A Week of Seeking Truth in the Shadows
November 10 - 16, 2025
Our Lunar Mood | Into the Dark
It's a last-quarter moon week when the light of the moon thins to a sliver. A barely open eye drifting off toward sleep. This is not unlike autumn itself, a season that envelops us in growing darkness. The tones match: an autumn light and an autumn reflection. This enhances the feel of Scorpio Season's push to go under the surface of life. What lies in the underground—our psyches, the unspoken agreements, the channels of power, the cords of control?
Do you dare to surrender to the darkness, where ghosts of our unresolved past haunt us, where horror sharpens its claws as it chases, and terror lurks as a shadow that no one else sees? Will your madness spring loose? The only way through the season and the year is to go through that darkness. What I've found is that in this dimming of light, our vulnerability not only leaves us bare but also opens us to help and witnessing—really being seen.
Scorpio Season has a lot to do with merging, but to really merge (souls, bodies, businesses, finances, visions, homes), you have to be fully seen and to see. What's in that person's darkest corner, in that portfolio's weakest asset, in that company's hidden books, in that home's secrets? Just as it feels too overwhelming to sort it out, Luna steps in with the perfect reflection. The correlating moon phase I map onto Scorpio's energy is the early waning crescent, and in Scorpio's own season, when we step into the heart of pure Scorpio solar light and waning crescent lunar reflection, the Virgo Moon arrives with discernment.
How do we know we've seen what we need to see? Scorpio helps us investigate, probe, and follow threads. Virgo gives us an intuition to critique and edit and get skillfully precise. I think of Scorpio Season as the ‘Rescue from Without’ phase of the year's Hero's Journey, when we become most powerful by being open enough to accept our flaws and accept help, ultimately finding empowerment. But we are open and susceptible to trauma in the wrong hands. Virgo, in its own new moon seed's yearly unfolding, happens to be in its ‘Supernatural Aid’ stage, a stage of guidance from inspiration or a wise guide. Not only is Virgo bringing discernment just when we need it (‘Rescue from Without’ could simply be an instinct around discernment), but it is also stepping in with help from beyond the veil. Magic is afoot.
The elegance with which the zodiacal patterns are organized can be astounding. The more I see how story structures and our lived cosmic rhythms overlap, the more I can see where stories have moments of magical breakthrough that we simply accept. We might critique that a circumstance was too timely or out of nowhere, but deep down, we accept this in stories because these kinds of magical timings happen in real life. We hear it in anecdotes and memoirs—just when all seemed lost…
Another note I'd like to offer, as we enter this darkening week, is the timing with the Celtic Wheel of the Year. While we celebrate the start of Samhain on November 1st, representing the start of the darkest quarter of the year, we technically started this darkest quarter on Thursday night/Friday morning. This moves us to the north of the Celtic wheel, where the earth element reigns, and we feel our ancestors in our bones. We can call on our ancestors to help us during this time. They can be our ‘Rescue from Without’ and our ‘Supernatural Aid’. Pour a drink for them at dinner. Invite them at an altar, or with a specific request spoken aloud.
Maybe there is an ancestor you knew in this lifetime or one you've never known about but feel in your bones. What do you need help with? I like to think about traits I have that feel inherited, but that I'm not sure where from. Traits that I want to develop and better utilize. I like to call on ancestors with the strongest link to that trait forward. To create openings, and give signs, and pull strings, and symbolically nod when I'm understanding something. I like to light a candle for them, write a note, and pour a dram of whiskey.
Confusion in the Air | Mercury Rx in Sagittarius
Mercury stationed retrograde on Sunday (through November 29th), bringing a time of retracing, rethinking, revising, and revisiting. I find this fitting for Scorpio Season, which is also a time of visiting ghosts of the past. Uprooting and investigation require close reading, reading between the lines, and following threads that usually started in the past. With Sagittarius fueling the early part of this retrograde, what beliefs, hopes, and big visions need a second look? Where did your belief in ____ even come from? Maybe it’s time to uproot the source and change the narrative for even greater hope and brighter beliefs to be found. Tweaks are in store for your bigger picture in life.
Our Seasonal Guide | Mars in Sagittarius
As the ruler of Aries, Mars’ outward-pointing arrow directs, giving us drive, direction, impulse, and focus. Its point is also a weapon, the warrior’s sword used to defend, protect, and cut through to clarity. As the ruler of Scorpio, its arrow symbol takes on a different tone. The arrow now points under the surface rather than above the surface—directing us on what to uproot, to psychic disturbances, and pointing out the unspoken truths. Its weapon is no longer a sword but a surgeon’s knife, precise as it cuts into things to transform them, clean them, or study them.
With the season’s archetype of the Surgeon and Investigator, we find Mars in Sagittarius, piercing into our principles, philosophies, and guiding beliefs. Notice what big picture understandings you are piercing into. What’s under the surface of your dogmas that needs to be pointed out, cleaned up, and put back together? What needs to be sniffed out around the guiding principles of the world or of another?
I just heard Brené Brown speak about where she draws her line around having a dialogue with another. For her, it’s about knowing that person’s greater beliefs about humans, specifically if they are willing to dehumanize others, which starts with language meant to be derogatory (those people are a disease, women are dogs, so and so is a savage). When/if this is seen, these people feel too dangerous to her. I’m chewing on her thoughts. It feels important in this time to be careful with language. To not dehumanize. I might say my husband is such a collie dog, but it’s meant with affection. I think there is a distinction to note—language that feels literal versus metaphoric. There is a tone you can feel. Even when it’s used in a joking or affectionate way, there is a sensed meaning behind language, and sometimes the joke feels icky. On top of the literal versus metaphoric distinction, does it feel like a hidden prejudice? This is something I want to be more surgical about, piercing into what is dehumanizing versus an affectionate metaphor, especially when it’s not totally clear. What unconscious beliefs does my own language reveal?
What kind of principles and narrative-shaping beliefs are you cutting into right now? How is your perspective being transformed by looking under the surface?
Lunar Cycle Reflections
While moon phases help us tap into the ebb and flow of the solar season, the Moon—outside its ties to the Sun—has its own reflective cycle, one about recognition. To tap more deeply into memory, feeling, and intuition, head over to the current lunar journey: The Libra New Moon Journey of Mirroring and Partnership
Headline Transit
Mercury Rx Conjunct Mars in Sagittarius, November 12th (4:15 pm MT)
Just as these two planets already feel front and center this week (see above), they will also meet up in the same degree of Sagittarius (6°) on Wednesday. A new shared agenda is being set between Mind/Mercury and Drive/Mars, in the sign of perspective/Sagittarius. An agenda of actively learning/thinking about/discussing perspective.
Mars can bring clashes; Sagittarius loves a debate, but Mercury ultimately wants connections and information. During this Mercury-Mars synodic journey (November 12, 2025 - April 21, 2026), expect bold ideas around belief, a bit of friction and argument around the big picture, action taken around visionary thoughts, and communities organizing around story and principles.
On a personal note, follow impulse and drive to broaden your mind, learn different philosophies, travel abroad, and believe in your ideas. What big picture ideas will you take action on?