The energy this week is intense. With Friday's 4th square between Pluto and Uranus, expect more revelations and breakdowns in government and finance. Personally, it's a time to let go of old paradigms and step into new realities, new stories. A solar eclipse signals a new start. In Scorpio, it's about finding new ways to relate to each other from the truth of our being, rather than the mask. And Happy Samhain--All Hallows.

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"We are all captives of a story.'   Daniel Quinn

Scorpio ushers in the dark, dying season in the northern hemisphere.   Symbol of death, taxes, ghosts, high finance, taboos, sexuality, intimacy and rebirth, Scorpio has a big reputation to fill--dark, powerful and sexy, strong, mysterious and transformative as well as nasty, destructive and selfish.    Never doubt that you have a bit of Scorpio energy lurking somewhere in you.   We all have a share of this energy.  

With a Solar New Moon Eclipse in Scorpio, very close to Saturn, this could be a new beginning for many of us, a flushing out of old emotional patterns, probably from many lifetimes.   What kind of emotional openness, along with keen insight into others, do you want to develop in yourself?   And how will you develop it?   Nature abhors a vacuum!   As we let go of the old stories shaped by patriarchy that hold us captive, we have to find a new story for our new life.   Why not begin with an archetypal story?

Imagination and Story

Remember how it felt to have a story read to you when you were young?   The worlds it opened you to!   So that your own imagination could take off and continue the stories.   Stories spark our imaginations and lead to more imagination.   Children understand the language of the imagination--our original language--but we don't train it as we get older as a tool for understanding and integrating the information life offers us.   We need our imaginations to help us decide what we want to believe in.

When we step into our imaginations, the story of our life changes.   We are no longer caught up in our modern patriarchal story of shoulds and oughts, work and mindless play, but in our personal story of purpose and deep love .   Life really is all about the story you tell yourself , deep down in the underworld of your consciousness--unconscious stories about your beliefs, your hopes, your prime directive; your fears, your dogma, your captivity.   Stories and beliefs which shaped our unconscious when we were children, before we had a say about things.   Why not step back and really look at that old story, and then choose a better story to live by--instead of holding that better story at arm's length?  

What story are you living in?   How do you need to change it?   Most us of repeat the story we're living in ("I don't have enough money', "I feel like a prisoner', "nobody loves me', "I'm afraid and alone', "my life sucks!', "I never have any luck!' etc.) making it our reality by reinforcing our beliefs.   But we don't have to choose that story to be in.

   If we allow ourselves to use our imaginations to engage us in a deeper, mythic story that shows us how to meet challenges, we access one of the great gifts of the Creative Imagination.   I'm not talking about getting lost in a fantasy and losing touch with our collective reality, but understanding the new story on a symbolic level and acting from our values and out of our truest character to meet our challenges so things change.   That's how heroes learn on their path to being a hero--they step into the old stories to give them guidance and courage.  

Do you realize that you can listen to a cosmic story every night?   The heavens are sending us messages about our times and our choices, and if you go outside and stand under them with awe and interest or ritualize them and name them, they will help you find new life.   Archetypal stories are containers of energy, with a structure that focuses that energy for good or ill.   In letting the archetypal stories inform your life, you can begin to live a deeper and more meaningful life by using their guidance.  

The starry heavens have always been known as a repository of Wisdom.   Ancient Light.   Infinite Night.   Star Stories.   Even those people who live in the flat earth philosophy of our modern culture, who don't accept the symbolic meaning of life, know something is special about the night sky.    When we take it one step further and look to the stars for our energy instructions, then we are living in synch with our cosmos.   We begin to live in wholeness.

Scorpio Solar Eclipse November 3, 2013

   This Scorpio New Moon is a rare hybrid Solar Eclipse, both an annular and total eclipse.   An annular eclipse is when there's a ring of fire around the Sun; a total eclipse is when the Moon blocks out all of the Sun's rays.   Most of the eclipse can be seen in the Atlantic, southwestern Europe and most of Africa.   People on the East Coast of the Americas can see it toward sunset.

   The Scorpio Solar Eclipse occurs on November 3^rd, 2013 at 4:50 am PST/ 7:50am EST/ 12:50pm GMT.   A solar eclipse disrupts the energy flow between the Sun and Earth and helps establish new energy channels for new possibilities.   There was a solar eclipse 19 years ago on November 3, 1994.   What did you begin then?   How have you found completion since then?   What is calling to you now?

   The Sabian symbol for the Sun and Moon at 12* Scorpio is: A late-comer to an embassy ball surveys the scene before making an entrance.   The scorpionic subtlety of surveying the scene before entering makes me think of a Renaissance ball, where interesting things are discussed and new ideas are in the air.   What group do we want to join?   What ideas excite us?   When we have creative interaction with people inspired by original creative visions, we can create a new social order.   We do have to step into our new roles as leaders and visionaries if we are to change our politics and save the world.   With this Solar Eclipse, we come to the end of a cycle and the ground is now fertile for new seeds, new ideas, new intentions.  

The weekend of this extra potent solar eclipse begins with the fourth Pluto/Uranus square.   The revolutionary energies of the 60s keep challenging us to look at our new, more conscious values and stand up for a new vision for society, a more balanced vision that includes the divine feminine gifts of love, compassion, imagination and wisdom as well as returning to the original masculine ideals of progress, prosperity and freedom.   The number 4 symbolizes stability, grounded-ness and power, or stuck-ness, crystallization and stubbornness.   Perhaps we'll see the positive qualities of this long-term square now that the U.S. Republicans have given us an experience of the more negative qualities we want to transform.   They may stay stuck in their old beliefs, but if we change the rules of the game, they'll have to come along and learn how to survive in that changed world.

   Three more squares to go in the next two years!   Then we'll see how which road we've collectively chosen.

   Also on Friday November 1^st --Samhain, All Hallow's Eve, All Saints Day and The Day of the Dead--Mercury retrograde goes back and positively reconnects with Mars in Virgo, Sun in Scorpio and Pluto in Capricorn. This potent combination can focus us on the things we need to transform.     With Saturn, the North Node and Mercury retrograde joining this eclipsed New Moon in Scorpio, we can be empowered to look at old emotional patterns and shed a skin we no longer need. Our fears, our insecurities, our armor.   What emerges is fresh and truthful and complete, because we've finally looked at our shadows and integrated them into consciousness.   Remember, when we work consciously on our Shadow and connect it to our ego-consciousness, we heal and gain access to tremendous amounts of life energy.  

   Three planets change direction in the week following this eclipse, heightening the energy.   On November 6^th, Jupiter in Cancer turns retrograde on Pluto's North Node, shaking our world up so we know that change is inevitable.    With Jupiter going retrograde in Cancer, we can gain a deeper understanding of our real security, love and nurturing needs.

   On November 10^th, Mercury comes out of retrograde.   No wonder the health care website didn't work--during a Scorpio Mercury retrograde!     Really!

   On November 13^th, Neptune turns direct, opening us to bring our intuition, our imagination and our spirituality out into the world.   With Neptune in Pisces in a wonderful relationship with Mercury in Scorpio, it's a chance for us to share those visions with like-minded people.  

Don't be afraid of intimacy now!

May the spirits of your loved one, your ancestors and your soul-lives, bless you on the All Hallows' Eve--Happy Samhain!

Cathy

Authors Website: http://www.cathypagano.com

Authors Bio:

Cathy Pagano is a spiritual advisor and Jungian psychotherapist, storyteller, author and teacher.

She is the author of a book on the return of the Goddess, "Wisdom's Daughters: How Women Can Change the World".

Cathy trained at the C. G. Jung Institut-Zurich in dream interpretation, has an M.A. in Counseling Psychology in Feminine Spirituality, and is a certified Life Coach.

As an astrologer and storyteller, she weaves the Cosmic Stories written in the stars. From The Bard's Grove, she writes about emerging archetypal themes in movies and books.

Cathy works with the tools of the imagination - dreams, alchemy, myths, astrology, symbolic language, storytelling, ritual - to awaken the Soul's wisdom.



I believe that Americans are called to a higher consciousness at this point in our history. We are called on to live up to our ideals and create the country our forefathers imagined. Inner consciousness needs to be acted upon for social justice.



Cathy believes that our writers and artists must take up our responsibility to create art that inspires, teaches and heals our humanity.



Cathy writes about political, psychological/spiritual, and cultural issues.