The New Moon in Scorpio and a Few Reflections on Darkness and Light

I usually take some time to journal when the new-dark moon rolls around but I haven’t had a chance to do that yet, and may not get to it until late, so I decided to blog. Right now. Because I need to make a bit a space—and the Scorpio new-dark moon is the perfect occasion.

I’m not really an astrology person, but I do mark the new moons and the new moon Scorpio is my favorite. Scorpio is my rising sign and I like that Scorpio speaks to hidden and mysterious things because I have always been drawn to darkness.

Which always sounds a little creepy or angsty or both, per the standards of mainstream Western European culture.

Some cultures (think Yin and Yang) have a more holistic understanding of darkness and light. Judeo-Christian culture finds the concept challenging. This is something we can trace, if Merlin Stone got it right, all the way back to the sun-worshipping Indo-European tribes taking the ancient goddess-centric world by storm.

Stone’s classic book, When God Was a Woman, makes some excellent points, and I agree with most of them.

The ancient world wasn't a paradise (except a little ironically in Eden), but the mythology supports the idea that the forces of light weren’t necessarily better than the forces of darkness. If we look closely, in fact, we can see the traces of something older, something not male-sun-god oriented, something dark. 

Not dark as in evil. Dark as in deep.

And I like deep. I don’t care if other people imagine demons in shadowy places, and in this day and age, even in North Appalachia, I don’t have to care. Instead, I am free to care about truth, and, for me, truth is something we excavate. 

Not something indiscriminately beaming down on all of us, or aggressively pushed down our throats. Truth as I understand it, is an individual thing, a won thing, a sometimes-rough-and-scary thing but always, always worth the work.

So in this moon cycle, I’m taking a quick breath in between getting my vampire story ready to publish and a very long to-do list to just tip my toe in that dark well.

This month, that means a few quick thoughts here, showing up for dream group a little later today, and a half hour or so before bed to journal by candlelight. 

I hope you'll make time to do the same!