The New Moon in Scorpio on October 27, 2019 at 11:37pmEST is an Ancestor Feast.

Feed your dead.

This Moon marks Samhain (sah-wehn) in the Northern Hemisphere. Another summer dims. A harvest ends. This Moon is a vestibule into the darker half of the year. A shrouded passage over hallowed ground.

‘Hallow’ means ‘sacred.’ Hallowe’en, Holy Eve. Celebration of souls and saints, creatures and freaks. Treats, tricks, and true colors.

Here to greet us are the ghouls, the rattling corn husks, the gourds on withering vines. The smell of decay is sweet and clinging. Bodies wane dry and brittle, releasing the spirits within, their powers free to roam.

This Moon awakes spirits in the soil.

A moment of high magic.

Some consider this the start of a spiritual new year.

A mesmerizing Moon of hidden forces, revealed and reveling.

Spirits surround. They make the water we swim in.

Some say the invisible magnetism of spiritual energy is what governs all things manifest. That the energies we cannot see are more powerful than the material world we encounter. That form steeps in spirit, and ensoulment is the basis of matter.

Things still exist without bodies. They swim in the pneuma or find a new host. What’s been repressed will emerge to be purged.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” - Carl Jung

Some of what moves us is ancestral. That which is unresolved and passed down. Baggage. Residual trauma. Unfinished business.

What must be relived? What must be carried? What must be buried?

What spirits we cannot see with our naked eye, we can still sense. Our psyches are open to their influence. We can feel them in the cool breeze. The breath of the ancestors; a reminder of how warm we still are on the inside.

We can see them with our inner eye, and hear their voices in our heads. We may even feel their hands at our back, glimpse their memories, or catch scent of meals they once made.

Honor them, remember them, and offer them fuel for their journey.

Light your candles. Pour your goblet of remembrance. Bake your soul cakes. Make your offerings. Call out to those who came before. Invite them to share in the fare.

Many cultures the world over keep lore that feeding the dead is a necessity. Some make altars or host seances. Some keep small houses for their dead, and feed them as part of the daily chores.

Who and what have died to let you live? Speak their names. Introduce yourself as their descendant. “I am Holly, granddaughter of Tula and Stephane from the land now known as Negreet, Louisiana. Great-Granddaughter of…” and so on, for as many as you may know. And if you know none, speak the names of whatever forces have shaped you towards whom you wish to pay respects.

Death is the other side of life.

The Earth is a mass grave. Hallowed ground. The land is dead, which makes it alive.

The Earth is our Ancestor. We are its descendants and inheritors.

Who and what has died here? Where did the body go when the soul departed? Which lives are now imbued with the silent memories of what came before?

In the last year, what has passed? Who has trans-formed, and what did they leave behind?

We are blessed and haunted by the land and its dead. We are of it.

But truly, where is the distinction between life and death? They bleed into each other. A grave is also a birthplace, an evolution.

“Moss doesn’t think about being alive and mountains don’t consider themselves to be dead. Death has no place in the vocabulary of nature. To worry about death is to forget that we, the moss, and the mountains, are all part of an undiminished whole that isn’t measured in breaths.” The CryptoNaturalist

Death brings life into vivid focus. High contrast and saturation. It allows us to be intimate with existence.

This Moon is a thundering whisper: come closer, closer, closer..

..to your own power.

It minds us of our uncanny alchemies. Our capacities for depravity, destruction, and bliss. Our powers to regenerate, rise from ash, and multiply.

It revives the ickies, the spookies, and the cauldron within us that cooks it all. Creating poisons, potions, and tonics. Refining lifetimes. Bubbling, simmering, burning off the dross. Turning lead into gold.

A Moon of merging with shadow. Cells cohere and multiply. Beginning life in the dark.

A bewitching Moon of disrobement.

All ground is hallowed ground, including the terrain of your body.

Undress as the Earth undresses, with attention to shape, hue, and stain.

Notice the colors the trees make as they practice the art of becoming naked. Entrance yourself in their lack of concealment. Baring all, exposing things commonly held within, ‘tween, and ‘neath.

Such honesty is hypnotic.

Remove your cloak. Meld with the elements. This is the primal you.

As garments drop, senses awake. We coalesce with a natural intelligence. Hair prickles. Skin sighs. We listen with our bodies.

If we go deep enough, we might glimpse the keepers of the gates. We may even hear their silent secrets, and be seduced back into our power.

Vasilisa’s Moon. Vestibule Moon. Moon of Shivers and Soul Cakes. Grave Rubbing Moon. Moon of the Dark Glow. Seance Moon. Moon of Unfinished Business. Fungi Moon. Venom Moon. Tonic Moon. Moon of Giants and Fae. Little Death Moon. Entheogen Moon. Moon of Underground Rivers. Allure Moon. Flower of Life Moon. Moon of Sensual Dissidents. Grimm Moon. Moon of Ensoulment. Trance Moon. Moon of Poisonous Plants. Orange Moon. Moon of Shrivel and Rot. Toothy Grin Moon. Moon of Magnetic Past Portals.

This practice of moon-naming came to me through Rachael Rice. It came to her through Erin Gergen Halls. Deep acknowledgements to each of them as moon-lovers and makers of medicine. Deep acknowledgements to the many moon-namers who have preceded us.

A Note on Mercury Retrograde:

Mercury stations retrograde in Scorpio on October 31. Say hello to ghosts from the past. This retrograde is a 3-week reconnaissance mission into your own shadow. Research your depths, debts, and inheritances. Hone your abilities to see through obscurity.

Mercury entered its shadow on October 11th - since then we’ve been gathering material on what shadow work is needed for the duration of the retrograde. What is ripe for transformation?

This retrograde period is especially potent for those with planets in fixed signs (Scorpio, Taurus, Leo, and Aquarius) between 11 and 27 degrees.

Mercury Retrograde ends November 20, 2019, but Mercury remains in its shadow period until December 7, 2019. Blessings on your metamorphoses.

Embody this Moon through movement and journaling as guided in this Embodied Astrology ritual for Scorpio.

You can book an intuitive astrology reading with me here, as well as follow me on Instagram.

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Read New Moon Reports for your Sun and Rising Signs Below

Aries: I transform my attachments.

This New Moon falls in my house of intimacy, inheritance, and shared resources. For the moment, I slow down my public pursuits and tend to the nourishing ties that bind. I plumb my depths and notice what holds me back from deeper relating, so I can overcome those limits. I am feeling committal, like I want to merge and share my essence with another. The relationships I seek now have a longterm, sustainable flavor. Unhidden from each other, “You show me yours and I’ll show you mine.” I embrace changes in my income and assets. May my valuables match my values. I am looking to develop material security that doesn’t come at too high a cost. Earnings that don’t require me to compromise myself or the things I live for. I know the balance is possible; even if I’m the one who sets the lived example.