GlobalWoman · Find your way in the world
30 ways to explore 30 days of Scorpio season
Scorpio season is the realm of the underworld. Here are thirty ways to go down, and come back changed.
The lowdown
The oldest story we tell
Scorpio season is the realm of the underworld. Its story of descent and return is one of humanity’s oldest. Inanna’s descent to the underworld, her death and her return, was pressed into cuneiform clay nearly 4,000 years ago.
It didn’t travel in a straight line. It was retold, borrowed and reshaped as it moved between cultures. In Babylon, Inanna became Ishtar, passing through seven gates and stripped at every one. The Hittites told of Telipinu, a god who vanished in anger, leaving the fields barren and the animals unable to breed until he was brought home. Across the ancient Near East, women gathered each year to weep for Tammuz, the young god who goes down and is mourned.
And in Greece, the story surfaced again as Persephone, taken into the underworld while her mother Demeter let the earth go cold. In ancient Rome, they became Ceres and Proserpina. In Christianity, the story of Easter is closely related to these earlier myths.
Someone goes down. The world above goes barren.
A return brings it back to life.
No one can trace an unbroken line from one to the next. What these stories share is that shape. For thousands of years, people have told this story to make sense of loss, of the seasons, and of the parts of life that have to end before something new can grow.
Scorpio season holds all of these stories, and it moves through all four worlds.
Scorpio carries four symbols: the scorpion, the snake, the eagle and the phoenix.
This season, the snake leads the way. It sheds.
The inner world
Inner world
Where you feel what’s buried.
What would you shed if you had to fit your life into one room?
What part of your life is stagnant?
Make a list of everything you’ve pretended not to want.
Let your jealousy speak for one full page, uninterrupted. Then ask what it’s pointing at.
Head a page “Skins I’ve shed” and list each one with the year it came off.
Scorpion, snake, eagle or phoenix: which one are you right now?
Lilith left the garden. Which garden are you still politely living in, setting your own needs aside?
The outer world
Outer world
Where you clear what’s had its day.
Shed: exfoliate your skin. Treat it as a ritual, not a chore: as the old layer comes away, name what you’re ready to release.
Shed: clear out one drawer and one inbox folder.
Look honestly at your money: debts, shared accounts, what you owe and what’s owed to you. Scorpio rules what we share with others.
Search your home like a detective. What would she find hidden, and what would it tell her about you?
Clear out your phone: the photos, contacts and apps that belong to a life you’ve left.
Change your scent for the season: something darker, smokier or deeper than you’d usually choose.
Wear black for a day, on purpose. Notice how you move.
Nine questions. Nine muses. Find the one who is showing you the way.
The underworld
Underworld
Where you let something die.
Inanna’s descent to the underworld is an ego death: at each of the seven gates, she gives up something that marks her status. What would you give up?
Persephone ate the pomegranate seeds. What did you swallow that kept you somewhere longer than you meant to stay?
Eat a pomegranate slowly, seed by seed. Count how many it takes before you’ve had enough.
Halloween, Samhain and the Day of the Dead fall early in the season. Set a place, light a candle or cook a dish for someone you’ve lost.
Write them a letter about something they missed.
Walk through an old cemetery and read the names.
Ask an older relative the question about the past you’ve never asked.
Read the descent of Inanna from beginning to end.
The otherworld
Otherworld
Where you sense what’s coming.
Sit in the dark. Turn off every light and screen for twenty minutes, and notice what surfaces when there’s nothing to look at.
Swap your Libra altar for a Scorpio one. Libra is ruled by Venus, Scorpio by Pluto: a split pomegranate, a black candle, a key, a feather for the eagle, and something you’ve outgrown, ready to let go.
Light a candle at dusk and watch it burn down, doing nothing else.
Explore the depths. Pick the subject you’ve always circled but never studied, and go all the way in: the book, the documentary, the archive.
Spend an evening with a Scorpio Sun: Joni Mitchell’s music, Sylvia Plath’s poems, Björk’s albums, Hilma af Klint’s paintings.
For one week, notice who you think of first when you wake.
Find where Scorpio sits in your chart. Its house is where this season will dig.
On the new moon in Scorpio, write down one thing you’re ready to let die, and one thing you’ll plant in its place.
Find your way in the world. Find your way through.
Go down. Come back changed. Which muse walks with you this Scorpio season?
