New Moon in Scorpio

“Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.” Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love.

The new moon is the first phase of the lunar cycle, when the sun and earth are on opposite sides of the moon. This dynamic creates a shadow on the earth-facing side of the moon. This first, dark phase represents potent potential and what is yet unwritten. New moons – or dark moons – are a powerful time to connect deeply with ourselves and set intentions for what we want to call into our lives. They also represent what we cannot see; what is hidden. This new moon is in Scorpio; a sign that is all about (the) shadow, mystery and the hidden.

Scorpio, a fixed water sign, and the eighth sign of the zodiac is concerned with the big themes: death, rebirth, transformation, the underworld, mystery and what is hidden. It is ruled by Pluto, Lord of the Underworld. “The modality of a sign tells us what its job is,” says Chani Nicholas in her book You Were Born for This. Cardinal signs initiate, fixed signs harness and mutable signs disperse. What Scorpio does is harness the power of its intensity. Intensity in the form of emotional intensity, and also the investigatory, dogged and deep-diving nature of the sign. This new moon is a moment to connect with those hidden parts of self. What do you feel called to dig deeper into? What have you hidden that needs to be brought into the light? What information is contained within the shadow self?

“The shadow is a creative powerhouse of untapped energy, so becoming aware of its contents and transmuting its power are hugely beneficial to our psycho-spiritual growth.” There are two shadows: the dark and the golden. This new moon is conjunct Mars meaning that the sun, the moon and Mars are all in Scorpio (Mars is the traditional ruler of Scorpio). The sun represents our outer selves, the moon the inner and Mars represents forward movement and action: our drive. The unique relationship between these celestial bodies speaks not so much to our dark shadow – the traits we are most ashamed of – but more to our golden shadow: our hidden talents and unfulfilled potential. For Mars, the God of War, speaks to our drive, energy and courage but also to our fear.

“Just as the dark shadow is made up of all the parts of ourselves that we fear may lead to rejection, the golden shadow is made up of all the bright, brilliant and magnificent parts of ourselves that we fear may be too great, too awesome or too challenging to reveal ourselves to others.”

This new moon in Scorpio is offering us the opportunity to go deep and explore the idea of what would happen in our lives if we owned our highest potential; if we shined with the infinite brightness of our inner light. Scorpio is truly at home with radical transformation, skin-shedding and shapeshifting. The energy here is unflinching and does not want to look away. Some extremely useful questions to ask yourself during this new moon in Scorpio, courtesy of Charlie Morley’s book on shadow work, Dreaming Through Darkness and the Awake Academy organisation are:

Where do you hide your light or limit yourself?

What golden traits are you unwilling to love?

Is it your esoteric side that you hide from others for fear of being labelled too spiritual?

Or is it your natural sexuality that you shy away from for fear of being shameful or too vital, powerful: ‘too sexual’?

Is it your innate intelligence you temper for fear of seeming ‘too clever’?

Or perhaps it’s the bright light of your spiritual potential that you daren’t explore for fear that it might isolate you from friends or family.

When do I feel most alive?

If I didn’t have to work for a living, how would I spend my life?

What do I want to be when I grow up?

What is my greatest light?

These questions all tap into the idea of being too much of something. Of being perceived as too intense. As the sign of intensity and, moreover, as the sign of harnessing our intensity, this is such heightened moment to connect with our hidden gifts and light and feel emboldened to bring them into the world.

An aspect which is hugely supportive of this is Uranus is Taurus opposite the new moon. Oppositions can be huge check in points. Not always comfortable but transformative (change and discomfort often go hand in hand). Once again, the axis between Scorpio and Taurus is being lit up with a connection to the nodal journey of 2022 and the first half of 20023 and also the recent final eclipse on the Taurus-Scorpio axis.

If Scorpio is about harnessing the power of our intensity (emotionally and spiritually), then Taurus is about the power of the material world. The relationship – the axis – between these two signs is about how we take the hidden and make it manifest. How we bring out our hidden talents into the material world. To own our golden shadow.

How to work with the energy of this new moon in Scorpio? Working with Morley’s questions above. Journalling on then. This is a real opportunity to receive new information on these hidden parts of ourselves and to potentially unlock our potent potential.

For more information on the golden shadow from Charlie Morley, click here: What is the golden shadow?

Image credit: NASA on UnSplash

Quotes on the golden shadow taken from Dreaming Through Darkness by Charlie Morley (Hay House, 2017)

Lynsey Allett11 November 2023