn more about this eclipse and what it means for you, I recorded a nearly three-hour webinar, The Eclipses of October & November 2022. You can still get the webinar replay, which covers what eclipses are, why they are so important, and the role of these Scorpio-Taurus eclipses through 2021-2023. Click here to learn more and get the recording.