There is no greater joy in life than love. We love love- as it should be. To have someone … to have and to hold in sickness and health, for richer and for poorer…makes the coldness somehow warmer.  In stormy waters, nothing but love, no one but our lifelong companion(s) could ever make “sickness” and “poor” remotely bearable, survivable even.

The moon is full in Scorpio, a time when life’s calamaties and shadows loom larger, and emotions cut to the bone. This week I found out a client of mine was recently given an extremely difficult medical diagnosis. This isn’t her first experience with debilitating illness, but one of a lifetime of medical complications. According to the medical establishment, this gentle woman was not supposed to live to see middle age. When she turned fifty, I recall urging her to celebrate her Chiron return -a time of coming into our wisdom being in a whole new way. What I remember most about that talk is learning that the age of fifty clearly meant something very different for her than it did for most of people who dread leaping forward a whole decade. Turning fifty meant she had defied the odds that were stacked against her since birth. By living till age fifty, she had victoriously defied Death.

So here she was again, at another crisis point. What to do? First, you make a joke- if you’re in good company. I asked if she was working on a new bucket list, and joked that she was probably getting really good at bucket lists. She said, yes, every time she goes through something like this she does make a list, but she’s also getting really good at living every day as though it could be her last, which she says also means there’s less on her bucket list.

We talked about Pluto (what else are you going to talk about in life/death situations?) and it’s role in her evolution. By transit, Pluto is in her First House and trine her natal Pluto/North Node in the Eighth House. We talked about what that meant for her, again: her soul’s journey involved ongoing descents into hell realms, places no one wants to go. But to leave it at that would be cruel- and untrue. The natural house of Scorpio, the Eighth House offers those who need it, deep healing through lifelong committed intimacy. The Scorpio/Eighth House journey is not meant to be traversed in a barren landscape alone, but with able partners who can handle it. Handle what? The most heinous curve balls that life throws our way. A partner who can hold the space for our huge fear, grief, pain so it can be felt and processed; someone we trust to not abandon us when the going gets tough, heals. She told me this was true, that her husband lessens the intensity of the fear she experiences.

Maybe it’s my empathy, or perhaps the way I see him make an appearance in her birth chart (Pluto in the Eighth House, Mars in Cancer in the Seventh) but in the years since we’ve been talking, I’ve felt my client’s husband as a subtle presence surrounding her, a strong, silent presence lingering in the background of our conversational calls. I easily imagine his protective arm encircling her as she walks through medical trials-by-fire, creating boundaries, safety. Or maybe it’s that he’s a Scorpio Sun sign, and he is invisibly with her, all the time.

It was such a visceral conversation that it reminded me of another story, which I told her as I’ll share with you. My now husband and I had just started dating when less than two months into our relationship I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, a crippling muscle pain syndrome that eventually prevented me from working. It was an odd mix of sensations; I was falling in love -probably the most pleasurable experience in life- and I was in tremendous physical pain. I was also scared that my new lover would jump ship for an able-bodied women who would be able to rock climb & camp, let alone financially support herself. Later, he told me that he had considered that – in a hard conversation with himself lasting only five minutes. He decided that if he’d have to push me around in a wheelchair for the rest of our lives it would be worth it, because he would get to be with me.

The Moon is Full in Scorpio. Scorpio rules everything uncomfortable – death, wounding, Shadow, grief, loss -basically all the experiences in life that makes you squirm in your seat and wonder how you will survive (you won’t, not ultimately). See, Scorpio also rules Truth. Including this one: there are those who vow to love through sickness and health, and there are those who do. The bonds we share with these soul mates are timeless, for if the bonds of love can survive disease, loss and pain, they must surely also survive death. Aren’t these the kind of conversations we’re meant to have right now? Scorpio Moon can shoulder any pain you carry but the challenge is to fully engage, and to feel, the most difficult topics and questions of your life. So do your bucket list, live like you’re dying, and lay your burden down in an honest, hearty conversation with someone you love.