At Scorpio 16° we find A Girl’s Face Breaking Into A Smile, which points to the young soul reaching out to new experiences. This is ruled by Capricorn in a twelve-fold sequence, the sign we have assigned with the energy of Faith, and, of course, no surprise, Faith is the keyword here. We have also assigned the Mona Lisa as an archetype of the Scorpio (woman) experience; her most famous attribute being her smile. Smiling is unique to the human experience (showing teeth is the opposite of a smile in the animal kingdom—don’t go smiling at any pitbulls, mind you). We smile upon things. It is an expression of acceptance. We use our smiles to express our connection to people, places, things, experiences. As you know Scorpio is all about deep connection. The smile says there is a way in, even if it’s enigmatic like Mona Lisa’s. The smile shows a feeling of warmth, passion, that wells up inside us; but the smile itself is still a choice, a softening, an oxymoronic strong sensitivity.

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Children Playing Around Five Mounds of Sand is the image for 15°. Dane Rudhyar writes: This is a particularly cryptic symbol. It may be deciphered if one realizes that Man’s essential destiny is to develop as a five-fold being, a “Pentagram” or five-pointed star. Number 5 symbolizes mind in its most creative and penetrating aspect, while number 4 refers to the life processes operating at present within the earth’s biosphere. Our Western civilization has realized only the lower level of this vibration 5; i.e. mind contaminated by compulsive instincts and emotional involvement. Some individuals, however, are born with a special potential for development of the higher, creative mind, and in social circumstances favoring this development. In most cases, they are still “playing around” with their unusual capacity. They are in the kindergarten stage of this higher mind development.

This symbol is ruled by Sagittarius, the sign of higher mind, in a twelve-fold sequence. So that makes sense. And as far as the rest of what Dane has to say, I’m afraid that will have to suffice today. I have to keep things moving here!

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Oh dear I’m five blogs behind. Traveling caught up with me. So these next five are going to be short and sweet, and from thereon I’ll be writing more stream of consciousness, more story, pinioned with these Sabian symbols. At Scorpio14° we have Telephone Linemen At Work Installing New Connections: a need to establish new channels of communication. Well that seemed obvious. If this degree of Scorpio factors into a reading we would see the need for increased communication in relationships. The goal of Scorpio “we have” is communion, which cannot be achieved without, first, cleared communication, especially with partners or close associates. We all hit stumbling blocks here, and we come to impasses; but each time we overcome these obstacles, we dig deeper grooves.

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From time to time I remind you that these symbols were randomly divined. Cards were numbered then shuffled; and the seer didn’t know which number she as divining when she did so. So it is a bit spooky how the images not only find a natural order but I’m struck, say, in this instance, being in Scorpio, how exactly on theme they are. At Scorpio 13° we find An Inventor Performs A Laboratory Experiment. If you’ve been reading, you’ve already heard me talking about how chemistry falls under Scorpio rule; at the root of human civilization there is the impetus for achievement, or more accurately discovery. Every new invention reveals some truth of natural law. It’s the same with psychologists, say, experiementing with new methods on the individual patient. Inventions solve problems as do certain treatments—issues need rooting out.

Science, technology can help us in this pursuit but instinct, intuition must also play a part. So much of human invention happened on a hunch. What we find most at the core in our bid for invention is that everything is related to everything else, science and spirituality, in particular. Initiation and caution are like the gas and clutch as we make daring discoveries.

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The thing about relationships is that they become heirarchical. We have seen a fellowship of equals; and been made aware of those who might be falling to some kind of depth; just as we find here today An Official Embassy Ball as the image for Scorpio 12° connoting the full flowering of group consciousness as interaction amongst those who have risen to some high echelon of social status. We are still dealing in merger and we are still dealing in group-consciousness, but we now also see the shadow side of plutocracy, “rule by the rich” pointing to the god (and planet) Pluto’s power of wealth. Here, one must be in full fancy dress—literally representing the full flowership of their position—which is mainly black and white. Even the word merger has been coopted to mean money. And, from my experience, those who have made, or continue to make, money do find it less easy to be around those who don’t. I suppose I believe in some forms of fiscal conservatism, but not when that just becomes a fancy term for gimme-gimme greed.

After a few too many ritualized displays of power this year, I think I really need to do what I threatened to do some months ago and veer off this purely metaphysical path (the cosmic) and get more into recounting some funny tales (blague is french for joke) of my wacky road less traveled. I really need to be economic with my writing these days, in any case, and I have a few weeks only to write an upcoming show and I’m determined for it to the be the best ever. And I’m hoping for a really great turn out of family o’ friends. It’s time to make some magic it’s what winter is all about.

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As mentioned the notion of “depth” is endemic to the Scorpion experience. Today, at Scorpio 11° we encounter A Drowning Man Is Being Rescued. In the previous image we found Fellowship. Now that group body has come together to save an individual who, literally or figuratively, had plunged into such depths that would be his undoing. That is the risk of looking too deep, even, into our own subconscious. We might find things there that were buried for good reason. We might also, due to our own chemistry (also part of the Scorpion “unseen” level of existence), we might be imbalanced or prone to addiction which plunge us into places where we feel as if we are drowning. As well, I think, if we haven’t found the aforementioned fellowship, feeling very much alone, we can plunge into loneliness and despair. I think that’s the main energy I feel from this symbol. That and the depth of concern from other individuals—the help—that is available to us when we feel we are drowning on some level. That can take the simple form of feeling out of our death, in a sink or swim situation. I think the upshot is that we must signal our need for help in such instances. And we must take the help we asked for.

I think this image is all about second chances. It’s possible, too, that the others put themselves at risk to help the one who is drowning. Why do people risk their lives to save others, even, perfect strangers? Good question, right? I think whatever that mysterious, inexplicable thing is comes from that Scorpion-ruled place of deeply rooted human interconnectedness. It strikes me too that this drowning man might indeed be part of the Fellowship and is overrelying on the unconditional nature of this bond and is letting himself go; or perhaps it is a cry for help designed to test the love of others, putting others at risk. I do find that this also can be part of the Scorpio person experience. They make very strong bonds whilst having very strong opinions, which they can experience as facts, and they certainly challenge and test other people emotionally, as a general rule. Those who veer or venture off psychologically or emotionally do often put others in a situation where they, too, are out of their depth. But, on the whole, this image is a postive one steeped in human interconnectedness.

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We have just returned from a reunion of sorts pinioned to a belated birthday party thrown by a dear friend of ours who ended up becoming the most popular children’s book writer of all time. The year was 1985 and Stella and I had moved back to France, having studied there just two years before—we have been traveling in Europe this past five weeks during which time I actually saw my “French family” whom S and I hadn’t seen since we waved goodbye to them in the Spring of 1984 (hand over mumbling mouth) years ago. A Dutch friend who had been with us that junior year abroad in Grenoble was in Paris in 1985 when we moved back to France. She was staying with this German girl called Susanne and we immediately became fast friends with her and around us formed a little rag-tag group of would-bes with whom we remained tight all these many years. In addition to the one of us who went on to write those books, Susanne became the fashion director of Selfridges and Harrods, our friend Jaqueline (whose boyfriend Laurence visited every other weekend) became the Llewelyn-Bowens who are household names in Britain and some of us weren’t so lucky to survive until this birthday cum wee reuninon in Scotland we attended this past weekend. So you will understand my now jaded surprise at today’s oracle being: A Fellowship Supper Reunites Old Comrades.

Again, with Scorpio, we are dealing with individuals merging into one entity, in this case a fellowship, which takes on its own life and personality, more than the sum of its individual parts. We flirted with this early in the sign with the notion of ritual. Here there is true communion, the shared act, that bonds the participants at the root level. There is an infinite quality to this level of merger, one that transcends space and time, and certainly cements the individuals together, for better or for worse, everlastingly. The suggestion here is the importance of establishing or strengthening links with those with whom you have shared, or should share, experience. And that is my theme for today as well.

We are staying with our dearest friends in the world, whom we know through connection with the aforementioned primary fellowship. Though our dearest friends all seem to live in the UK or Europe, we don’t have the benefit of constancy and must make concerted effort to keep the fires of friendship burning. And yet not: as, though all relationships (other than parent to child) must be conditional, there is a decidedly unconditional element to these particular relationships. Nobody is perfect nor should they get away with untoward behavior or attitudes—there are differences in political and religious and social ideology which are nonetheless easily transcended through the mutual bond. I think the shadow side of this particular dynamic is that of cliques or, in the extreme, cults. I know a lot of cliqueish Scorpio people—that is certain. Indeed, as a personality type, people of the sign do stick to a certain tribe. It’s where we see the emotionality that they might otherwise mask. Fitting that this symbol is ruled by Cancer in a twelve-fold sequence as that sign deals with the family you come from and the one you create for yourself. And, of course, it’s hinged on nurture and emotionality and one’s private life. Shared experience, even if brief, that happens at a particular time in ones life, or is of such import, is the glue that sticks us together and we do become a family centered around that experience. Like trauma, we might not know the full import of the experience as it is being impressed on our root (sub) consciousness—it’s only over time do we realize how pivotal it is.

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At Scorpio 9° we see A Dentist At Work. It’s quite fitting given the probbing, drilling energy of the sign. And as it is ruled by Gemini in a twelve-fold sequence, we are dealing with the “decay” shoe dropping on the Taurus temptation for earthly sweets. I have never had a cavity (or so I think) and yet I went to a fancy dentist recently who had this machine that could detect decay below the surface and suddenly I’m being told i have seventeen cavities. It was like Minority Report for my mouth. This dentist could tell ahead of time what cavities I was going to get and so he wanted to arrest the decay before it happened. I didn’t go back to that dentist because, well, as I said I have never had a cavity (in the present tense) and I probably won’t live along to actually get one; and though I do believe in prevention, this seemed ridiculous. I won’t tell you how much it cost me to (not) get my dental health treated. Live and learn. But now to address the more metaphysical implications of the image at hand.

We are dying the instant we are born. And decay is inevitable. Which is why Robert Herrick suggested one “gather ye rosebuds while ye may”. We all have damage that is concealed beneath the surface, and Scorpio is all about drilling down into our subconscious and addressing what’s rotten, and rooting it out. Never mind the fact that dentists and Scorpios both sort of smack of the sadistic sometimes. The metaphoric implication implicit in this image is that the damage is caused by feeding the ego who wants, wants, wants to fulfill a certain appetite for the sweet life; while doing so is typically anathema to the development of a spiritual life. After the previous image’s calm reflection and acceptance of a certain divine illumination it may have been revealed what and where, in the spirit-body, was indeed in disrepair. And now, with this dentist at work, we are addressing and healing what areas in us where we have been, or might still be, decadent. The dentist represents our own inner savior, the part of ourselves that can step in and stem the tide of any further sliding into ruin, sweepingly or superficially. We are the dentists at work, all the time.

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A Calm Lake Bathed In Moonlight is the Sabian symbol at Scorpio 8°. Again, we have a water image as befits this fixed-water sign, the calm aspect of this fixed quality shedding light on the softer side of the Scorpio experienced. In a twelve-fold sequence, Scorpio’s “opposite” sign of Taurus would rule here. Both signs are come-hither, Taurus being passively tempting like Eve or any garden nymph or Adonis-like flower god; while Scorpio is that spider, lying in wait, like Persephone, the destroyer, entranced on her thrown, the maker you’ll inevitably meet. “A quiet openness to higher inspiration” is the gist of this oracle. The water is receptive to the moonlight which it in turn reflects. We do have a rather mystical union of two gently receptive energies, the Moon being the ruler of all earthly liquids and yet a calm lake is not subject to the tidal influences of La Lune. As with all things Scorpio, two entities become one here. There is a surrender of (ego) separateness to merge into a state of transcendent feeling.

Dane Rudhyar sees this as a metaphor for love—that love happens through lovers but it is itself a principle, essential power that finds its expression via union of embodied spirits. That’s certainly a poetic and powerful way to look at it, and I think it’s a right way. We don’t like to fancy ourselves the instruments of energetic forces; our egos much prefer to see us as the beginning and end of it—and that love, for instance, is just one of many emotions we feel. Not so. It is larger than us; and that’s why we say there’s no accounting for it, or that it’s blind. Most myths involving Venus or Cupid do hinge on one of these gods of Love making unexpected, or unwanted romantic connections. We reflect the light of love just as does the calm lake reflect the Moon. And this goes beyond romantic love. Our love of whatever we perceive as god, or nature, all the all—here the Moon image stresses the divine feminine—we, as mystics, reflect that universal love as well. Stillness is a key ingredient in leading a spiritual life and being receptive to subtle or supernatural energies. Likewise, it might be the intangible-feeling beams of the Moon that is causing the calm. In effect both things are true, because this is an image of relationship, one way or another. This image reminds us to personify peace and accept any illumination available to us.

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