Scorpio New Moon, Mercury square Mars and the acting vortex

Today is Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2011. The Sun and Moon are in Scorpio, along with Mercury and Venus. This week, flanking today’s New Moon (which is at 3:55 pm EDT), those two planets are squaring Mars in Leo. In the case of Mercury square Mars, in particular, we have an interesting opportunity. At this time of thin veils between worlds, costumes and masks, the transformative potential of Scorpio and dark, scary emotion, we all have an opportunity to be actors in the best senses of the word.

Please don’t confuse acting with being dramatic. In our everyday lives, ‘drama’ is a distraction from real issues and from self-inquiry. ‘Drama’ eats valuable energy, whether engaged in as an intentional power play or semi-consciously, as when we’re hijacked by emotional triggers and projections.

No, the art of acting is different. People often misconceive actors as simply ‘pretending to feel’ emotions. While it could be said that we pretend to be characters, any actor ‘pretending to feel’ instead of actually feeling will immediately stand out – and not in a good way. That actor’s performance will likely feel fake; audience members will not find themselves identifying with the character, will not be moved. To the contrary, skilled actors allow themselves to feel authentic emotions — that is the essence of the art.

For some, this comes naturally; for others, various personal blocks may need to be dissolved in order to open up to allowing genuine emotion to flow through, and there are techniques for learning this. For years, I felt like a fake when I stepped on stage. I knew what good acting was about. I also knew what most others did not, though some could sense: I had this internal block, just like a glass wall. I could see where I wanted to go emotionally, but I couldn’t get there.

Suffice to say, my creative energy in general was blocked. Until I untangled that knot, I was missing an essential tool to go with the others I had that acting requires. Actors use intellect and imagination to create a character and accept an artificial world. We use our bodies to present this character and move through that world, limping even if we are not truly lame, donning costume and makeup; our pulse and breath quickening with anger or fear. Spirit rises and opens to meet others in holding a collective artistic and human vision. Actors dissolve cultural taboos on allowing others to see grief, fear, anger, lust and all manner of unbridled joy in order to allow these emotions and more to flow through them. In fact, last winter I found myself in rehearsal actually having to give myself permission to cry in a scene – and then in performances, gave myself permission not to, since emotion can’t be forced. That simple, conscious gesture to myself was all I needed to keep myself open to emotional flow and authentic response.

When it’s all working, and particularly in live theater, an actor is allowing all facets to communicate with each other internally, in reciprocal flow. At the same time, continuous communication is occurring externally, too. It involves both giving and receiving messages and cues on several levels, potentially with several actors as well as the environment – much like in life, but perhaps more consciously done.

I think this fits the description of Mercury. Isabel Hickey writes, “The mind is the link between the soul and the personality. Mercury has rulership over the nervous system. All communication, within and without, is possible only through Mercury. He is called the ‘Messenger of the Gods’ for he travels ceaselessly and does not travel on a one-way street. … He uses everything in the outer as well as the inner world as grist for growth and progress.” Even Mercury’s symbol seems to describe much of the actor’s art: “the cross, symbol of earth manifestation; the circle, symbol of spirit; and the crescent, the cup that symbolizes the uplifted personality.”

As for the rest, the Scorpio New Moon in the midst of this Mercury-Mars square brings the emotional depth. Mars in Leo, on the other hand, brings the drive. Or, to put it in an actor’s vocabulary, the Leo Mars is asking, ‘What does my character want in this scene’? People are best driven by what they want, not what they wish to avoid. The same is true for characters, those holograms of real people. So in rehearsal, actors repeatedly go back to the question, ‘What do I want here’? As inner and outer factors shift, we move through short-term desires in pursuit of the larger objective.

There are various ways to get to ‘real acting’. Sometimes we work from the inside out; sometimes from the outside in. We can start with the physical or the intellectual or emotional, and then move on to explore the other two. Always, the desired end result is to allow the fullest, most authentic possible emotion to course through the human instrument, at as full strength as the moment asks for. Doing so allows visceral insights. It changes an actor’s vibration. It does not leave actors quite the same as they were before, though only they may know the difference.

This takes a lot of trust – in the director, in the other actors, in the play and playwright, in oneself. But kept within in the safe container of a performance, the experience allows maximum extremes of emotion, including emotional violence, with minimum damage outside of that container — though boundaries can get blurry, especially with sexual chemistry. The play ends, we walk on for our curtain call, and in releasing the characters we are able to relate again to each other, separate (though not cut off) from what has just occurred. Understanding of self has altered far more than anything else, and it can be a surprising, exhilarating journey.

This is my proposal this week, in this space between the Scorpio New Moon and the Halloween/Samhain/Days of the Dead holidays, which the Mercury-Mars square is inhabiting. If we use the multifaceted information Mercury in Scorpio is giving us – however dark and strange it may be — with the energy, drive and desire Mars is showing us, we can step into some metaphorical Halloween costumes in a way that goes deeper.

We can let this energy course through us full-strength: that is, if we define a clear container. There are many ways to define that container, whether it be through ritual, art, intense fantasy play, altered states, therapy or dream work. That may be the easy part; the challenge for some of us may be dissolving the inner blocks, the inner critics, the fear of losing control and never coming back. But that part is essential – for true creation and transformation in regular life, as well as for acting.

While we’ll still ‘be us’ on the other side, if we do it right — that is, fully and authentically — we get to experience the release of the emotions and the story and let it actually change us in perhaps small and subtle — but still very real — ways. The idea may also be parallel to the three-fold transformation illustrated by the three symbols of Scorpio. At first, allowing all this emotion and physical manifestation may feel less like ‘acting’ and more like being the scorpion stinging itself. Once you let go into the flow, you can feel spirit soaring to the Sun, like the eagle. And at the end, when the character is released to die – or you let go of your previous limitations, understanding or ego – it is like the phoenix resurrecting itself. In that pile of ashes, we leave fear behind. We don’t become a different person, but we become a fuller, more nuanced version of ourselves.

— By Amanda Painter

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