Wednesday’s Scorpio New Moon is known by those in Pagan circles as Hecate’s Moon. Hecate is the Pagan Goddess of the Underworld and she ferries, from one life phase to another, those in seasons of transition. A three-headed Goddess of the Maiden, Mother and Crone, her energy is present during those liminal spaces of time during which we feel “in the dark”; in the dark about the future, lost, or uncertain about which way to go, or somewhere between death and new life. At times when the future appears hazy and unclear and thick as coastal fog, out of the grey mist Hecate’s bony fingers reach for us – through our unconscious, dreamworlds, invisible dimensions, and “occult” tools – penetrating the thick confusion by offering guidance from other realms. Scorpio, or Hecate’s New Moon empowers us to psychologically & spiritually look inward to harness the supernatural power we all have at our fingertips, and if we’re stuck, to actively seek out ways to remove any blockages to our vitality.

Hecate lives in places no one wants to be, dark streets and alleyways we wouldn’t be “caught dead” in after 11 PM. Unless you’re a natural witch, or have a preternatural sense of Hecate’s nearby help during dark nights of the soul, you like most of us find liminal spaces lonely and scary. There are parts of our self we don’t want to be caught dead exploring; periods of time, abuses, wounds that merely visiting in memory, conversation or writing feels like death all over again – or at the very least a huge step backwards. Scorpio season brings all this, the darkness in our selves, in life, in others, to light. Hecate also lives in graveyards.

Once, during a prolonged liminal stage of my life, I lived in a bright pink apartment building next to a graveyard. Every day, returning from work, I’d walk by the graveyard, feeling wildly drawn toward it. I remembered the ditty my father, a Scorpio Moon man, used to sing on his guitar for my sister & I, “The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the worms play pinochle on your snout. They eat your eyes, they eat your toes, they eat the jelly between your toes…” I wanted to go in but I felt embarrassed and ashamed that my depressive morbidity had gotten so severe that it had come to this: prowling around graveyards. But this place, similar to my own darkness was comforting, and looking at the names of people who were once alive, I realized the bright world of shopping malls, friends, careers, schools and futures…that world was dead for me. This graveyard, now this was alive. I imagined being buried in the ground and finding the earth’s moist spongey humus grounding. I imagined all the recycling of life taking place just beneath the surface of what I could see, bugs and worms crawling in and out, the re-vitalization of the soil taking place, invisible to the naked eye.

Accepting the darkness in life, the “dark night of the soul” times of our lives and the transitory and seasonal nature of everything, is essential to being fully alive. Dying (or what feels like it), is not a comfortable process because it means you have to admit that it’s really come to this. No matter whether life gets better (or not), no matter whether the pain stays or it leaves, there’s always something we can renew our self through and find alive-ness in. Through our feelings, our premonitions, our dreams, and the way the natural world speaks to us. In fortune-tellers, dark arts, ritual or re-viving old creative projects. In Death and in graveyards. Despite all appearances of this world, in Hecate’s world nothing ever really dies, anyhow, it’s just changing, moving from one energy body to the next, subject to revival and resurrection in a new form. It’ll cost you though. Ms. Hecate’s ticket to the other side can only purchase by releasing the past, the world of appearances, and opening to unknown dark dimensions within.

Scorpio New Moon is a magical time. The supernatural powers we have access to right now have less to do with special woo-woo abilities and more to do with opening up to energetic guidance from the deeps. At this New Moon, go where the energy is, and sense where the energy is not. If an activity, a difficult habit or a relationship is no longer nurturing your energy body in the way you want them to, heed that intuitive information. Then let it or them go. If you’re having a hard time with this, ask: Does this pattern feel familiar? Ancient wounds often appear in our intimate relationships, where we re-enact and re-hash old stuff over and over again till we get to the bottom of what it is inside of us that is driving this dynamic and slowly, incrementally change our behavior. For Scorpio resistance is common, albeit futile. You can resist. You can keep trying to squeeze blood from a turnip & hold on. Or you can face what you’d rather walk on by, and find Hecate’s wisdom waiting there.

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