There’s no way to sugar coat this.
Today’s new moon solar eclipse in Scorpio is likely to be uncomfortable, physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually.
(1) Physical Discomfort
Every planet represents an aspect of us. And every planet, including the sun and the moon, has signs in which they are at “home” and fully resourced, exalted and given power, and signs in which they struggle, or are in their detriment.
The moon represents the body and emotions. The moon is in its detriment in Scorpio. It struggles here. It’s uncomfortable in this sign.
If you’re highly attuned to the energy of your environment and the general energetic field, that means you will likely notice that you feel physically uncomfortable in your body.
(If you’re not highly-attuned, it’s a good time to start noticing how your body feels as the sun and moon travel through the signs of the zodiac.)
After a couple of years of tracking how my body feels as the sun and moon travel through the signs, I now know that my body generally feels worse during Scorpio transits.
You might feel the same.
Emotional Discomfort
(2) Going Deep in a Surface World
We live in a world that is generally focused on surface issues. Short reels and TikTok “edutainment” are the trends. In the Instagram era, we are focused on optics: how things look.
For the most part, we focus on solving effects rather than searching for causes.
Just one example: When was the last time you saw a fundraiser to raise money to find the cause of cancer or some other disease, rather than a cure?
Scorpio is a sign that wants no part of surface solutions. Scorpio goes deep. It seeks to find the cause, to unearth the root issue of things.
As astrologer Chani Nicholas explains:
Scorpio is not a sign that’s satisfied with surface truths. It wants to revel in the mystery. It’s preoccupied with the depths. It’s looking for the blueprint, the core of the issue, and the deepest pulse.
In a culture that is focused on “quick fixes” and “miracle cures,” where many people get their information from 60-second reels, going deep runs against the grain.
(3) Unearthing What Wants to Stay Hidden
What makes Scorpio season uncomfortable is not just that it’s about going deep. It’s also the topics that Scorpio covers.
Scorpio deals with the themes attributed to the 8th house in astrology. Known as the House of Transformation, the 8th house includes many topics that are culturally “taboo”. Think of the topics you’d generally avoid discussing at a dinner party.
Death. Taxes. Loss. Letting go. Grief. Mental health. Challenging emotions. Other people’s money. Sex.
The Scorpio/Taurus axis deals with values, income, wealth, and shared resources.
Scorpio topics are the issues that often lie beneath our deepest fears, and also, often, our deepest longings and desires.
In the body, Scorpio rules the excretory system, which is another topic that doesn’t get much public discussion.
This new moon in Scorpio adds extra layers of discomfort, because it comes with an eclipse.
Spiritual Discomfort
(4) Darkness and Uncertainty
This New Moon is also a partial Solar Eclipse.
During the eclipse, the Moon will pass between Earth and the Sun, partially blocking the Sun’s light.
Eclipses are like power outages for our main light source. Historically, eclipses were considered ominous because they blocked the main light source.
Consider what happens when we experience a power outage. We’re plunged into uncertainty. Power outages expose our fears about our resources and our path forward.
We don’t know how long our phones will stay charged, how long the food in our freezer will stay good.
We can’t see the map or the path ahead or where we’re going.
In Scorpio, a sign that already plunges us into the mystery and darkness, this is a double dose of darkness.
In the darkness, we often feel a loss of control. In fact, the darkness forces us to confront the truth: that very little is in our control. We are forced to trust what we cannot see and what remains unresolved.
(5) Impending Change
From the beginning of time, eclipses have been considered omens of impending change.
Change involves two things that many people find uncomfortable: destruction and emptiness.
Change requires us to destroy something that we held dear. It may be a home, material possessions, a job, an identity, a belief, a set of values.
We may have a period of time where we have nothing in its place. This emptiness is uncomfortable for many people. We are creatures of certainty.
(6) Releasing Point
Eclipses happen when a new or full moon is close to the Lunar Nodes, the points marking the intersection between the orbit of the Moon and the Elliptic, the apparent path of the Sun from Earth’s perspective.
This eclipse is happening near the South Node. The South Node is a point of release; it represents where we come from, our past attachments, and what we are familiar with.
Eclipses on the South Node catalyze a purging process. This is the place and time to strip away old stories and beliefs, and everything you think you know.
This is an opportunity to let go of something we have been attached to, something that has shaped our identity, but that has also held us back.
Releasing can create space for something new — in fact, it’s necessary to create that space — but that doesn’t make it easy.
Letting go is hard, especially when it comes to releasing things we held dear, values that shaped us, stories that gave us comfort, beliefs that shaped our life path, roles and identities that have defined us for ourselves.
It’s one thing not to know what’s coming in the future; it’s quite another to not know who you are. This is the kind of feeling that often accompanies releasing core beliefs and values, and this is the type of releasing work we’re talking about with a South Node eclipse.
This is especially true in Scorpio, a sign that’s about death, transformation, and rebirth. It’s time to shed your skin and evolve into the next version of you.
And, of course, there’s no releasing without grief, which is one of the emotions that makes many people uncomfortable, and that is often in shadow.
Intellectual Discomfort
(7) Exposing the Shadow
Finally, eclipses expose what’s in shadow.
The Sun corresponds to our ego, our outward personas, and what’s in our conscious awareness.
When the light goes out on what’s external facing, it forces us to look within, at the parts of ourselves that we’d rather not see — our shadow parts.
What is the Shadow?
The “Shadow” is a concept coined by psychiatrist Carl Jung to refer to those aspects of the personality that we have rejected or repressed. These are the parts of ourselves, and the emotions that arise, that we don’t like, or that we think are “bad” or “wrong,” or that we think society will dislike or reject.
To protect ourselves, we distance ourselves psychologically from the behaviors, emotions, thoughts, and even beliefs that we believe will cause people to reject us. For the primitive brain, rejection is equivalent to death.
The Shadow can include fears, anger, jealousy. Secret longings and desires you’re hesitant to share with the world. Behaviors. Emotional drives you keep buried. Sexual fantasies. Urges you believe to be immoral. Shameful experiences.
The Shadow isn’t always “dark” though. Shadow can also include our “best” qualities: our brilliance, our generosity, our courage.
Anything we have repressed within ourselves in order to fit in is part of our shadow.
Shadow work can be deeply uncomfortable because it causes us to confront parts of ourselves that we have judged as bad and locked away.
Often, what we judge as deficient, irritating, or annoying in others is part of our shadow. As the saying goes: If you spot it, you’ve got it.
Exposing shadow creates intellectual discomfort because it exposes a cognitive dissonance: that which you judge in others is in you.
Once we confront those parts of ourselves and learn to embrace them, we can experience a profound liberation.
The Aftermath
Eclipses ask us to look at the shadow in order to bring it into the light. Once it’s in the light, we can integrate it into ourselves and it doesn’t have to control us. This is how we heal — we come into the wholeness of our being.
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