It’s sometimes said — and I’ve said it a number of times here — that Scorpio time is when the veil between the worlds is the thinnest. Not everyone has a concept of what those veils are or how they work. You can think of them as an ‘outer’ experience of dimensions, where the psychic space that we share here on the physical plane adjoins a nearby nonphysical realm that we access, among other ways, in dreams.
This is sometimes called the astral plane. There are a number of close-by regions, including the causal, mental and etheric realms. We are not divided from them by anything physical, though the body is the thing that most often seems to get in the way. At the center of it all is soul, that which illuminates all existence, despite how much clutter we put in the way.
What is beyond the veil can be just as accurately thought of as inner realms that we contain and can access, if we’re open enough. It’s not the body that veils our awareness; it’s our belief in the supremacy of the body, or that it’s the only thing that actually exists. To investigate any other possibility is what’s usually described as a ‘spiritual path’.
Legend, tradition and observation suggest that while the Sun is in Scorpio, the sign of death and transformation, the veils are thinner, which is another way of saying we have deeper access to ourselves. This is the time of year when we honor our dead (but still spiritually alive) ancestors. We can make contact with them; we can welcome them into our homes and our awareness; we can thank them and we can seek their help.
In Western industrial society this is played out as Halloween — lawns are turned to bone yards, houses are decorated as if haunted, and it’s appropriate, for one night a year, to openly acknowledge the macabre fate that we all share.
In stark terms, we will all leave our bodies, which will likely be autopsied, buried in a box and left to rot in the ground, burned to ashes, or in rare cases, dumped into the sea. For one night a year, we can look at that, or consider it, even if it’s veiled in a fun tradition. It’s a very old tradition at that, one of the oldest we still celebrate in fact. In recent ancient times it was called Samhain (pronounced sah-wen). I think it’s a healthy tradition, and it would be even better if we could openly celebrate the corresponding holiday in May, Beltane, which is the time to celebrate sexual union and the nearly universal erotic attraction of humans for one another and for nature.
The two holidays work together: at this time of year, we acknowledge the final harvest and the impending winter, which in older times, many people did not survive. In the spring, we get a chance to celebrate the fact that we made it through a long, dark, cold night six months long.
Tonight, those who have television or Internet are being shown images of another kind of death and transformation — the destruction that was brought to the shores of North America by a storm called Sandy. The storm lasted from Oct. 22 through Oct. 31, with winds up to 110 mph. It made landfall three times, for the third and last time Monday night in Atlantic City, NJ. So far it’s known to have taken 165 lives.
Tonight, people remain stranded by flood waters in their homes, if they’re lucky enough to have homes. Thousands were washed away and more than 100 burned in a little community called Breezy Point in Queens, where lots of New York City cops and firefighters live. Hundreds of thousands of people are wet, cold and hungry. We are getting a bold message that our experience here on Earth is transient and fragile.
We’re also getting the message that how we treat the Earth is directly related to how the Earth treats us. While I am rating this event as having a high probability of being manipulated by scientific means, in any event it was aided by the melting of glaciers, the weakening of the Gulf Stream and the Jet Stream and rising ocean levels, all of which are the consequence of global warming. This is the second time in as many years that the East Coast has experienced a kind of ‘100-year flood’, and there have been a diversity of others — the first really strange one I remember (said to be a 100-year flood, with the first Planet Waves office in its path) happened in 1999.
This week, the message is getting through to even some of the thickest-headed people that climate change is real and that it has consequences. Remember that this storm comes after one of the hottest summers on record, which brought a massive drought in North America, and yet another year of wildfires.
The world indeed is changing, and we are going along for the ride — at least for now. Remember, this is 2012, and we’ve been preparing for this shift in consciousness for a long time.
In some traditions, the year ends at sundown on Oct. 31 and the new year begins at sunrise on Nov. 1. In this way, it’s the night out of time, a suspended moment when the veil between the worlds is the thinnest. We’re all a little closer to one another, in the spiritual sense; we are closer to our ancestors, and we’re closer to awareness of the consciousness of death — which is merely a reminder of change, and the delicate beauty of life. We have plenty to think about tonight, plenty to reflect on, and for which to be grateful.
Thank you for the lovely wishes š xxx
Mystes – thank you for your thanks and validation…I am not a Wiccan though( UR conj Asc can never be a member of any group! )…just a woman on a spiritual healing journey of the feminine in myself
Pam – I am sure you are right about this but it often feels very fragmented to me.
Sarah – like you I have been ill since Samhain and also feel ‘held’…its lasted since Dec 21st 2003 for me, so I am really hoping for some shift/realisation come Dec 21 2012. The Venus transits 2004/2012 have been important for the process.
Blessings xx
Stormi, feel better sister! Warm hugs.
i’m with you Sarah, i got hit with a bacterial infection last week that has had me in hermitage and lockdown at home, cancelling classes all week. slowly healing, but have seen no one except the random cashier as i have gone thru supplies to get thru each day, plus one dear friend who brought me goods early on. i’ve been purpose-fully in*visible as this healing has been as timely as this post – an emphasis for me on the awareness of death and the delicateness of life in body. be well!
Yes – take good care of yourself, Sarah. Sounds like you’re having a mega clear out!
Sarah, I hope you’re feeling better and wishing you much peace and recuperation in whatever way you need it.
I was forced to go to ground on Halloween – with a virus that caused severe abdominal distress, cramping, and a rocketing temperature. I am being held in place in about 75% of my life. The only places I seem to have room to move and breathe are with family, friends and work. No extraneous socialising, no sexual or emotional partnership. I am invisible in the outside world.
beleclaire but the grounding is coming – last year even here at planetwaves (my take only perhaps) the tone was much more out of touch, and this year no.
beleclaire… thank you for that observation/confirmation. I am not Wiccan, but the breakthrough waves during this 72 hours (from the 31st through 11/2) are pretty loud. I appreciate your view.
Thank you for this piece Eric.
I would just like to add a comment, as I have been meditating on the each of the Celtic festivals for the last 15 years. Samhain is by far the most powerful time. It when intimate connection to the Goddess energy is strongest.
The energy that has been external ( in growing the crops and yielding the harvest ) is returning back to Mother Earth. This grounding feminine energy is collectively what we are still so out of touch with….and will continue to be while we have crazy events like Halloween
Yeshe: my heart goes out to you. may your heart find peace.
eric, the photograph is beautiful! I so relate to the space she is in. I have been grieving the death of my father for the past 8 months and am more aware then ever of the thinning of the veils and contact with the ancestors, my father and his mother are coming through strongly. To dig the grave in the dirt, with bare hands. To place the now empty body back into the earth, like a seed pod whose life has hatched out of it, to disintegrate and feed other living things – recycling at its finest. And to push the wet, moist earth over the body, tucking it back into the Mother. The tears streaming down, watering the earth. And as sobs of grief pour out, to roll over the top of the grave, wishing one could be closer, once again, to the physical manifestation of the one that has transcended. Sitting in the exhaustion of the letting go, the rays of the sun feed the life within.
Thank you for the imagery.
She surely is an organic part of her environment – a wood nymph, resting, after having rolled around in the hay, or in this case, leaf mold!
Just had another long look at your photo, Eric. It gives you a jolt when you first see it. But on looking again I noticed the way the light dapples on the model’s skin, on the grave stones and the tree bark, the earth, giving the sense that they are all one – that there is no distinction between them. Just stunning.
This is another burial: Tibetan sky burial. I heard about it when a Spanish traveler told me he was invited to witness one last year, in Tibet
The body is fed to vultures, nothing is left behind, including the bones
It is worth viewing and people do view it – but it is graphic.
Here is a link: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=sky+burial&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=rIB&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=imvnsb&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=niaSUNncMZCTiAfvpYHACQ&ved=0CCsQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=852
Beautiful piece, dear Eric, thank you. My heart goes out to all those who were hit by the devastating hurricane. I’ll light a candle for them today and offer up prayers. You’re right, how fragile we are.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB6a-iD6ZOY
Honest, refreshing to the point of utter relief, fascinatingly insightful, and eloquent as always. Thanks, Eric!
Eric, thank you for this thoughtful piece. Please allow me to offer my annual tribute to my personal gateway to astrology. Rockie (Rachelle) Gardiner took leave of this planet on October 31, 2008 at 11:11 am. Mars and Uranus were in a water trine. My intuition is that she headed out for a star called El Nath. She was one great astrologer. i miss her.
I enjoyed the way you describe the dimensional feel of our perceptions and this potent time in our calendar. I also like that image and find it apropos to the distinctly wordless experience of that thin barrier between seen and unseen, life and death, and light and shadow. It can feel scary as we cling to a need to be warm or secure in our physical world.
OK. That’s one bizarre and disturbing image. Time to take a break from the Internet.