Jason Holley joins Vanessa Montgomery to chat about all things Scorpio, classic Scorpios Georgia O’Keefe and Vali Myers (Scorpio Moon), PLUS the new and full Moon, Mars retrograde in Gemini, Jupiters reprise in Pisces, Mercury through Scorpio and into Sagittarius, opportunity aspects, and this month’s main cosmic movements so you can plan your month ahead in alignment with the energies unfolding.
Our featured non-profit this month is https://tewawomenunited.org/. Located in the ancestral Tewa homelands of Northern New Mexico, Tewa Women United is a multicultural organization founded and led by Native women. Their programs form under three branches; Women’s health and justice, Environmental health and justice, Women’s leadership and economic freedom.
Be sure to check out Jason’s webinar series Venus in Myth & Psyche and his entire collection here.
Time stamps for the topics covered in this podcast:
0:00–-25:48 Characteristics of Scorpio
25:48—34:35 Pitfalls of Scorpio/Scorpio Season
34:35— 37:45 Things to do During Scorpio Season
37:45—44:36 Classic Scorpios
44:36—58:19 Monthly Moons
58:19—1:16:54 Headlines of Scorpio Season
1:16:54—1:19:28 Nonprofit of the Month
1:19:28—1:22:07 Key Takeaways and Monthly Mantra
1:22:07— 1:26:44 What’s on your Coffee Table?
1:26:44—1:34:19 What’s Coming Up
Transcript for The Cosmic Eye – Scorpio Season Episode
Tony Howard: This is the Astrology University podcast, helping you find inspiration, insight and connection through the study of astrology. And I’m your host, Tony Howard.
Vanessa Montgomery: Hey, and welcome back to the Cosmic Eye monthly forecast: Scorpio season. I’m your host Vanessa Montgomery from Astro AllStarz. And today I’ll say mystery guest, because it’s Scorpio season, is fabulous Jason Holley from jasonholley.net. And he will be representing with his Moon and Venus in Scorpio. Hi, Jason. Thanks for coming back to the show.
Jason Holley: Hi, Vanessa, good to be here.
Vanessa: Now I’m really interested in Jason sharing some Scorpio Moon and Venus insights. Even though Scorpio is the sign that’s probably least likely to share some insights because it’s all about the hidden and the private and the “I’m not telling you.” So Jason, the fixed sign, fixed water, interpersonal ruled by Pluto or Mars, depending which tradition you’re going with— maybe a bit of both these days—mid-season, it’s autumn for you guys, spring here in the southern. So the environment definitely doesn’t match the astrology but you know, astrology’s so almost completely informed by the environment, so I always like to cleave to that. So let’s hear it straight from the witch’s mouth.
Jason: *laughing* Or wait, I guess I should cackle? Better? Yeah, well, you know, when I think about Scorpio, the word that always immediately comes to mind is depth, the desire to go to the depths, the desire to go to the deep, and the various different motivations that can be behind that desire, but there’s just sort of always wanting to move past whatever the surface is, move past whatever the appearances are, and to get to something much more deeper and more fundamental; more core, those kinds of words are to me, the drive that is in Scorpio, that comes right out of Libra time when we’re looking at what I might call “the horizontal,” you know, like sort of like all the cartographies, all the possibilities in this way. And in Scorpio, it’s sort of like, No, I want to drill into one of those places, go deep, do the archaeology of that particular place. It’s like an archaeological energy in Scorpio.
Vanessa: Yeah, that’s an interesting way to put it. Like the drill down. Mm hmm. And you’re, of course, a Sun in Libra. So I guess it’s like, hey, it’s all light and fluffy. And then you’re down in the depths quickly.
Jason: Somethinglike that. My son is conjunct Pluto. So I’m not sure there’s ever a light and fluffy. I had Brian Clark actually one time say to me, “Well, that doesn’t really count as Libra, does it?” Interesting, you know, in some sense it’s a little bit of both of those. And they kind of just keep referring back to each other. If you think in modern rulerships, there’s a reception between the Pluto-Venus. So absolutely.
Vanessa: And that suits your work, doesn’t it? You go quite in depth, and it’s very metaphysical and into the psychic and the drilling down into deep dreams. Psychotherapeutic.
Jason: Yeah, I think that both Libra and Scorpio, but Scorpio in particular, has a very psychological orientation, just a natural instinct towards understanding and conceptualizing that range of experience. And maybe the conceptualizing is more of the Libra space, but the Scorpio space is really getting into it, getting down into the muck of it, engaging with it, feeling it, there’s a piece of intense feeling that is also I think very connected to Scorpio; that desire for intensity, and the potency of that, there’s an intensity for desire, there’s an intimacy desire, and one can be mistaken for the other, like intensity can seem like the only way to get deeper, to get close, when actually there are many ways to become deep and close, you know?
Vanessa: Yes, true. That’s a really great point to distinguish, actually. I’m thinking about the provocative nature. Scorpio likes to provoke and tap on things, like what’s under there? Let’s see if we can get a reaction. I think of a lot of the signs, as well as the modes in the signs, I just think of the term relentless. It doesn’t turn off. It’s like this fundamental part of someone’s nature. And I think it’s so important to really understand that because you got to respect it and not try to stop it. It’s more like, directed somewhere where it can be useful. And again, I’m thinking of your career and the angle you take on your career. Yes, it’s astrology. But the way that you use that with psychology and psychotherapy in your retreats, you’ve really aligned it with what sounds like astrologers would see as your nature so that must be really satisfying for you.
Jason: Mm hmm yeah, I really do feel that way. That’s an interesting and a good way of saying it. I do think that the beauty of Scorpio is the quality of deep feeling that is there, as with all the water signs, the emotional is really the key. And what I’ve always found with the water signs, the way they are, Pisces who’s the fish, totally undefended in the water; Cancer has a kind of a molting defense, like it’s got a shell but then it molts, its soft for a while, it re-shells up; Scorpio is all armor, the scorpion is a war machine and it’s covered, I mean all of its body is this and this, right? And the reputation of Scorpio is so much about having so much power and strength and force and “don’t mess with a Scorpio,” and plotting and all of that. But I think what we have to remember is there’s something all of that defense is protecting, all of that defense is protecting something that is actually the tender element of water, and it’s one of the things I think that’s most powerful to realize about Scorpio process is that it is still a water sign but it’s just like the amount of fortification, the Mars’ing up, or Pluto’ing up, is so massive in part because there’s something intensely tender that is being protected.
Vanessa: Yeah, and I really think that’s a very interesting area with Scorpio because that’s what I sense personally from Scorpios is this extreme vulnerability. And some people, I suppose, in our sort of culture want to attack vulnerability, and I can feel that, too. Like I definitely am not as comfortable with vulnerability a lot of the time, I’ve got Chiron on my Aries moon, but that sense, it’s a village, that’s the one that gets attacked, the scapegoat. And I think Scorpio can attract those things. Yeah, my Scorpio friends, there’s a real vulnerability, and when they embrace that strength of what they can do best, they’ll just go off by themselves, they’ll go and wrestle their demons, as they say, they’ll get into the mark in the water, and they just roll around with their stuff. And then they come back out, you know, that transformation process, and they understand that they need to do that, and they do it regularly. And they just take care of it themselves, rather than try to pull someone down with them.
Jason: Hmm, which I will say I think does happen when Scorpio process is like an inner complex of some kind, like a psychological complex, is that it can often be that there is this feeling of wanting to work it out. We’re gonna go to the depths together, we have to get in there, and you have to fight and we have to have deep emotional exchanges and process it and go through it. And it’s only real if we’re both bleeding. Like, that’s the Scorpio model of intimacy, right? I mean, it’s like, that’s when it’s real! So when people have not developed what you were just describing of that process of taking responsibility for their own emotional reality, the tendency and Scorpio can be very strong to insist on working it out. And often they get bigger and bigger, chasing the other person to work it out, which only makes the other person see them as scarier and scarier, but that behind all that is usually a lot of terror. There’s a kind of an interesting thing with Scorpio where there’s like a terror of abandonment, terror of entrapment, that both seems to be in there. And it’s complicated, you know, there’s a complication to all of that.
Vanessa: And you were saying, I thought this was hilarious. You were saying—
Jason: Right, that the moon, you know Tony was telling me that when he was doing keyword research about Google searches and who looks for what in astrology that among the moons it was Moon in Scorpio was, by a landslide, the most searched. Like people want help figuring out this crazy experience called Moon in Scorpio.
Vanessa: Totally. And what I thought was, it is going to be a Scorpio vibe that’s going to look to something metaphysical, like astrology, to find the answers, right? So it kind of doubles up.
Jason: It does, it goes deep. You know, I think that that situation is very descriptive of the Scorpio things, they’re searching for answers, somebody help me to really get to the core of this.
Vanessa: And do you notice patterns? And I’m assuming it’s different for all astrologers. But it’s a question I’m going to ask people that have seen a lot of clients, do you see a real pattern with who comes to you? Because I see I get a lot of 12th house and eighth house placements by a landslide, that’s often in there. More on the house placements.
Jason: Honestly, I feel like it’s been all over the place, I definitely see patterns during certain periods of time, so for maybe a couple of months, there’ll be a lot of people coming in. Sometimes it seems related to shared transits, but not always, it just seems like sometimes maybe. And I always think, Oh, well, maybe I’m also to be learning something around that area. But overall, I don’t really think there’s a theme in my practice of who comes and it seems like it’s all over the place.
Vanessa: So maybe you’re not calling it in. I feel like I must call it in. I get a lot of Chiron, too. It’s like if I decide something I’m interested in looking into more. Of course, that too shows up.
Jason: That happens for sure. Yeah, if I have a talk coming up on a topic, you can be sure that a few people will walk in with exactly that popping in their chart. Or even they’ll be writing to me saying, I need to deal with this and, you know, you get a lot of astrology fluent people. And you know, they’ll be like “I want to look at Venus” and I’m like, “Oh, that’d be great!”
Vanessa: It’s amazing how that happens.You know, that’s that Scorpio thing, isn’t it? We’re all connected under this deeper level, this sort of psychic, metaphysical level. So what about ideas about the witch, this Scorpio season, of course, does host Halloween, All Hallows Eve, as well as from a variety of countries, different festivals of light about the sun going into the shorter days. And I’ve noticed so many Scorpios, even if they’re super conservative and straight looking, they do identify with that image of the witch and that image is itself actually just propaganda, but it’s like it’s been embraced. And there’s something in it that that Scorpio does relate to. Do you relate in some way to that sort of magician, but more the witchy side of things, or however you would say that?
Jason: Oh, for sure. I tend to think of it as a sort of an experience with encounter with the dark, and with the underworld of experience. The way I would think about it is the cross quarter that happens in the middle of Scorpio which gets honored in all these different traditions in these different ways. And where I live it particularly connected to the Dia de los Muertos, with the Day of the Dead, and it’s seen as this time when the ancestors can communicate with you in a more direct way. The veils are thin, the connection with the underworld is stronger, and particularly in our world, one of the most interesting things that we see in mythological material is that from about Mesopotamia onward in the development of the Western mythologies that we Western astrologers are heir to, all the stories include all these trips to the underworld that have to be taken by various heroes, by Inanna, who was Aphrodite, Venus, there’s all these trips to the underworld. And part of the issue is that we imagine ourselves separate from the underworld now. And so you gotta go down there as if you weren’t already part of it. In a lot of indigenous and land-based cultures, there’s no trips to the underworld in the mythology, because there’s never a sense that they separated away from the underworld. But in our culture, we really want to put a lot of things down in the underworld and we’re not down there. So Scorpio is the time of the year when up here, and especially where I am, it’s like it’s getting barer and you really have to acknowledge that you’ve got to go down, you’ve left something important down there. You know, there’s something that’s been buried and you have to go get it and talk to those.
And Scorpios know that place, it knows the underworld, it is the place that knows that. And a lot of times it knows that because I do feel that Scorpio planets tend to carry an awareness of trauma or past betrayal of some kind, like I do think that’s in there. It’s a little hard to say that’s always it. I wouldn’t claim to know that. But in my experience, the Scorpio planets know something, they have seen something and experienced something that is of a darker quality than we would like to acknowledge in everyday Libra life.
Vanessa: Mmmm, yes, so different to Libra. You think about it like that, and then so different to Sagittarius bookending it.
Jason: I always feel like Sagittarius is always looking back at Scorpio saying “you’ll never get me down there!”
Vanessa: Well, I guess Sagittarius— being one— Sagittarius if you follow it through in the continuum, Sagittarius has done its jail time. Yeah, I’m free now. I’m out. See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya.
Jason: Yeah, that’s feels very much the Sagittarian attitude towards the Scorpio intensity and it can feel to Sagittarius like needless drama and sticky and like I don’t want to drown in there with you.
Vanessa: Yeah, it’s definitely a different level. That said, I know a lot of Scorpios and have probably learned the most from them and Pisces, definitely. Their planets all fall in my seventh house mostly, or I meet them through work in the sixth. So you know, regardless of everyone’s sign, you’re going to meet people representing in that area of life where their planets fall in your chart. And I always think that’s an interesting one to note and just embrace it. The inconvenient truths is a good way to put it as I was writing this thinking, yes, it’s the inconvenient truth. Because, you know, here’s Sagittarius all with the truth, but really, the most inconvenient truth is Scorpio, isn’t it? And do they dare say it? Do they dare bring it out from the underworld? Will they be scapegoated for it? You know, no, it’s you. Not me. You know, when you bring something up to talk about? No, it’s all you, when the Scorpio is left wearing it.
Jason: Right, yeah, if you’re the one who brings it forward, you’re often the one who is associated with it. But exactly, it’s like there’s that which has been repressed or suppressed, and Scorpio can’t help but unearth it, it’s almost like a psychic compulsion to pull that and reveal that. And it’s really that there’s the drive that’s just so strong to bring everything forward. And what I think it has to do with is also the desire to feel intensely everything that there is to feel, to have the intense experience of all possible experiences. And so, in our world, we’re in a world that loves the day and hates the night, at least largely speaking, and so in our world Scorpios gonna get associated with dark and part because it wants the whole range of experience, the whole spectrum of emotions, right? It wants to have lived it all fully. And we know that that includes the darker side of things, to know the experience of intense anger or hatred or jealousy. Those words are very Scorpio words, to any form of intense feeling is there and so, it’s a powerful curriculum, and so lots to learn.
Vanessa: Yeah, so just embrace it, people with Scorpio planets or friends feel it all, I guess with the water signs, especially Scorpio, feel it all. The hidden— the psychic level of Scorpio, it’s so real, isn’t it? That laser light quality feels psychic— is it psychic? Or is it just how do you pick up on things that other people don’t see? How do you feel like that mechanism might be working?
Jason: It’s interesting, you know, when I think of psychism I think of the water signs and the fire signs, but the operation of it feels very different to me. With the fire signs, it feels highly intuitive, hunches, jumps to the unexpected or jumps somewhere. With the water signs, it feels so much more about a level of connectedness with the waters, with the things that connect all of us. You know, one of the things that I was thinking of when you said earlier Scorpio wants to get to the metaphysical connection below, I was thinking of the mycelium, the mushroom network all over the world. It feels to me a very Scorpio network in some sense, like under the earth.So I think that there’s a connectedness that’s going on to those deep waters, that therefore you get information that isn’t exactly psychic in that jump sense of fire. But it appears that way because of the connectedness. We see it with Pisces, too, particularly you know, I think all the water signs, there’s just the emotional attunement is so great, that there’s information that comes in that way. For instance, Scorpio psychic process doesn’t usually involve like channeling and higher, you know, this thing. I think it’s often things come up, like almost like a cave, water in a cave that suddenly reveals a picture of what’s really happening. Or the witch’s cauldron that spills and you know, you gaze in…
Vanessa: Interesting. Yeah, and is that how you sense it yourself? What would you say— extrasensory sensitivity? Is that what it feels like to you?
Jason: It is, I think for me there’s also a very physical body based piece that I’m not sure is Scorpio— but it could be. But for me there’s a physical qualities, a sensual piece that reads, perhaps because I have Mars in Taurus, so maybe it’s because the ruler is in Taurus. It could be you know, I never thought about it that way. Interesting, because it’s very body based, that’s my motive when I get information. It’s definitely physical sensation.
Vanessa: Interesting. I always find those bridges interesting, because I’ve got so much fire, I’ve definitely got access to that intuitive flash. It’s amazing. But I’ve got Mars in Pisces, and I definitely have a bit of the water or something. It’s more intuitive. But there’s this other way as well, that things come to me. And I don’t know that it’s psychic or whatever it is, unless the person tells me and they’re like, how did you know that? And I think I’m telling a joke. And they’re like, how did you know that? And I’m like, no—
Jason: You know, one of the things in the more archaic English than we all are speaking now, people use to say, “I felt it in my waters,” it’s like when somebody says that it doesn’t sound like they got a flash of something, it’s more like they felt the movement. You know, I often think with the moon it’s like it moves the waters of the tides and also moves the waters of— each of our moons pulls the waters out of the other person, pulls the tides of the other person. So I think there’s just this ebb and flow thing going on with water all the time and if you’re in that, you’re getting information. And sometimes it’s too much, right? Like with Pisces, it can really be a flood, you know, there’s no shell.
Vanessa: There’s no distinguishing boundaries, like is it yours or is it mine?
Jason: Right, right— no, Scorpio is very keen on boundary and which one it is. I think it is.
Vanessa: Or I remember Brian Clark, who was my original teacher, he was always quite amusing. And I remember him talking about the Scorpio-Taurus axis and he’s like, “Taurus is the body and Scorpio wants your body.” He’s like, “Taurus, ooh, my sensual, beautiful body. And Scorpio is, “Mmmm, I want your sensual, beautiful body, come hither.” I thought that translated to Taurus with the piles of gold and Scorpios like, “I know just what to do with that.” And I’ve seen that with a lot of Scorpios, again, with that relentless kind of fundamental nature, moving towards what’s someone else’s wealth or what someone else has, but their intention is to completely immerse the person, their wealth, their stuff, and do something with it. They want to join forces, they want to merge.
Jason: Right, there’s a strong transformational urge with Scorpio, right? And one of the things that I’ve always thought of with that polarity, you know, if Taurus is formation, bringing things and putting things into form and accumulating, Scorpios transformation, it breaks things down and it really begins circulation again, it gets things moving again, and one of the things you’ll see a lot with Scorpio planets is they move around, seeing Taurus everywhere they look meaning the tendency is to see people as stuck, you know, the tendency is to look over there and think, oh, that person is stuck, you know, like everybody needs to change. There can be a relentless pursuit of everybody needs to change, I need to keep everybody changing, and tends to see the other person tend as stuck or withholding or walled off and fortified and they have to break the fortification, which only creates more fortification. And then the opposite, too.
Vanessa: Let’s make some mud together.
Jason: Yeah. Right. And if you’re over there in Taurus and you’re trying to hold on, you tend to pull in people who want to break through the wall. You know, if you put a fortress up your fortress is an invitation to a battering ram. Like Troy and the Greeks, you know,
Vanessa: Absolutely. It’s so that polarity.
So let’s talk about that on the full moon/new moon situation when we get to that, but first of all, we’re going to get to pitfalls of Scorpios/Scorpio season. We get all the good stuff with Scorpio, the obsession, the trust issues, the betrayal, the power struggles. It’s so dynasty revenge jealousy, I think if you’re writing a drama, you would just really lean into Scorpio themes and pit them against Taurus, that would be a great writing prompt.
Jason: Yeah, I mean, it’s true. And because Scorpio does have those associations with all of like, the mafia Don and the Femme Fatale, and all of these things. One of the things that I see for Scorpio people is— and not just because of astrology saying those things—but just generally, frequently, there’s a feeling of, “why is everybody so scared of me?” Because the internal experience of the person is often not that they are big and scary or whatever, it’s often that they’re, again, that vulnerability that’s at the very heart of the Scorpion is vulnerable, tender water. But there’s often a lack of a realization that actually your energy is big and strong. And so there can be this tendency to have very strong reactions and not even track the strength of it, not really see how big you are, not see the potency of the defense. That’s a big one that can come up for Scorpio. I think one of the things they most want to hear is “I trust you,” there’s a desire to be trusted, actually, oddly enough, right at the core, and then to feel and for them to then be able to say that is also a huge psychological achievement to create experiences of trust.
Vanessa: Yes, very interesting. That’s very interesting, just thinking about what reputation, Scorpio reputation, and lived experience. I’m thinking of the Scorpios I know or strong Scorpio moons— more the Sun, I think as well, because it’s so conscious, they are the most loyal people I’ve ever met. I still know them. I know one that’s she’s got everything in Scorpio plus Pluto in Scorpio on all of that. And she’s like, usually, I don’t know people for a long time. What I’ve noticed about her is she relentlessly goes through these periods of transformation. It’s like, she can’t help herself peel off layers. And that includes experiences and people that she’s like, you know, but you’re still there. And I’m like, Yeah, because I really appreciate that. And maybe it’s from the astrology, I really see it. And I respect it. I always know they’re the people that will tell me the truth, the real truth, and they will never shy away from it, they won’t think I’ll save myself and not get associated with that, they will tell you and so that’s very valuable to me. And I think that’s part of their beautiful value. And yeah, a lot of the stuff that is Scorpio’s value is shunned in our world.
Jason: Right, this is the thing, exactly, it’s a sign of the night, it’s a sign of the underworld, it’s a sign of the things that can make people scared at night, it’s that kind of material. And yet if you go through that together, there is a kind of bonding and an attachment and a trust. You know, it’s these Mars ruled signs, I think about this with Aries, too, I always think about combat veterans and the bond that they have when they’ve gone through that together—trauma bonding. Trauma bonding, it’s true, but it does create a deep like—we’ve been to hell together. That kind of experience and there’s nobody you want more around than a Scorpio friend or a friend with Scorpio planets if you’re going through hell. They are not afraid of hell. They’ve already been there. Again, that’s kind of what I feel when I think about Scorpio planets, they’ve seen something, they know something, they’ve been touched by that cold hand of Pluto. They’ve experienced Hades. So the fear factor is not the same. It’s not to say they don’t have fear. But there is a familiarity with it regardless. There’s always going to be a familiarity there.
Vanessa: And what I’ve noticed about strong Scorpio friends, is they relish the opportunity to dive into that trench with you. Like they’re excited about what most people will just back away from.
Jason: Right? No, I often called my work when I was really immersed with individuals for long term therapy and that chapter of my life for the last 15 years or so, I often felt like part of it was like Virgil, who is the one who leads Dante through the layers of hell and the layers of purgatory and then doesn’t go into paradise, you know, Beatrice comes and does the paradise realm.
Vanessa: Boring, paradise boring, I’m gonna go back and save someone else.
Jason: Right, Virgil stays in there. And you get the feeling that Virgil’s seen it, and therefore can walk with him. And that’s why I think this familiarity with death also means a familiarity with transformation, because there is no transformation without death, right? There’s good things, the old must die for the new to be born, and so there’s no way to do it. So someone who knows death, will be able to do the transformation.
Vanessa: Absolutely. And that’s what we really miss out on, I think with the way things are in our culture, you know, the way that other cultures have that familiarity, and they would embrace and have something positive about that part of the cycle. And we don’t have that. So there’s this massive fear of death that we can also be manipulated by, which is also kind of the shadow of Scorpio.
Jason: Right, I mean the existential psychologists would say everything is basically denial of death in everything we do. But beyond that, I was thinking about Michael Meade, the mythologist and storyteller, he told this one story at an event I went to, he was talking about—I don’t remember, I’m not even sure if he named what culture this was— but basically, the ancestors were saying to the living people who could speak to them, “we’re getting really tired of people walking ass first into the underworld. You know, they’re like, when our relatives come to us when they die, because they’re trying to get out, they don’t want to go in and they get pulled in. And they said, we’re getting tired of meeting people’s asses before we meet their faces down here.” And I was like, that is so right. Because you have this feeling that people used to walk into the underworld, because, again, in a sense, you never separated it, it was part of the flow of life, right, the underworld of darkness. And people don’t want to go there. And so yeah, everybody’s walking in backwards, because they don’t want to go in and I just love that and that’s the thing, I think Scorpio, the planets in your chart that would be willing to go in head on are those planets and that is the place that can take you and recover a whole level of experience that we are mostly trying to not have. Which has ended all those gifts, right? I went back to Pluto and the underworld and all the rich treasures that are in there. So it’s like so much has been lost by sealing off the underworld. And again, this is the season where the veil is thin where the doors to the underworld become more open and the portals open, it’s a powerful possibility of Scorpio processes. Walk right into the underworld instead of get pulled in unwillingly.
Vanessa: Empowering. It’s like embracing your own power. There’s so much in this talk that’s giving me lots of good ideas. I’ll go back to one quick thing when you’re talking about their little Scorpion, people think that it’s small, but your energy is quite big. I’m thinking that does speak of Pluto, you know, small things, this tiny planet, small things are very powerful and actually very big. It does go with that rulership in that way. I think it does balance both.
Let’s move on to things to do in Scorpio season and then we’ll get to our classic signs. So things to do in Scorpio season. What do you think?
Jason: I mean, one of them that just so strongly comes to mind is honor the ancestors. And that’s partly where I live and this time of year, but I think that’s a really huge one. And really be willing to be in communication with that which is no longer visible with usual vision. Be willing to connect with whatever that may be in one’s life.
Vanessa: Celebrate the Scorpio stuff.
Jason: Right, and go on an archaeology dig. Literally maybe, but also metaphorically. It’s a really powerful time to travel and encounter whatever has been repressed or whatever has been put away, to be willing to kind of re-engage with that world.
Vanessa: Do a class, do a retreat, or find a technique. I think of holotropic breathwork, which has been called rebirthing. Plumb your depths, or someone else’s.
Jason: Makes sense to me.
Vanessa: Do an active imagination on a nightmare or a fear, just to take back that power and start to co-author rather than be trapped behind the door fearing what’s on the other side scratching.
Jason: Same with relationships, like it’s a good time actually to bring up things that are difficult. And there’s often the energy to stay with what is hard rather than to evacuate into whatever associations and denials and all those things. There’s an energy that supports staying with what’s difficult and just staying with, it’s not even—you know, the pitfall of course can be to get really intense and process process process. But really, what we’re talking about is just the willingness to just be with the uncomfortable, the difficult, to say the thing that you’re not saying, to name the elephant in the room.
Vanessa: Acknowledge it rather than deny it, just at least acknowledge it. And notice where you do kind of deny it and jump back I suppose.
Jason: I think that’s a really powerful one because it can be so extreme in terms of wanting to not do it or wanting to go too far. And there’s something about what you just said, there’s an acknowledgement in naming, you don’t have to have a big thing about it, but it’s like oh, yeah, this is— it’s sort of like saying this is also here. There’s this love, there’s this happiness and joy. This anger is also here. This trauma is also here. They’re all here.
Vanessa: And that really sometimes is enough, isn’t it, just to release things to flow again? Just the release, get out of the dungeon.
So classic signs. Do you have a Scorpio classic sign to share with us, Jason?
Jason: Yeah, it’s funny because I was thinking who? And then I realized that I have to share Georgia O’Keeffe, the artist, partly because she’s also a person who lived here most of her life and really loved the desert, and described the desert as a place that was unfriendly or indifferent to us, because it would have its own experience. And yet it would reveal and lay bare the truth, and Georgia O’Keeffe’s art, if people aren’t familiar—most people probably have seen something of hers at some point—the two themes of her art (that I think of, at least) you’ll see lots of skulls of animals and bones lying on the desert and they’re perfectly clean, which is exactly how you found them in the desert here, they’re just totally clean. So you’ll see that in her paintings. And then she also did all these really lusciously sexual paintings of flowers that people can compare to female genitalia. There’s just a sexual vibration. So I really find those two dimensions of Scorpio, that really lush, sexual, alive, fertile, because we haven’t talked about some of those things, but Scorpio is also all of that. I mean, that underworld is very loamy and got a lot of stuff in it. And then the bones, just the harshness of the desert, that just puts it right at you.
Vanessa: And you’re in Santa Fe?
Jason: I’m in Santa Fe and she moved out here to Abiquiu, which is about maybe an hour’s drive up and was drawn out here by the land, more than anything. She has Sun in Scorpio, Mercury, Jupiter, and we don’t know the time very well, the Rodden rating is very poor, but some people say Moon and Ascendant also in Scorpio.
Vanessa: Imagine, that would be great. Don’t you wish you knew. I have to say to anyone if you ever get the chance to ask someone that’s famous or whatever for their birth time, please do, for all of us. Take one for the team; ask the question. So for my classic sign, I wish I had done that, it’s Vali Myers, and I have had the opportunity, she has since died. So she is in the next world now, but she’s got Moon in Scorpio, it’s trine Pluto in Cancer. She was actually a Leo so I use her a lot for the Leo, but she’s not a pure Leo because you can see the Scorpio is so strong as well. So it’s a great example of that blend. She’s got this big red mane. She was a dancer, she studied dancing formally. She was an artist after that, but she was rocking the opium chic in Paris in the 50s on the left bank. The photos from that time, to me, is so Scorpionic. She’s semi living in the street. She was doing it rough. I knew her in Melbourne when she’d come back because I had been obsessed— Scorpio keyword— for years. And she moved into my building and I’m like going around knocking on her door. So she was very scary and intimidating, which I just loved so much. But beautiful and warm, it was my own intimidation. You can just see it. So Vali— V a l I—Myers. Her artwork is really fine ink. She’s got Venus in Virgo. So to me there’s the Venus in Virgo showing up. But it’s got a Scorpio soul. She’s very 60s. She was also big in the 60s. So she’s got that feeling and that look is in her artwork as well. When she moved in, she was in her 70s and she’s just— you don’t see this so much, this older woman that is wild, a wild, undomesticated Bohemian. It was so inspiring. So one of her quotes is, “Let it all be animal. My life and death, hard and clean like that. Anything but human. A lot I carry with me, her being with my red heart in the dark earth and my tattooed feet following the animal ways.” I think that’s Leo and very much Scorpio and a lot of her quotes are like that. They’re really just like, give me the meat. And not what would you think of a 70 something year old lady. She just completely breaks that stereotype. And very intoxicating person. Like I remember she smelt really wild, she didn’t try to cover up her smell. And I had to flirt with her. She had that— what would you call it? Enigmatic? She was very enigmatic and magnetic, that Scorpio magnetism. Because she embraced her power, it was extra. And when you were talking about that big energy, that’s what she had. Well, a lot of women were really drawn to that, which I thought was interesting. There’s a few movies on her and you can see the whole crowd that come to her stuff, it’s like the astrology verse. There’s a sprinkling of boys and it’s like, all these women are just magnetized to her. Because it’s so rare, I think, to experience that.
Jason: Yeah, to feel somebody who’s really so in touch with their own power. And to be living that way. You’re reminding me that one of the most important Scorpios in my life was the woman named Susan Greene. And she was kind of like my spiritual mother that I met when I was 16. The first person I felt truly seen and loved by and who was fiercely loyal, fiercely alive in herself. And you know, there’s an uncompromising quality with Scorpio energy that can be intimidating, like what you’re describing. And you know that was one of the things that George O’Keeffe had that same reputation of people being uncomfortable around her because of that potency, but then of course, also magnetized and drawn by her. Just what you’re describing.
Vanessa: And potency, that’s a great word. Yeah, they feel potent and they’ll say the thing, which is why people fear, I think, because they just say it, and she really did, as well. Awesome when it’s to someone else, not you.
Let’s move on to the monthly moon. So we’ve got a new moon October 25 6:49am. I think that’s New York Time, Eastern, with a partial solar eclipse. So eclipse season is upon us. Two degrees Scorpio. So pretty early in on the scene. Venus is going to be still with the Sun, having only just made the star point conjunction. It’s also trine Mars and then it’s square the modern ruler, if you look at it that way, Pluto, so it’s making an aspect to both, whichever one you use. So this is really coming up into a balance these days. I always use the word gnarly for the squares to intense planets. So it’s doubling up on a pressure cooker of look at a certain theme, I think in one’s life. And taking action is definitely the way to go with that nice trine to Mars, what would you say?
Jason: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s the potency of this Venus having just come out, as you said, coming out from the Venus star, and then the three of them really being together in this eclipse. And by the way, the Venus will be at three degrees of Scorpio, so it’s the moon’s hardest degree, supposedly, the fallen degree. And so, to me, the fallen is really a good invitation for Scorpio. There’s really something about an opening up of really the beauty of the underworld, so to speak, the beauty of the shadows, the beauty of the things that are hidden from usual perception. And for me, anytime we have a solar eclipse, and of course this is a relatively minor one in terms of the astronomy of it, but anytime we have a solar eclipse, there’s a way that if you’ve ever been in a solar eclipse, you know night basically breaks into day, that’s really literally what happens, right? There’s a black area where the sun is occluded, so it becomes night there, and it’s quite powerful. And so night breaking into day is a very evocative image, things can come in that are usually not able to be seen. And so with Venus there, for me, that’s also unbidden desires, suppressed desires. You know, Venus in Scorpio is so often connected to the taboo sexualities, whatever they are at a given culture, at a given time, right, they’ve changed. Whatever in oneself that has been unauthorized will probably be coming surging forward for people at that time, Venus being part of this eclipsing energy. There’s desires, there are curiosities, there are things you’re drawn towards, and the draw will be stronger. And I kind of go back to that Mary Oliver thing, you know—or not Mary Oliver, Rumi— when he says, “Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pole of what you really love,” there’s something very potent in this. And Venus and the moon, Scorpio is said to be a harder sign for both of them, it’s the fall of the Moon and Venus. But what I always think that means is that they have a sort of a journey that they’re making, there’s something they have to work with. So I think there’s a really beautiful eclipse from that perspective, the perspective that wants to embrace the night, that wants to be experienced, particularly desires.
Vanessa: And I think with the square to Pluto it’s a challenge to do that. You’re gonna have to break through somehow.
Jason: Yeah, right. The potential of resistance would be notable, for sure. One of the other trines that is there is the trine to Black Moon Lilith in Cancer, certainly an ally to the kind of journeying we’re talking about. And so I noticed that one, and then there’s also a trine to Juno in Pisces. So there’s this Grand Water Trine that opens up. And that’s deep stuff, that’s really getting into a deep, immersive experience that I think will be really helpful for the various other things coming in that month, which are quite a few.
Vanessa: Yes. And also I noticed this kind of going through the month on the horoscope wheel, just forwarding each day and looking at the patterns, there are a few periods where there’s a big water trine to take us through the month, even though there’s a lot of yeah, really gnarly. There’s a lot of red when I go through and look at aspects. Tis true, it is there, but you’ve got to go the water way as the helper.
Jason: Right, exactly, as the resourcing. Those water trines that will open up because yeah, right, there’s the Juno, Lillith, and then there’s the Neptune, Pallas Athena, with all the Scorpio. Yeah, so it’s like those energies to me—oh, and Jupiter back to Pisces, yeah— and so it’s like, to me that is really part of what can help us flow with a lot of the tricks. And the other thing that is striking to me is that Mars is slowing down, you know a week after that eclipse it stations. So this slow stationing retrograding Mars is so, again, it rules all those Scorpio planets. Stay with it, don’t flinch, don’t run, just stay there, you know?
Vanessa: Get behind the wheel of it.
Jason: Yeah, it’s that kind of experience. Now that we’re talking about it, it’s like that’s one of the things I often think about with Scorpio process. When I’m with someone who’s maybe more triggered in Scorpio process, my experience is that what I need to do is neither move closer, nor move further away. I just stay and I emphasize to the person who’s in it, and by in it what I mean is like they could be in Scorpio overwhelm and feeling abandoned and betrayed, they can be big and bad and Scorpio revenge, they can be doing all these different things. And I’ve had them all in my consulting room at one time or another. And my experience is if I just sit there, you know, Taurus, right? If the polarity like, if I just sit there, I don’t go towards, I don’t try to create more connection or engage the conflict, but I also don’t abandon or dissociate or check out or run away or cower, I just stay. And so when I saw that stationing Mars, it’s quite a way through, because this is intense astrological weather. And being able to just stop and be with is, to me a very potent way to work with Scorpio, because it actually takes some of the drama out because Scorpio can get into a lot of drama. I’ll just say that.
Vanessa: No, not speaking from personal experience or anything. So yes, well, that makes me think of the fixed quality of Scorpio as well, being able to stay with something, that makes a lot of sense. There’s Taurus and then there’s Scorpio own fixed nature. So that makes so much sense why that would be a gift and a resource and a way to deal with it. And it’s Scorpio season, why not go with it and embrace it, the cosmos is layering it on for us, dialing up the intensity. And we’ve got the eclipses to dial that up. Just embrace it, dive into it, acknowledge it.
Jason: Run in, the water’s fine.
Vanessa: Yeah. What’s that fin?
Jason: Yeah, right, exactly. Oh, no, there’s fins in there, for sure.
Vanessa: Full Moon is November 8, at 6:02am Eastern. Full moon Lunar Eclipse. A total eclipse. I’ll say on that New Moon, the last one (because they always link back to something) was October 14, 2004. Around that place. So that’s that one. So any themes from back then, if you keep a good diary, which always keep a good diary! So you can use the astrology. This one’s at 16 Taurus. The last time that one happened links back to October 28, 2004, which was also total. This one is in a T-square, also very gnarly. Saturn is at the apex of the T-square in Aquarius. It is conjunct the North Node and Uranus in Taurus. It’s trine to that Neptune, so you get that water trine again. Opposite, obviously, the Sun, which is conjunct Mercury and still conjunct Venus. I’ve written it’s opposite its ruler Venus, which is also involved. So it’s definitely gnarly. But again, there’s helpmates there and ways out. Which is Neptune. And I haven’t looked at the asteroids, which maybe there are some, like you noticed in the new moon. There’s loads of really minor aspects through the whole month, too, loads and loads. So there’s loads on this, which I don’t mention so much, but there’s so many I just thought I’d mention without going into detail. It just sounds like crisis and transformation.
Jason: And to me it’s like the idea of again, digging up things that need to be freed. When I see that one, the Uranus inTaurus what speaks to me especially, I see that Uranus in Taurus as very much like, and I talk about this in one of the webinars for Astrology University, that’s like freeing the Minotaur, freeing that place that has been trapped underground. It’s like there’s some liberation in it. And of course, the Saturn square is going to want to keep it down. You know, the Saturn is going to want to keep it, “Wait, wait, wait, this is not authorized. This is not allowed.” Where’s your permit? Exactly. And that thing’s coming forward, the nature of eclipses is it’s dragon energy, right? The thing is coming forward. With Ceres, who I guess technically is not an asteroid, but we seem to still call her one, but she’s trine and sextile that eclipse, from Virgo. I think that’s a really good one, right? Because there’s grounding in Ceres, the goddess of the grain. And we also know that Ceres, more than anybody, knows about trauma and trips to the underworld, having her daughter Persephone taken there. So that is an area, really good Virgo medicine, that could be helpful to this that really comes to my mind to. Really focusing on routines of daily living, things that keep you still sort of solidly on the ground and taking care of things and not getting too caught up in how dramatic all of it is. Because it seems very dramatic to me, you know here in the United States that will be Election Day. The Lunar Eclipse.
Vanessa: Yes, that’s right, oh my gosh, intense.
Jason: Very intense, likely to be a lot of drama, likely to be all kinds of things coming out of the dark, good, bad and indifferent. And so I think the grounding piece is really an important one to sort of hold with that.
Vanessa: Interesting. I was thinking just looking at this, gosh, it’s like something’s gonna break through and release. It’s so intense. I wonder, in mundane astrology, what’s going to happen? What’s going to break through?
Jason: I think shock factors. And I think the other thing might be the word extreme comes to mind when we’re thinking about Scorpio, and that kind of energy and the intensity that can constellate around that. And again, this eclipse also just highlights again the Saturn Uranus square, it totally draws that into focus at another level. And so you’ve got all the Saturn holding on and all the Uranus trying to break it open. And both sides being both things, it’s not to say one or the other, I really don’t think so. I mean, you can see Saturnian and Uranian elements in all the zones. And the tension of that, it’s quite powerful and at the breaking point in many situations, and eclipses can really bring things to a fulcrum. So it does have intensity and that’s why I have, from my way of thinking, the grounding, the holding, maintaining becomes really especially important and a powerful way to stay in touch with one’s own reality. Yeah, and therefore also then to determine how best to respond
Vanessa: Wild, wild, I think it’s gonna be a wild time. And yeah, that square has been so associated with people protesting against traditional, established rules and established ways. I wonder if this will set something off as well. So that would be a nice surprise, there if that happened.
Let’s get to the headlines. Mars retrograde is a headline because it’s also out of bounds for seven months. And Tony is the out of bounds king, I’m definitely not all over it, but I am somewhat and he’s piqued my interest. So I always watch these things and watch people with out of bounds planets, including myself, explains a lot. It goes out of bounds through October 22 to May 4. So it’s during the retrograde as well. It’ll also be out of bounds. Did you look into that?
Jason: I had heard that it would be out of bounds. I’m not as fluent in that stuff with declination, you know, the retrograde— certainly.
Vanessa: I’ll just say this, on top of the retrograde in mischievious Gemini, it’s already so mischievious, I think it would just amplify it’s mysterious nature. And there’s so much about Mars being the God of War, I think of in Gemini, it’s all about the data hacking that is the new warfare, and digital and cyber so out of bounds will make that very interesting. So I just wonder what will happen with that? Of course. Yeah, with elections coming up. That’s how countries will do it, it’s working on the US, it’s so divided already. So I’ll hand it over to you to talk about the retrograde.
Jason: One of the things that I’ve been thinking about with Mars in Gemini, just to start there, retrograde or not, is there’s a resourcefulness to that Mars in my experience. There’s a “try every possibility” kind of quality to the Mars in Gemini, it thinks of every possible thing it could do and then wants to do them all and often succeeds. It’s a very plucky little Mars. And it can do that. And so then when I think about the retrograde, it’s like it can have this feeling where it’s like, Oh, I’ve got all these things, and then to feel like, Oh, I can’t quite get there, I can’t quite get there. And a really big thing that comes up for me about it is the notion of the necessity that a retrograde Mars seems to have, which is partly that you have to get help, you have to ask for assistance, you have to seek that. One of the things about the Mars Retrograde is that it does happen with a grand trine to Saturn in Aquarius and Mercury in Libra. So when it stations, that’s going on. And so, to me, that’s really also about connection and I think about the notion of mutual aid that is very alive, like in minority communities here, you come to each other’s assistance in a situation that is a bit overwhelming and you create community. Air signs, one of the beauty of air signs, they know how to come together and relate. And since the Mars function will be a little bit diminished, that ability to kind of feel like, “I’m doing it on my own,” I think it really invites relating and assisting one another. That’s kind of what comes into my mind when I think about that time. It’s communication and really being intentional about that versus trying to go it on one’s own. Because Mars retrograde, in my experience with it, you just get turned back on yourself in some way when you are trying to do it in the usual Mars way.
Vanessa: Not go forward. Well, something I noticed with the social media, there are these rich white guys— well not all white, actually—Kanye, who is now he, was talking about buying a platform. Elon Musk is talking about buying Twitter and someone else was talking about buying something else. So they have control over those. So going back and their platform is that they want free speech. I think that might mean completely unmoderated speech. But I thought that was interesting. Looking at this Mars turning back through Gemini as well as being amplified and out of bounds. So who knows what will come of that. But I thought that was interesting,
Jason: Yeah, yeah, I mean, it really can feel when Mars stations, in particular, it can feel a little bit like “Where’d my get up and go got up and went?” Like, where did my forward momentum go? I think that we’re already feeling that; I certainly am. You know, it’s moving very slowly already, that Mars is. It’s like there’s an experience there, and it’s so unnatural for Gemini process, especially, which tends to be movement. So I do think there’s going to take a minute for everybody to kind of figure out like, oh, how do we do that in this period? You know, it’s all these ideas, but how do I move on it?
Vanessa: Yeah, it’s interesting, so flipping back. It makes me think of something that I’ve just decided to do, actually, which I don’t know if it fits into this, but it feels like it does. I’ve decided I’m gonna go to my publisher in England, but they’re owned by a big publisher that’s actually Australian in Melbourne. And so I’ve already emailed them to ask if I can come and adult intern because I am so curious about publishing and I love them there, I always meet up with them when I go to Melbourne. And I’ve just noticed they’ve returned my email, I haven’t read it to see if that’s a yes or a get lost. Yeah, I just want to follow someone around or maybe have a few people I follow around in different jobs and ask lots of questions. And I said I’m really good at proofreading. I can do something.
Jason: It’s so Geminian, I love it. It’s like twinning someone.
Vanessa: Twinning someone and going back, turning back. Like you wouldn’t think I’d have to do that because I’m already so ahead in terms of publishing and everything, but I leapt ahead and I missed 1000 steps. I didn’t do this in a step by step way. And I feel like there’s a lot of space that I would like to go back over that ground and just get some information around that, but in a flit around kind of Gemini Mars way.
Jason: Oh, it’s really interesting listening to you speak about that I’m realizing maybe one of my Mars in Gemini retrograde projects, you and I were talking about record keeping and notes and things like that and I’m really focused on my writing now and a huge project that must happen is that I must go through all of my records and notes and little two page this, and one paragraph inspired that, and I have like 1000s. And many of them are called Untitled 12 and Untitled 3, you know how the computer will, like I don’t even have them titled, no, it’s terrible. So that’s going to be my version of like going back and going through all the information and linking it up in the way that it needs. And it’ll probably take a good six months.
Vanessa: I’m totally with you, and linking it up is a really good way to put that. And the image that also was coming to my mind is that way of saying “herding cats.” It’s like herding cats!
Jason: Perfect, perfect, perfect metaphor. The cats of our thoughts!
Vanessa: Yeah, and all the little links, because yeah, you do take all these little notes. And there’s so many of them. Oh, my gosh, I’ve got piles. So yeah, it’s going to take ages to put all that together. I bought a filing cabinet, which is empty. But over this period, that’s what I was also feeling like.
Jason: Indexing, there’s an indexing quality. Yeah.
Vanessa: And this is going to be opposite on my Sagittarius in my first house. I get myself organized. So I can move forward, because I’m feeling a lot of forward momentum. But there’s definitely a turn back and go over something, go over something. That’s also interesting, like with the publisher, that’s interesting. And that’s energizing. With the filing, we’ll see.
Jason: A very honest answer. We’ll see.
Vanessa: We’ll see. But I am interested to find all those golden little nuggets I’ve written down.
Jason: Well that’s the thing, isn’t it? Yeah, there’s stuff in there. Yeah, it just needs attention. And, yeah, retrograde Mars definitely slows things down enough to pay attention.
Vanessa: Yeah, it’s definitely not a powering forward. It’s flipping back to then go forward. Much more unfettered.
Jason: Thanks for helping me identify my Mars in Gemini project. I really mean it. No, I’m like, Oh, this feels good. This is good Mars medicine.
Vanessa: Well, same. Things are clarifying, I love conversation for that reason. And so what else is big? We’ve got the 28th of October the retrograde Jupiter moves back into Pisces for a bit. So back into empathy, that mystical, the expansion. I think the empathy is a good thing, the compassion. The free floating anxiety. The, I hyphenate all of this, the-mystical-artistic-spiritual-escapist-binge-fest. The emotional and psychic landscape which is perfect for Scorpio season. What are you thinking about that retrograde? You know, talking about scooting back and picking up on something?
Jason: Yeah, you know, it’s interesting as it feels good, like when you just did this motion with the kind of swimming, it felt like being drawn into the waters. I felt like being pulled back into the waters of Pisces.
Vanessa: That’s my Mars in Pisces.
Jason: Right, of course, my Scorpio planets are like, Oh, that feels good. Yeah.
Vanessa: That’s the waterway. But it is, isn’t it? It’s like when you think of the ocean, when the water comes up, and then it takes things off the shore. It’s very gentle, sort of, and brings it back into that water. I’m going with this. This is where it’s going.
Jason: And Jupiter feels at home in Pisces. So there’s something about that that feels like okay, home. One of the things that I think about with it when I think of the Aries-Pisces, and when things go back and forth over there, is just that pooh, start factor. The first sojourn into Aries, especially the first round, is so strong, and it can actually feel relaxing to get pulled back into Pisces, let me remind myself that I’m part of the connected world, because when you’re in Aries at the very beginning, you feel quite alone often, and the new impulse is kind of unclear. And so I think of this as a resource, especially because it’s going into domicile and so it’s like it’s resourcing, Jupiter’s resourcing. So meaning our hopefulness, our optimism, those are very important, especially with what we were just talking about with the intensity of some of the other stuff, Uranus, Saturn, and all that. To me there’s a way that it’s connecting up with— and I’ve always felt like Jupiter in Pisces has got a faith notion, not faith in a particular thing, but just faith in the universal like, yes, there’s something bigger here. I think that will be so helpful. So, so helpful.
Vanessa: Yes, I can see that where it will play in and it’s so limitless and it’s the faith is limitless, too, it’s like high faith in people, in yourself, in something greater, which is the most important, I’d say. So there’s less maybe, fear?
Jason: Yeah, exactly, and there’s a sort of surrender. Pisces is very good at that experience of surrender and the feeling of ride the waves, go be with the waves and trust that you’ll be carried, and you know, we’re all in radically different situations and yeah a million different ways and access to resources and all of that. But one of the things about Jupiter, nobody can ever take your Jupiter away, the Jupiter function, meaning the ability to envision something more, the ability to dream, the ability to hope and to stay with your own truth. All of those are always with us, even when we are subject to all sorts of Saturn confinements and overwhelms and lack and various things that all of us in varying degrees are faced with. Nevertheless, Jupiter and the vision that remains, so something to remember with Jupiter in Pisces, that mega resource, actually.
Vanessa: Absolutely, embrace Jupiter. Look at where Jupiter is transiting in your chart and where it is natally because it’s going to pick up on that. Look at what was happening at that time that it first went over that area. I actually think of this as really positive. It’s like we got a first trial in the territory that it went and when it goes back over, we get a second go knowing okay, what can we do with it? So that whole period, I was looking at it as a trial period. I’ve been watching it and the adult intern thing I suppose it’s like you get to intern something, you get to try it out and test it and you get a heads up, because then you get to go back and take a second run at it. And you could say the same with Mars or any retrograde planets. If you know that it’s in that shadow zone, the pre-retro shade, it’s not a real word but I think it’s becoming one, so it’s you know, retro shadow shade. It’s a test zone, you’re testing like your A B testing I suppose. You get to walk around the track and check it out. And then you get to go the track properly. Just thought of that. I wish I put it in my book, damnit!
Jason: One of those golden things to index with Mars retro in Gemini.
Vanessa: Going into the filing cabinet. Then we’ve got on the 29th, Mercury (of October) Mercury moves into Scorpio. So that’s when it starts to move into finding the sun and we’re all on board with digging down, looking for secrets, following mysteries, following clues. Perhaps seeing things where there is nothing. Communication style changes. So it’s that emotional, watching the tells. I like to think of the water signs, the body language. Noticing what’s not said.
Jason: Yeah, that’s very much Scorpio, having the ability to say things without saying them, Mercury in Scorpio, it’s so acerbic or something, really just says exactly the thing that renders it all clear, renders it all there. Yeah. One of the things I find with Mercury in Scorpio, too, is there’s a disclosure of things that haven’t been disclosed before. Right. It’s the psychopomp aspect of Mercury that sort of says, Let’s go down and look at something, I’m going to show you something you haven’t seen before. Have a conversation with the dead, have a conversation with the shadow and/or retrieve something from there.
Vanessa: I noticed something Brian Clark says about the Scorpio vibe, you could look at it as Pluto as well, maybe says it about Pluto, but I thought it was such a great insight was: visit things that were buried undead, excavate it so that you can kill it off properly, put it to rest so you can move on, so you’re not sort of stunted at this thing rotting, undead, in pain. I thought that was one of the most perfect ways of looking at anything. So with Mercury there, you can really discuss it and get around it and find it and talk about it and you’re going to be drawn to doing that, it’s going to come up anyway, potentially.
Jason: Exactly. Yeah. I don’t even think you have to dig very deep because I think things are coming up anyway. There’s a way that these eclipses will tend to bring stuff up. And you know, we have our guide of souls, Mercury in Scorpio, to help us face that, work with that, understand that.
Vanessa: Yeah, so embrace those conversations. Looking forward to that. 30th of October Mars retro in Gemini, of course, begins. In November, we’ve got that full moon eclipse on the 8th. 17th of November, Mercury moves into Sagittarius! So foot goes straight into mouth, truth bomb. Lots of comedy and exaggeration and maybe letting loose of those secrets that you were told during Scorpio season. So don’t do that. Keep the secret secret. Maybe it’s a good thing to remember, always let people know, this is just between us or what happens in whatever land stays in whatever land. You know, Sagittarius is about broadcasting and if you don’t want something broadcast, maybe be clear about that and have boundaries around.
Jason: Yeah, I mean, this is like also we’re in that period of the Mercury cycle where it’s overtaking the Sun at that point. And so it’s running ahead into Sagittarius, and it’s like, the mouth can blurt out something that the person is not ready to integrate, right, the Sun is that integration. And so it’s getting ahead of oneself, you know, that’s the potential, a lot of times, with that kind of thing.
Vanessa: Yes. Interesting. And wanting to take it faster. That’s an interesting way to look at it within that cycle, actually.
Jason: Yeah, he’s getting all excited.
Vanessa: Look at what I discovered, look at what I found, free the truth, free the truth and the Scorpio season is like noooo, they’ll kill us all! They’ll burn us, don’t tell them.
I’ll move on to, just quickly, the nonprofit promo segment. So this was suggested by Jason, because it’s in your area. It’s the tewawomenunited.org. Located in the ancestral Tewa homelands of northern New Mexico. Tewa Women United is a multicultural and multiracial organization founded and led by Native women and the name Tewa Women United comes from the Tewa words wi don gi mu, which can be translated as, “we are one,” very Jupiter in Pisces! And that’s in mind, heart, and in the spirit of love for all, and they’ve got three main program branches which cover women’s health and justice, environmental health and justice, women’s leadership and economic freedom. So they’re at tewawomenunited.org. Go have a look at their site, donate, get involved or as always, like to remind people maybe something in your area that you can be part of or initiate.
Jason: Yeah, beautiful. Yeah, I’m really glad to be naming them and and hopefully people will send support their way because it’s a really powerful way to very directly support thriving, women-led indigenous peoples and I’m familiar with several of their projects and also actions here as well. Because they’ve really been involved in a really forward way. So it’s exciting.
Vanessa: Thank you for recommending them and shining a light on them as well. They look cool.
So when opportunity knocks: I think we’ve already discussed that in terms of aspects, it’s really go towards when those big water trines are on the moon will set off a couple of those. So when the moon moves through Cancer is gonna be a great trine. November 3, moon in early Pisces, early Pisces is good. The seventh of November Mercury will be conjunct the sun, so that’s great for some insight, and then November 13-14th, depending on where you are, moon mid to later Cancer sets off grand water trines with Neptune and then hits Jupiter. So there’s going to be gnarly stuff going on all month, too, but they were the standouts. Can’t beat a grand trine, can you?
Jason: Right, yeah, very resourcing.
Vanessa: Key takeaway and monthly mantra. Do you have either?
Jason: I didn’t have a mantra but I think if I really just take a moment to feel it, that’s what I’m gonna say: it’s (I don’t know who said this first, but I have always liked it, it’s very Scorpio) “feel it to heal it.” Yes.
Vanessa: Yeah, you’ve got to feel it to heal it. It’s true. I like that. Okay, I’ll do the mantra then. I’m gonna say, “I easily use my power constructively.” All about constructive. There’s so many you can say. I’ll also say, “I easily feel I am safe and I trust my instincts.” Trusting yourself, trusting those trust issues, and maybe acknowledging where you might not have trusted yourself or betrayed yourself, like turn it back on you, too.
Jason: I think that’s so powerful for Scorpio. Yeah, in part because there’s no doubt that because Scorpio has been exposed to darkness and the paranoia process that can happen with Scorpio, and also just the general mistrust. But very, very frequently, what that really is about is about not trusting oneself. I don’t trust myself that I will take care of myself. So I’m trying to control everything out here. Because I’m not trusting myself, that whatever occurs, I will do what I need to do. And so that issue, that mantra that you offered to me, is core to Scorpio, because if you can really know that you will be there for you, then you have less need to get too worried about what other people do.
Vanessa: Absolutely, absolutely. That comes down to that for me, with a lot of betrayal and trust issues. Maybe not that happened in childhood, but as an adult, and we’ve all been there and we haven’t listened to ourselves. And yes, it seems like someone has done the thing, but we didn’t trust ourselves to stop it earlier, or tell them to rack off, or put that boundary up. So we do lose trust and faith in ourselves. So that is so holistically healing, if you can just accept that and forgive yourself and go forward in the future. I can do it, I can tell them to get lost, or no, or whatever it is.
Jason: Or whatever it is, right? Yeah, whatever. It is nothing more inspiring than when a Scorpio person has done that. Because there’s so much then, all that power is not wasted on trying to manage all the threats. But is actually available for them.
Vanessa: The power consolidates. And that’s Vali, or the lady you mentioned, that’s what they have, right? Because they do that.
Jason: Yeah, I was thinking of your person when you said, yeah.
Vanessa: Our Scorpio persons.
So what’s on your coffee table that you’d like to share that you’re reading or have read?
Jason: I was just realizing that the one I had in mind, I think I actually had mentioned before because I keep reading it. But I’m gonna mention David Abrams’ book, The Spell of the Sensuous and I don’t think I did mention that one the last time. It’s an incredible book. David Abram was one of the first people to be in what we might call “deep ecology,” and to really look at the need for the human experience of the sensual world, and he also is the first person to coin the phrase, “the more than human world,” rather than creating nature as an abstraction, like nature or not nature, it was much more just all these various things that are more than human, including, of course, our ancestors and disincarnate beings, but also very importantly the stones, the trees, the animals, the birds, and the winds themselves, the waters themselves. So the spell of the sensuous really encourages us to get back in there and out of our little words, enclosures with words, and also insist that even our words themselves are coming out of a physical experience of reality. So it’s very influential for me and my astrology, because I’m constantly with astrology wanting to get behind the symbols and the signs and the techniques and all that and get into the physical, sensual, emotional experience of the zodiac and all the planets. Beyond all the significations and alphabet of astrology.
Vanessa: Yeah, feel it. Yeah, I completely understand what you’re saying, and going back to the core, going more to the root of things, rather than of trying to intellectualize the root of things and look at it from over there where you’re safe.
Jason: Right? Exactly. We don’t want to talk about astrology, we want to be living astrology. Yeah. Exactly.
Vanessa: And how to connect the two, right? Yes, I like it. That sounds beautiful. I might take a look at that myself.
Jason: Gorgeous book, gorgeous book.
Vanessa: Well, I’m gonna offer up again, Moon in Scorpio people, the AstroTwins, Ophira and Tali Edut, Sagittarians with a lot of Scorpio, including the moon, their newest book, Super Couple: Astrology Secrets for a Sexy, Soulful and Satisfying Relationship with Any Zodiac Sign. That said, I like that in the book they say there’s no guarantees, there’s no guarantees, but while you’re in it, here are some great ways to approach things through looking at your composite chart. And they’ve done a massive book, as I mentioned earlier, and a breakdown of this. It’s a bit of a cookbook, lots of great guidance, they’re wise sages with the Sag and the Scorpio, always a very interesting metaphysical combination, I have found. It’s 538 pages, I know because I read every single one. And yeah, if you’re interested in composite charts, they’re calling it “the super chart,” the super couple chart that both your charts make combining it to the midpoints. This is a way you can go about it. And they’ve got great, helpful advice. It’s very funny because they’re Sagittarians, very insightful with the Scorpio, speaking to those more difficult things with a bit of slightly acerbic. I think in real life, I think they could be very acerbic and hit a certain spot, I think it’ll be so funny, I think they keep it a bit more on the professional side, publicly. I really want to get to know what’s underneath there, personally. But I really enjoyed reading the book, I found myself reflecting a lot on relationships that I’ve had, and I made a lot of my composite charts to see if there were patterns. Indeed, there were patterns that came up. So very interesting. So if you want to sort of dive into that, there’s a top tip for you. So that’s just been published. And that’s off the back of the Amazon Prime, interestingly, popular culture sage cosmic love show. So it was an astrological and social experiment dating show.
Jason: Oooooh, I didn’t hear about this.
Vanessa: Yeah, very popular culture. It went a long way from what they’d pitched but they stuck with it. And they used astrology for people that may not know any, and they slowly introduced ideas about oh, well, what are your moons doing? Or you might have a mutual reception with your nodes and your moons. Still very pop culture, but they did feed some of that in, which is pretty cool.
So what we’ve got coming up, I’ll go over Astrology University and then we’ll hear from you, Jason. And I noticed you’ve got something coming up in Astrology University, and then what I’m doing. So head to astrologyuniversity.com. Go to the events calendar. You’ll see the upcoming events listed there. So there’s a lot starting earlier in the season, the solar season. So When Jupiter Returns: Revisioning a Wider Horizon. So tap into Jupiter with Brian Clark, two things we’ve already spoken about. Beautiful teacher, very poetic. He’s got the Neptune there and he does that fall back and takes you into the world so lovely. October 26 to November 20, The Inner Planets: Mercury, Venus and Mars, and Tony Howard will take you through that. So week one is Mercury, week two Venus, week three Mars, and week four the inner planets in action. And there’s a bonus Mercury and Venus with Steven Forrest and Mars, our warrior Mars, our destroyer with Darby Costello. So there’s some required texts for that. So if you’re interested in these, just go and have a look at what you might need to get on with to prepare. If you’ve missed them, you can always go back, view on demand. So then we’ve got October 26 to November 20, Inner and Outer Planets in Combination and that’s with Jessica Murray. That’s one of their program courses by the looks of it. Intro to Hellenistic course with Demetra George, October 26 to November 20. So you’ll need her required texts that she’s written herself, as well. Amazing teacher, I really want to do these. Vocation, Mission and Calling, October 26 to November 20. Again with Brian Clark, teaming up power couple Tony Howard. October 31 to— there’s quite a lot, actually, in this semester—October 31 to November 23, Chart Interpretation Three: Personality, Moon Phase and Aspect Patterns. And that’s with Kelly Surtees. November 5, Eclipse Essentials: Exploring Shadows and Light in Astrology with Kelly Surtees. November 12, The House of Big Questions: Navigating the Ninth House with Jessica Murray. December 3rd, Venus and Psyche— well, this is shooting ahead a little bit, but— with Jason Holley! Myth and Psyche, Part 1: Understanding Venus through her Loves and Lovers, Part 2: Understanding Venus through her Passions and Possessions. So, there’s another one where I’m jumping ahead a little bit, but, you would have to plan for this. It’s January 27-29, 2023 with Kelly Surtees, she’s doing a personal predictions retreat. So jump on if you think you could attend that, it’ll be in Palm Springs.
Jason: That’s a good place to be in January.
Vanessa: I want to go in Palm Springs, it’s so cute. So what about you, Jason? What have you got coming up? I know you’re doing lots of writing.
Jason: Yeah, I’m pretty focused that way. Although I’m going to be in Buenos Aires and Argentina and Uruguay for the month of November, and quite a few events going on there. So for anybody listening from there, I’m not sure when I’ll get all that posted to my site. It’s all written in Spanish. But if somebody emails me, I’m happy to send that across to you if you’re in that area, or will be. My schedule right now is that I usually do some online experiential classes. We’re starting tomorrow with the earth signs, I have a bunch of people for online experiential zoom. So just to give the feel of that, everybody’s bringing clay to their computer. And we’re going to be working with clay to start the earth element. So really squeezing clay together so we can kind of get into a body experience together, just that’s the kind of thing we do in those classes. So that’s all full for this round. But I will be continuing to offer more of those. And then a lot of experiential retreats, like four to five day, all psychodrama work with dreams. It’s all very immersive kind of work. And then the next year, I will begin doing some training for people who want to do experiential work with clients. So in other words, ways to actually do the things that I usually do directly. That’s what’s coming up, but my website will have things and there’s a sign up for the mailing list on there, too.
Vanessa: And that’s jasonholley.net? Okay, wonderful. And for me, it’s the usual at the moment, which is I’m available for readings— are you available for one to one consultation at the moment?
Jason: Yes, it probably will be 2023 at this point with scheduling. But yes.
Vanessa: Okay. So you can find me at astroallstarz.com and schedule in a one to one there and we can go over—I don’t have all these different listings of things that we can do, because it all comes under that one session. So if you want to look at relationship things, if you want to look at transits, if you want to map out and explore your chart, have a particular something, it’s all welcome. So just scheduling there. My third book, Astro Power is coming out within Scorpio season. So it’s a Scorpio, I suppose you could say. That’s on transits, lots of mythology and history and because I’m a Sagittarius I do poke fun at a few things. And, yeah, it’s a deep dive into all the meaning of the planets, of fundamentals where some of this came from, and really enjoyed writing it, really enjoyed doing the research, watching 1000 documentaries, tapping into ancient Greece and Rome and before that. So that’s due out in the UK is the first publishing, which is November 10. And then in Australia, November 14—no, 17. And then in the US, it’s January, but you can buy it from a site in the UK, say Book Depository, and they’ve got free postage, so you can still get your hands on it when it’s first released. So if you go on preorder, they’ll just shoot that out to you. So very worth reading. I think you’ll learn a lot and you’ll enjoy it. Great gift. It does take it to the next level. But if someone’s a beginner, I’ve made it so that they’ll get something out of it and it’ll be an enjoyable read, as usual. It’s very pretty. Taurus Rising. So that’s the main things for me. And again, yeah, things will be on my Instagram or in my blog, whatever is coming up. Thank you Jason for coming in the longest one ever, but it’s been a deep dive into the depths. And for everyone else have, a wonderful season of the witch: Scorpio season. Stay cosmic, girlfriends.
Tony: Thanks for tuning in to the Astrology University podcast. Study astrology online with some of the greatest astrologers of our time at www.astrologyuniversity.com, where we offer webinars, online classes and virtual summits to bring you inspiration, co
