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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