Here Is Your Scorpio Homework This Season

 BY LISA MARIE BASILE

It’s your Scorpio-in-chief here to take you on a subterranean journey, cradled in the arms of the sign of death, rebirth, and transformation.

Once Scorpio season hits, we tend to gather ‘round to talk intensity and sexuality and darkness and the occult. We may ask ourselves, What is this darkness? What is this silent creeping feeling blooming out of my belly like a black tulip? What is this intense desire? What are these fears? Why do I want to fuck or meditate or go inward so hard? Why do I want to dance until morning? What shall I do to survive this intensity? Do I run or lean in-in-in, into that dark mansion of Scorpio? Must I make space for that intensity and regeneration? Can I rent a bunker?

I want to tell you this: Be not afraid. Yes, this is a heavy season, but it is also a season that permits you to feel it. It wants to comfort you through it, even if it at first it may feel painful. You may be thinking about your place in the world, how to move through grief, what you want to let go of, and how to heal your childhood self. Scorpio, in its shadowy mystery, is beckoning you to go deep. To stop looking away from the abyss.

To that end, below is your Scorpio full moon homework. Go with one or two of the ideas below, and know that any momentary discomfort will yield rewards. Just be sure to ground yourself and seek comfort or support from a therapist or a friend if things get too heavy.

Drop the bullshit, seek rebirth, and stare into the abyss

Scorpio doesn’t have time for bullshit, for the superficial, or for the useless things that serve no purpose and only hold you down. Stare your problems in the eye. Begin making plans to walk away from something that hurts you. It may not be immediate, but you can use this full moon to begin taking stock of ways to make a move and give blood to your desires. Start recognizing bad patterns. Take stock of friends who constantly let you down, of the job that hurts your soul, of the project that isn’t inspiring you—and make an out plan. Taurus asks to perhaps save money or put something aside for yourself, when possible.

Delete those toxic texts, ideas, and people — and be rid of it. In endings, scorpio finds rebirth; you’ll grow wings where a wound was once.

Decide what makes your life better and richer and move toward it. It’s not easy, but when you decide what doesn’t serve you...an opportunity happens. 

If it feels scary, that means you are exercising a demon or confronting the shadow self. Lean into it.

That said, not all situations are currently changeable—that’s okay. Take this opportunity to reframe your needs; you may not have full control over everything, but where can you find autonomy? Where can you plant seeds of change? Is the change you’re seeking internal? Perhaps that inner growth will transform your physical reality? If you need to lean on others (Scorpio asks us to be vulnerable) to make all of this happen, do so. This may mean seeking community resources, medical care, or the love of a friend. You are safe in your need and your vulnerability. Any actualized Scorpio will tell you this, despite their proclivities toward the secretive or seemingly stoic. In short, rebirth is a process, and it doesn’t always happen in a vacuum.

Scorpio is the sign of death and rebirth, so lean into its dark ways and part with whatever is dragging you down. Any depths you go into, you want to go into willingly—not because someone or something is pulling you into the abyss.

Embrace the sensual in all of its forms

Find a way to tap into your sexuality—that could be through sex magic (setting intentions and focusing on them during the act of masturbating or having sex), dancing or lying around in your finest lingerie, or honoring your sensuality by reading some beautiful poetry — Neruda, Sappho. Pick flowers. Eat honey and cinnamon. Listen to sexy music (I recommend Sevdaliza, FKA Twigs, and Banks, or this Scorpio playlist). Dance in your underwear. Light a candle and apply oils to the skin. 

Set a goal and use the full moon to power up

Don’t just set any old goal (I mean, you totally can), but this is the time to go deep. Is there something you’re deeply pining for on an existential level — something that you need to birth, to pull from the watery depths of the self? Is there something you’re trying to conjure on a big level, something life-altering? Do it. Say it. Meditate on it. Write a list of ways you can make it happen. Envision shimmering light surrounding your body and infusing it with drive. Envision swimming in a vast black ocean where you and the dark are alone together; what do you feel? What do you see? When you swim to shore, what do you see? Make it yours.

Write a letter to your dead

Grief is a beautiful, complicated, overwhelming, and natural thing; it lets us peer into the truth of life and it mirrors back to us the deepest, most sincere parts of our ourselves. If you spend your time actively avoiding grief, you may have to spend some time letting it in eventually, right?

This is the time. Write a letter to your dead (perhaps, in this case, your grief is metaphorical). Visit a loved ones’ grave. Eat lunch in a graveyard. Thank the dead for welcoming you. Light a candle in honor of someone who passed or set up a small altar in their name. Go there. Feel it. Scorpio will cradle you in her arms and fill you with rejuvenation and comfort when you’re in pain. You just have to be willing to move through that murky threshold. Make like Hecate; go forth into the crossroads. 

Yes, Scorpio is cthonic and intense—but she is fiercely loyal and wants the best for those who embark into the liminal. Trust me.

*This is an updated piece from 2018.

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Lisa Marie Basile (she/her) is a poet, essayist, editor, and chronic illness awareness advocate living in New York City. She's the founder and creative director of Luna Luna Magazine and its online community, and the creator of Ritual Poetica, a curiosity project dedicated to exploring the intersection of writing, creativity, healing, & sacredness. She regularly creates dialogue and writes about intentionality and ritual, accessibility, creativity, poetry, foster care, mental health, family trauma, healing, and chronic illness. She is the author of THE MAGICAL WRITING GRIMOIRE, LIGHT MAGIC FOR DARK TIMES, and a few poetry collections, including the recent NYMPHOLEPSY. She is also a chronic illness advocate, keeping columns at several chronic illness patient websites. She earned a Masters's degree in Writing from The New School and studied literature and psychology as an undergraduate at Pace University. You can follow her at @lisamariebasile.

3 Transformative Life Lessons Scorpio Teaches Us

BY LISA MARIE BASILE (A SCORPIO)

People often reduce Scorpio to a sex-hungry, death-obsessed, sting machine — and they’re not entirely wrong to do so. Scorpio can be nasty (or are they just too real for the rest of us?). They feed off of the transformative power of sex, the earth-shattering power of transformation, death, and rebirth, and offer up a sometimes-tiring intensity. All of this is true.

But in this obsessive prowling for authenticity and power and pleasure you’ll also find loyalty, passion, relentless curiosity, hard work, and an ability to think outside of the box. They are hungry for everything. Here’s what they teach us:

Embracing authenticity & the hard stuff makes your life more beautiful.

To be human is to bleed and cry and change, so why present yourself as static and safe? Scorpio balks at bullshit, and that’s no exaggeration. If Scorpio walks into a party and finds themselves cornered by the person whose inauthenticity simply wafts from their person, Scorpio is not likely to politely excuse themselves. They will likely utter a too-harsh retort or simply walk away. Harsh? Perhaps. Rude? Depends on how you look it.

If you aren’t here to present your deepest, most authentic, vulnerable self (but don’t be straight-up insecure, since the line between weakness and vulnerability is drawn deep in the sand for Scorpio), Scorpio becomes the physical embodiment of a yawn. Seriously, give us the entire ocean or go bother someone else — maybe, who knows, a stoic, grounded Earth sign who can’t be bothered with the messy beauty of humanity?

The lesson: Find the power in revealing yourself, being vulnerable, and going deep. Step out onto the plank and reveal your shining wholeness to the wide and wild seas. Get consumed in arresting, honest conversation. Don’t shy from real people who want to connect. There are places and times for reservation and balance, but life is too short to hide from the depths. Welcome it in yourself and others. You will find intimacy, love, and beauty in realness. Take a risk and show your real self.

Power can be used for good or for bad. Use it for good.

The Greek myth of Scorpius and Orion is pretty dark. One myth says that Orion bragged about his desire — and ability — to kill every creature on earth. In response, Artemis and Leto sent a scorpion to murder Orion. Zeus then hung Scorpio into the celestial fabric after it battled the evil Orion. It makes sense now that Scorpio is ruled by Pluto (the underworld) and Mars (war).

But it’s not just about murderous battle, is it? It’s about using your power wisely, and embracing the long game, the battle against evil — and sometimes that means cozying up with darkness in order to understand and dismantle it.

If this myth teaches us anything, it’s that the Scorpio reputation walks that often blurry line of loyal protector and dangerous destroyer. When Scorpio uses their power for good, they embrace their ambitious intensity and obsessive strategy to make way for good and for change (which they live and die by).

The lesson: When angry, use that energy. When afraid, seek wisdom in that fear and redirect it. Instead of hurting earth’s creatures, protect them (that’s a metaphor). Help them. Help those who can’t help themselves. Take all that intensity of emotion you feel after reading the news, and when you can, help someone on the street or fight for change on a larger scale. When tested, find your inner strength. Pick your battles. May they be ones that transform yourself and the world around you.

And when your own spiteful, mean urges arise, follow them to their point of origin and sooth the crying beast that aches to be understood. When dark thoughts occur, ask them what they can teach you.

Don’t be afraid of your own power. Harness and manage it. Scorpio tells us that this is better than being diplomatic or neutral to the point of static or unhelpful. Better than being afraid. Better than being grounded. Sometimes you need a torch and bolt and a matchstick. Sometimes you need to sting for the right reasons. 

Let your freak flag fly & embrace differences.

If Scorpio is anything, it’s misunderstood — and if you ask any of us, we’ll tell you that we’re proud of that. So what, we think? We don’t want to conform or come off as digestible or obvious. Our freak flags are at full-mast, and though we often try to be a secretive bunch (no one gets us anyway, #angst), we’re okay with that. We clamor to investigate everything and everyone and we want you to do the work, too. Look at everyone for who they really, truly are deep down — past the mask. Past nonsense social constructions.

The lesson: The Scorpio is proud to be different, but they’re not cocky about it (well, sometimes they’re cocky about it), and they want you to be proud too. When we embrace radical pride in our own uniqueness, we show the world that differences can be our collective strength. We un-other ourselves. In this act, we demand that the world respect every race, gender, sex, and identity.

Scorpio Affirmations

Don’t punish yourself for your differences.

Speak up for others who are being oppressed and erased.

Have a tough conversation with someone.

Ask tough questions and give real answers.

Don’t make others feel bad for being vulnerable or open.

Find the weirdest person at the party and trade secrets.

Realize that everyone has many layers, and seek to understand them.

Seek wisdom in darkness.

Raise your freak flag.

Use your power to change the world for the better.

Realize that everything changes — and learn from that change.

Question tradition, order, and authority.

Be proud of the things that make you different; afford others the same right.

Lisa Marie Basile is the founding creative director of Luna Luna Magazine, a popular magazine & digital community focused on literature, magical living, and identity. She is the author of several books of poetry, as well as Light Magic for Dark Times, a modern collection of inspired rituals and daily practices, as well as The Magical Writing Grimoire: Use the Word as Your Wand for Magic, Manifestation & Ritual. Her work focuses heavily on trauma recovery, writing as a healing tool, chronic illness, everyday magic, and poetry. She's written for or been featured in The New York Times, Refinery 29, Self, Chakrubs, Marie Claire, Narratively, Catapult, Sabat Magazine, Bust, HelloGiggles, Best American Experimental Writing, Best American Poetry, Grimoire Magazine, and more. She's an editor at the poetry site Little Infinite as well as the co-host of Astrolushes, a podcast that conversationally explores astrology, ritual, pop culture, and literature. Lisa Marie has taught writing and ritual workshops at HausWitch in Salem, MA, Manhattanville College, and Pace University. She is also a chronic illness advocate, keeping columns at several chronic illness patient websites. She earned a Masters's degree in Writing from The New School and studied literature and psychology as an undergraduate at Pace University. You can follow her at @lisamariebasile and @Ritual_Poetica.

Restorative Grief: Letters To The Dead

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

I’ve been thinking about how we, as a species, are collectively and individually grieving for our fellow humans — perhaps they are strangers or maybe they are our family members or friends — during this COVID-19 crisis. In the midst of the terror, it’s hard to slow down and say goodbye, especially on the global, collective level. It is a prolonged state of waiting to grieve because the turmoil rolls on and on. For me, that’s very difficult. I feel an urge to mourn for those lost, even if I didn’t know them.

For many families, a proper goodbye wasn’t or won’t be possible. And for others, the heaviness of worldwide grief (and the chronic anticipatory loss) accumulates within our cells, changing us from the inside, as a species.

A friend of mine said she’d lost her beloved grandmother to COVID-19. It was sudden and horrifying. She hadn’t been able to process it and feels she didn’t have a way to say goodbye. I felt utterly helpless and told her so, but offered her my shoulder and my phone line for whenever she needed a friend.

Prior to COVID-19, I’d been dealing with the aftershocks of a year of death (2017) that forever changed me. It pushed me to explore and meditate on grief and loss, and I’ve deeply integrated that into my writing. I still have fewer answers and more questions. I still hurt. In my poetry and in my nonfiction books, including Light Magic for Dark Times and The Magical Writing Grimoire, I offer grief rituals.

There is no way to skip over or lessen the impact of grief. Truly. The only way out is through, I believe now. More so, both ritual and journaling aren’t solutions or cures or magic elixirs for the sludge of grief. The sting of loss is part of the condition of being alive, and you may mourn hard for a lifetime. But there are small things we can do that can help us navigate our pain, find clarity, and work toward a semblance of closure or a space of finality — and science tells us that writing about grief works for many people (although it’s not a replacement for therapy).

For this reason, I’ve included a ritual — Restorative Grief: Letters to the Dead — from my book, The Magical Writing Grimoire below. Maybe you’ll use it for someone you’ve lost in the past, or perhaps you’ll write a letter to the collective dead, to the many who have lost their lives in your city or community. Whatever you use it for, I hope it helps you find some stability and insight.

Below, I’ve included the original text for the ritual, along with the final pages from my book. Feel free to share and copy/download them.

Restorative Grief: Letters to the Dead

InThe Art of Death: Writing the Final Story, Edwidge Danticat writes with profound openness about her mother’s death. The book explores writings about death in some effort to explain how to write it, diving right into the heart of the matter. Danticat mentions Mary Gordon’s memoir, Circling My Mother, in which Gordon states that writing was the only way she could mourn her mother. Gordon described her writing about her month as an active grief.

And this rings true. Some grief is inert. Some grief is an engine. Sometimes actively participating in grief is one small way that we can learn to escape its riptide. In a way, when we mourn and when we write, we are weaving an indelible memory. We do something with the grief. We actively move through it. 

Three years ago, I lost two family members who were very close to me. The grief was tidal, and I was at sea. Nights were underscored by anxiety around what I could have or should have done, obsession on mortality and meaning, and nostalgia like a drunken swirl. My days were hazy, weary, long. At work, I was distracted. At home, I was restless. I was caught between trying to live and trying to let go.

Grief is a sickness that grows without a cure. It affects more than the body, more than the mind. It affects the essence of us, our starstuff, our souls, our hearts, our energy. It metastasizes over a lifetime, and with each new death, it takes a new organ. 

So I started writing letters to the dead. You may want to write them and keep them or write them and then burn or bury them, be pulling the wound out of your body, and putting it onto paper.

I like to look to Seshat, an Egyptian funerary goddess (also, of course, a goddess of writing and books). Seshat, described in texts as being pregnant with the deceased, was responsible for keeping the memory of the dead alive by writing down accounts of their life. We can tap into the ancient, beautiful archetype of Seshat, letting her dedication to the dead inspire the eulogies we write.

The very act of embracing your feelings around death, summoning the memories of your dead, and inviting them into your space through the page is powerful; it is a conjuring on many levels. And it is an essential way of embracing the death positive philosophy, which encourages people to speak openly about death, dying, and corpses. While no philosophy can remove the eternal sting of grief, this philosophy helps to lessen the shame, fear, confusion, and stigma attached to death and grief.

Choose who to write to, and what you want to say. Do you have a photograph of them? If so, place it before you. Create an altar dedicated to them, if that feels right to you. It might include things they owned, or anything that represents them. Light a black candle (black is a powerful healer) and look into the flame. Think of this flame as illuminating a way for the dead to come home, to you, to your room, to your side.

Sit with them for a while. 

What was it about them that stands out to you? What was it you never said? What do you wish you knew about them? What was it you wish you did with them? What are their quirks? What fabric did they love? What perfume? How did they look when they entered the room? What did they sing to themselves? What’s your loveliest memory of them? If they did anything to inspire you, what was it? What did they love? What mark did they leave when they left this earth? 

Some grief is even more complex. Perhaps the person who passed away was someone who hurt you but whom you still mourn. If so, acknowledge this. What did they do to hurt you? What have they done that has never been resolved? How has it hurt you? Can you forgive them? Can you work on forgiveness? There is no shame in not reaching forgiveness; this is a personal act. 

Open the letter, “Dear [NAME],” and then continue naturally. You can remain in the positive, or tell them everything you miss about them. You may want to tell them the hard truth; you may want to let the rage out of its tiny, silenced box. Or maybe you want to tell them it’s okay to go. Perhaps they felt they had to stay? Perhaps they suffered? Maybe you simply want to know what it’s like to be dead. The letter can be structured or wild. This is up to you.

The important thing is that you’re honest and that you say everything you want to say. Maybe you make it a point to write to them with each new moon, or on their birthday.

On staying afloat in the ocean of grief: If you are afraid of the darkness and grief involved here, keep your environment comfortable and comforting. Have objects of happiness and safety around you. Make sure you have a support system on speed dial. Take care of yourself afterward. Because part of diving into the abyss is knowing your way out.

A prompt

Write a spell that calls for closure. Perhaps your spell invokes the elements or archetypes, or perhaps it’s a spell-poem that is simply a goodbye. When we write our own spells for healing, we begin an important process—that which gives us control over the situation and the narrative, and that which enables us to embody who we want to become after trauma. What would your closure spell look like? Will it explore forgiveness? Binding? Saying goodbye? Will it honor your pain?

Feel free to download the keep the following pages: