Retrogrades and Scorpions
Reflections from my journey through Scorpio season. . .
“Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!” Psalm 139:7–8.
This has certainly been an illuminating, sobering, and transformative Scorpio season. We are now well into the sign of Sagittarius for this next season, which I understand to be a more jovial and enthusiastic sign (it is ruled by Jupiter), which seems fitting for the Christmas season. However, difficult and challenging transits continue and remain with us. We are deep in the Mars retrograde that won’t alleviate for another few months. So, Sagittarius’ energy might bring with it more aggressive and severing significations during this tumultuous time.
There is much I want to discuss and share with you all regarding my time of deep study and of my journey into “the underworld”. My mercurial mind, per usual, runs faster than I can keep up so I sense major shifts in my thinking and perspective regarding everything Christ has been teaching me through His Spirit’s guidance and instruction. He gave me the word “participation” as my theme word for this season of my life, and I have been having my heart opened to a more realized understanding of what that means. Fittingly, I have been studying the Gospel of John alongside my studies of astrology, and I will be transitioning into the Epistles of John later next month. All of this is leading towards my study of Revelation next year. I know all of what I am growing in now is cumulating towards deeper eschatological knowledge and what God wants to illuminate to us through the final book of the Bible. My training in image and symbol and the letting go of modernity’s false “disenchanted” worldview, which was still shaping a lot of my fundamental ideas about the universe, is all working towards this end.
This is pretty significant for me, a deeply transformative process. Although I am a very intuitive artist who naturally thinks in symbolism and image as one breathes, I have a strong mercurial mind, more cerebral than mystical. Mysticism, inherently, is a somatic experience, and that kind of knowledge does not come naturally to me or is one I am always comfortable with. I insist on keeping my distance, Mercury observing closely but detached from what is observed, looking within but never venturing into those dark woods, because that is very risky - to allow oneself to be submerged within those depths. However, re-enchantment is coming and is already here, so none of us really have the luxury of denying the call of a mystical reality.
So, there are few things that I would like to share at the end of this Scorpio season. Firstly, I would like to do a little deep dive into how retrogrades work and some of the things that could be happening during their transits. The Mercury and Mars retrogrades of this season have been highly significant both in the movements of the world, but also for our personal lives. My observations have been rather profound, but this is also something I am trying to understand in more depth because there is actually not a lot of ancient or medieval knowledge of retrogrades and their meaning. A majority of their significations have developed within modern times. So, I want to be able to understand and interpret them better. For now I will start by sharing exactly where in my own chart that the retrogrades were taking place, in particular the Mercury retrograde.1
We have Mercury retrograding in the sign of Scorpio, and it is transiting my 5th House, conjunct my natal Saturn and Uranus (the position of these planets at the moment of my birth). Each House in a person’s chart represents different areas and aspects of a person’s life. The 5th House, known as “The House of Good Fortune” in traditional astrology, represents things like “children”, “creativity”, and “pleasures”. It could refer to one’s relationship to children, whether as a parent, mentor, or teacher. It also could refer to one’s artistic endeavors, like a big project or masterwork, the children of the mind, I would say. It is fruitful and fertile ground for good things to manifest and be enjoyed. It is a completely good house, all is favorable here.
So, in my case, Mercury’s passage through the 5th House has been very fruitful and favorable for me. I’ve been in deep creation mode, but all of it has been personal, internal, and secluded through solitude and study. I’ve been making an incredible amount of new connections and deepening my spiritual understanding. There has been A LOT of work accomplished, but it is all underneath the surface, subterranean, as would be appropriate for a retrograde.
This season I have also found myself growing in my relationship with my nephew, a strong-willed, endlessly energetic three year old who is an unstoppable, destructive force of nature - as appropriate for a Leo Sun/Aquarius Rising boy! I have been blessed with the honor of being one of his caretakers and mentor-figure in his life, so I get to spend almost every day with him, teaching him, playing with him, and getting to pour into his life all of my love and creativity. He and I have a special bond and I can honestly say that I have never loved anyone as dearly and deeply as my nephew.
So you see how this works? It’s utterly amazing! I am taking the time to explain all of this because I am preparing a much larger post regarding my assessments of astrology as a legitimate discipline and a defense of its practice. This is, firstly, for those in my life who might be concerned about my interest in the discipline, but also for the sake of the discipline itself, which I am beginning to see has so much value. Astrology is not “magic,” in the modern, Western understanding of “magic,” but is very scientific, in the truest sense of that word, which is actually closer to the understanding of true magic, e.g. mysticism. Astrology, fundamentally, is the observation and interpretation of patterns, and that is the core of all the sciences. Weather has patterns, the movement of particles have patterns, seasons of nature have patterns, numbers in mathematics have patterns - why should we have thought our lives were exempt from these very same patterns?
I thought I would share this diagram that I drew up to showcase the symbolic structure and underpinnings of the Houses and how they are functioning. One of the most critical things I have learned in my studies of astrology is that the Houses and Signs were always meant to interpreted separately, one overlaying the other, not merged together which the modern Western methodology has done, e.g. the assignment of each House to each of the Signs. This inhibits the true practice of it greatly and its effectiveness as an art and a science just so that it could be made more materially profitable and psychologically trendy.
In actuality we are supposed to understand and read the Houses with the passage and movement of the Sun, moving clockwise through the chart. So, as indicated in this diagram, it begins with the Sun’s rising in the 1st House, the House of the Self (you are born). It then follows through the cycle all the way around from the 12th House (House of Suffering/Isolation), 11th House (House of “Good Spirit”, friendships), 10th House the Midheaven (Career/Public Self) which is the Sun as it is overhead in the sky, 9th House (House of God/religion/higher education/travel to foreign lands), 8th House (The Inactive House, Death, Taxes), 7th House (The Descendent, The House of the Other/Marriage) this is where the Sun sets, 6th House (The House of Bad Fortune/Health/The Body), 5th House (House of Children/Pleasure/Creativity), 4th House (Home/Family/Parents) where the Sun is at midnight on the other side of the Earth, 3rd House (The House of siblings/mundane/communication), and lastly to the 2nd House (Possessions/Money).2
We are then supposed to read the Signs and subsequently the transits of the planets and luminaries counter-clockwise through the chart. We do this by ascertaining the exact time of birth so we can calculate the Ascendant, or the Rising Sign, the sign that was rising at the moment of the birth. Once you know that sign, then you can just lay out the Zodiac in its order, letting the signs fall where they may in each House based on your method of House System.3
This is a lot of information here, and I would happy to explain further and in greater detail for any who might have questions, but what I wanted to do was to provide context for what is going on for how the heavens speak regarding a person’s life. It is here that we can begin to understand how the natural cycles of a life are reflected in the movements of the planets and stars.
Back to retrogrades. . .
One final aspect regarding retrogrades that I would like to highlight is that it is a pattern that will manifest itself in threes. First the planet transits through your house, hitting any planets that might be there. Then once it stations retrograde it will move backwards through that same house, and most likely hit your planets once more. Finally, once it stations direct again it will move once more through your house transiting those planets a final time. This means that the themes of any particular retrograde will follow this trinitarian rhythm.
For me, Mercury’s first transit through my 5th House produced a frightful amount of mental activity and study. I hit the books hard with my learning of astrology. I found myself making brand new connections at a speed where I could barely keep up. Then, when Mercury stationed retrograde I felt as if I hit a wall and my mind literally could not take anymore input or stimulus. My energy plummeted drastically, forcing me to rest, sleep, and pause for time. The only thing I found myself able to do was to stare into the middle distance or play a silly game on my phone. Now, as Mercury has stationed direct once more, I am feeling like I need to communicate the things I have been learning and ruminating upon which manifests as me writing this very post!4
This is the most fascinating thing I have ever studied in my life, and I’ve studied quantum mechanics! When you really dig deep in the observation of the stars and planets, analyzing your own chart, there inevitably comes a moment where the universe becomes as clear as a mirror and you see yourself reflected back! It both frightens and fascinates all at once, especially one moment where I was studying my chart and I saw myself studying my chart! It is so trippy! Of course, it is no surprise that I delight in the meta quality of it, like mirrors reflecting in an infinite sequence. But astrology, ultimately, is not about the self primarily, but God’s nature and God’s glory, to which all things point to and find their cumulation in.
The Symbolism of the Scorpion and the Serpent. . .
I wanted to discuss a little bit the constellation Scorpio in of itself. As I have mentioned previously, due to the axial precession of the Earth’s rotation, the actual positions of the stars of the Zodiac differ from the Tropical Zodiac utilized by most Western astrologers. Well, considering this fact, it turns out that for most of the time that the Sun is in Scorpio, it is actually in the constellation of Ophiuchus, “the serpent-bearer.” The Sun spends approximately two weeks in Ophiuchus versus spending about a week in Scorpio. This is why Ophiuchus is sometimes known as “the 13th Sign,” within trendy astrology circles, which is primarily just click-bate fodder. However, despite this, I do believe that we shouldn’t ignore this constellation either. This is something I intend to go more in-depth at a later time5, but for now, I am of the belief that astrology, which was built and founded upon accurate astronomical and empirical evidence, should continue to be so, and so Scorpio’s archetypes should now incorporate the archetypes associated with Ophiuchus.
In Greek mythology Ophiuchus was the great physician - associated with wisdom, prudence, and the discovery of herbs, and the constellation was often called, “the god of medicine.” The name meaning itself is “the man that holds the serpent” and at the time it was seen as a triumphant symbol over the powers of darkness, e.g. the Scorpion (Scorpio), which is beneath his feet, and the Serpent (Serpens) (Olcott pg. 379-381). So, centuries before the Christian era, this great scene in heaven was associated with the most fundamental and universal story to humankind, of Man’s triumph over evil - namely, of course, one particular Man’s triumph.
“I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.” Genesis 3:15.
In the Garden of Eden the crafty and wicked Serpent entered and tempted the Man and the Woman to deny their beloved Creator and fall into Sin and Death. However, God was not caught off guard by this, but from the beginning, before the beginning, provided a way of salvation for the Man and the Woman, whom He loved. Through an innumerable amount of ways such as prophecy, the subjugation of creation to futility, symbolism (clothing the Man and Woman in animal skins), God constantly and consistently provided a way of grace that His beloved children would be able to return to Him.
This finally manifested and cumulated with the Incarnation, the birth of the Christ child, Immanuel “God with us”, who lived in obedience, died in obedience - even obedience to the Cross - and rose again in glory, utterly vanquishing the power of Sin and Death through what He suffered as the one and only sacrificial lamb for all time.
So, within this sign of “the man who holds the serpent,” this salvation drama plays out as a means of grace in of itself.
“. . .as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” (John 3:14-15)
There is this paradoxical utilization of the archetypes here, for what Christ is referencing in this passage is the story of Moses and the Israelites, of when the Israelites, in their rebellion and hardness of heart, complained and sinned against God, whereupon God sent fiery serpents to bite and kill them for their disobedience. Yet Moses prayed for the sake of the people (Moses is also partaking in the archetype!) and God told him, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” (Numbers 21:8) Moses, then, creates “the bronze serpent” that the people may look upon it and be restored.
This is the type and shadow of Christ upon the Cross who was made to be sin, although He knew no sin, and so that we all might look upon Him and be saved. This is what it means for Christ to “bruise” the serpent’s head and for the serpent to have “bruised his heel.” This is what it means for the Son of Man to triumph over evil that we may believe in Him and have eternal life. And these archetypes meet their full completeness in the last days, when Christ comes as “the Rider on the White Horse” and binds the great Serpent and he is cast into the torment of “the lake of fire” forever.
But where have we seen this “serpent on a pole” symbol before?
These symbols are very familiar to us, we see them at hospitals and on ambulances, having become synonymous with Western Medicine. So, now we have come back around to Ophiuchus, who was associated with medicine, healing, and herbs - the great physician in the sky. In the mythology, Ophiuchus was even associated with the resurrection of the dead, and to the Arabs the stars in this constellation were regarded as representing a pasture, which Beta Ophiuchi named “Cebralrai” meaning “the Shepherd’s Dog” is included (Olcott pg. 384). The healer, resurrection, and the pasture of shepherds - the pattern of archetypes build to a compelling story!
Finally, what does all this have to do with scorpions? Well, both Ophiuchus and Scorpio were meant to be read as part of the same story. For the Serpent-Bearer “presses down the head of the Scorpion at the point where the colure, the equator, and the ecliptic intersected” and “the Scorpion is clearly depicted as curling his sting upwards to wound the giant’s heel” (Olcott pg. 461). “. . .he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
Following the pattern. . .
Now that we have meditated on these symbols, how can our understanding of them help us to discern deeper things? Well, once I identified the pattern, I was reminded of the Book of Revelation Chapter 9, when the fifth angel blows his trumpet for the first woe:
“Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were allowed to torment them for five months, but not to kill them, and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings someone.” Revelation 9:3–5.
This is repeated imagery from the Book of Numbers, of serpents/scorpions stinging and tormenting those who are rebellious and wicked. What could this same symbology be pointing us to other than to have us take heed as to not fall into the same form of rebellion as the Israelites or we will become like those who long to die, but can’t. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” even now the kingdom of heaven is still at hand! Through these patterns of symbol and archetype we see God’s calling us back into His grace, to look upon “the lifted up bronze serpent on the pole”, the crucified Christ on the Cross and live! “By his wounds you have been healed. . .”
For even more amazing than seeing the events of Earth unfold within the Heavens is to see how God’s grace washes, cleanses, and heals all. In every hard and difficult, evil and painful transit, aspect, and sign in the heavens, there are also transits, aspects, and signs of relief, respite, peace, and joy, signs of grace. “. . .but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. . .” (Romans 5:20.) “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20.)
So the exhortation then becomes that when you look into the stars and see these patterns of archetype, image, and symbol speaking back at you, remember:
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
on the day of testing in the wilderness,
where your fathers put me to the test
and saw my works for forty years.”
Hebrews 3:7-9
[. . .] So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.” Hebrews 4:7-116
Final Thoughts. . .
I made this graphic as an overview of the “Scorpio Month.” Of course there were many other important planetary aspects and transits happening throughout this time, but I wanted to highlight the melodies and themes that I thought were the main ones for this season. I’m calling it “Dark Mars,” indicating a smoldering, wounded, and ruthful Mars energy within Scorpio’s lines.
One of the interesting things I learned about Mars is that during its retrograde, Mars is actually at its closest position to Earth and is out most of the night like a “Red King at Midnight,” as astrologer Austin Coppock described (The Astrology Podcast). This indicates that Mars is at its most martial during this period, but in retrograde, it cannot utilize any kind of forward, “putting things into action” momentum. It is treading water, but with all the intensity and hardness that it contains. Even more than this, Mars is retrograding in the Sign of Cancer. This is the Sign of its fall7, so within this lunar water sign, Mars is even more submerged and drowned, which seems to push him to rage and burn with ever increasing vigor.
Mars entered Cancer October 18th, and went retrograde December 6th. It will station direct February 24, 2025 and will not leave Cancer until June 4, 2025. While Mars won’t be expressing itself with quite this level of intensity for all of that time, he will most likely still be expressing a prolonged season of challenge, frustrations, and wounded pride. We also have to keep in mind that Mars will be hitting the exact Pluto opposition twice more. The first one happened November 4, 2024 - which for Americans was a significant time because of the Presidential Election. The opposition will hit again on January 3, 2025 and then finally April 27, 2025. That means whatever themes manifested earlier in November aren’t over yet! Remember, the retrograde always comes in threes!8
I would love to go more into depth about the significance of the Mars retrograde, but considering it is transiting my 1st and 12th Houses at the moment, it is much too close and raw for me to fully articulate. I hope this post has been helpful, though, in developing a deeper understanding of astrology. This is only just the beginning, and I am beyond excited to see what mind-blowing glories this universe will reveal - the infinite and incandescent works of God’s wondrous hand!
Works Cited and Referenced:
Allen, Richard Hinckley. Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning. 1963.
Olcott, William Tyler. Star Lore: Myths, Legends, and Facts. 2004.
Symbolsage.com. “What Is The Caduceus Symbol? — History and Meaning.”
The Astrology Podcast. Astrology Forecast for December 2024. Significations of the Twelve Houses - Part 1: Houses 1–6. Significations of the Twelve Houses, Part 2: Houses 7–12.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I am working primarily with the Sidereal positions of the planets in the signs, and not the Tropical positions.
This is a simplified list of the significations of each House for the purposes of this post, and one can go much deeper in the understanding of each.
I use the Whole Sign House system, firstly because it was the House System the ancients/medieval astrologers primarily used and secondly it is the one that I don’t really have to do any math to calculate, which is always a plus! No pun intended.
Except this time it isn’t with as much energy as I had previously because Mars is also retrograding at the moment, and hitting my chart in its own way. There is never just one thing happening in transits, but you have to read the chart holistically.
I don’t desire to cause undue controversy especially since I am so new at this practice, but I do think the Sidereal vs Tropical debate is one that needs to be seriously addressed. I do not believe astrology can withstand having this level of discrepancy. While I see that astrologers are still getting accurate and useful results with Tropical, it is mainly with natal horoscopes that this is so. I am seeing that Mundane/World Astrology, used for understanding and interpreting global events and the movements of countries, is wildly inaccurate and subject to the opinions and biases of an astrologer’s political worldview in forcing interpretations to fit with what confirms their own ideology. Whereas if they were to look at the sky’s events as they are actually happening, it would tell a very different story of what is going on in the world.
There is much more I would like to explore in the symbolism of Scorpio and Ophiuchus, so I hope to return to these thoughts soon!
Every planet has particular “dignities” within the Signs, meaning that there are certain Signs the planets are able to express themselves to their fullest extent or ones that hinder or dampen them.
This is a Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke reference for those who know!