*Whether astrology is science or magic, we’re open to most things, if they may be of benefit. ~ Ed.

On this day, six years ago, I initiated myself into the path of Wise Woman. Witch. Creatress. My life changed dramatically, as the oracles had predicted. Initiations and rituals mark the moments when we step into new dimensions, as our soul and heart is ready for transformation.

~

This year, October 31 marks not only the pagan high festival of Samhain, but witnesses Mercury’s stationing retrograde.

There is a synchronicity in this, as our most sensitive emotions are dredged up and we are forced into grounding or else!

Stay present, focus on the details that are important—like paying attention on the road or not leaving the iron lying on your favorite blouse—but let go of the details which trouble an already overcrowded thought process. Some details need tending and some need abandoning, surprisingly.

The Crone calls and demands our most raw selves. The part of us who is unafraid of digging through the shadows, retrieving the parts we lost when our Inner Child sought safety through disassociation. We must love every bit of Self, every tender wound. The shadows bring us closer to wholeness.

Now is the time for remembering, mourning, and shedding skins. Now is the time for creating! Take your moments of meditation at All Hallows’ Eve as opportunities for calling in your most on purpose life. We must be willing to be born again, each Samhain season. We must tread where our fears guide us because it is there we meet Wisdom and Opportunity.

What will you manifest this coming year?

The days shorten, we reach inward, downward. We nestle into the roots of the Great Mother as she croons us a lullaby. From there, we rise toward the Intuition of our Third Eye. From here we find our wings.

On October 31, Scorpio, and all who wish to participate in this magical season, prepare for the descent into the Underworld. Funny how the darkness can reveal so much more than the light at times. The Goddess reaches her hand to all those who would travel this path with her. Will you step into that vulnerability of emotions that Scorpio demands, to flow with this water sign into places unknown, to invite intimacy and listen to the voices of the Ancestors?

Scorpio enchants Death into something quite magical…it is a master of Re-birth and Transformation. It urges us toward Spirit, to pleasure, and sacred sexuality—to the forbidden. It is there that we drop all control and remember our essence as Starseeds.

At Samhain, we leave behind what was known to us and depart for the shores of Awakening. We cannot help but be influenced by this most holy day.

Shedding Skins Ritual (can be done alone or with others):

1. Prepare your altar in its usual place or on the coffee table.

Here are some ideas, but feel free to use what you have or make substitutions: change your cloth to black or deep red. Arrange black and white candles. Add a tiny pumpkin, runes, or tarot cards, a mortar and pestle, a rattle to awaken the ancestors, crystals, a statue of the goddess, a pomegranate, pictures of your ancestors.

2. Find music that will draw you in, something ethereal, enchanting.

3. Pour yourself a libation: lusciously red wine, or some dark juice such as cherry or grape. Surely you have some dark chocolate around? You will be sharing with the Goddess and the Fey.

4. Take a sensual bath, indulge in every whim. You are working Scorpio energy, so every bit of sexual energy you wish to evoke is completely called for.

5. Dress in something you feel good in; perhaps a costume you associate with roaming the Underworld, and your most magical self. If you happen to have one of those masks worn at masquerade balls, put that on.

6. On a piece of white paper, write some layers you wish to shed. It can be the way you process things, the way you love, old habits that no longer serve, words you say to yourself. You know what those things are.

7. Call in your allies. Spirit guides, animal familiars, angels, the four directions, goddesses or gods you are inclined toward—the Crone, the Dark Goddess, The Dark Moon, the four elements.

8. Fold your list into four, bless with an incantation for safe journey. You work is energetic, but will be felt in the physical world. You may burn the paper as with love and gratitude you release the masks and skins which have so faithfully been trying to protect you for so long. You no longer need them.

9. If you’d like to go a step further, delayer your garments until you are standing naked before your altar. Be willing to see yourself free of those old patterns, to see them for what they were. Anoint yourself with your favorite essential oils. Feel the skin of your new becoming. Admire the beauty of you. Create new worlds with your intentions. If doing with others, pass a kiss and a blessing to the left until it reaches you again.

10. Congratulate yourself on the journey you are beginning, and since it is still new moon energy, cast new dream seeds to the wind! Seal all with chocolate, wine, and a meditation or simply moments of silence.

11. When you are finished this sacred ritual, you may return the ashes to the earth, or, if no earth is nearby, to your compost bucket with gratitude. You can also release to a running stream. No stream? The toilet will do…we witches are inventive!

May the mystery of Scorpio and its passion for re-birth inspire you this month. May you rise like the Phoenix to new aspirations and visions. May you know the intimacy, loyalty and harnessed energy of this powerful sign and time.

From the Other Side, we find inspiration, but only if we are willing to listen deeply.

Blessed be Wild Ones.

~