Mary Jo Wevers

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Investigating Our Emotional Depths for Spiritual Growth

In the coming solar month, Mars in Gemini moves retrograde, pointing to a need to be circumspect before acting and communicating. Mars retrograde can manifest as defensiveness and combativeness. In Gemini, it can be caught in the moment, restless and impatient, reactive instead of proactive. As we encounter emotionally charged material in the depths of our psyche during this solar month of Scorpio, we may find ourselves spinning stories about difficult or challenging experiences in which we felt powerless, or attempted to exert control over the situation. Mars in Gemini can provoke the ego-mind to try to explain away our experience in superficial or counterproductive ways, distracting us from going deeper, gaining more profound insight, and affecting real change.

We can come to an understanding of emotionally charged experiences on deeper levels, gaining more personal meaning and spiritual insight from them. Pluto and its sign of Scorpio guide us to turn inwards, and venture into our innermost darkness, to discover the root of our discomfort, face personal issues needing resolution, and connect with our true essence and power. Here is a step-by-step method for handling emotionally difficult experiences more skillfully by investigating on deeper levels that lead to spiritual understanding and growth.

  1. In our day-to-day life we may have a specific experience while interacting in the world. This is the level of physicality, of fact. An event occurred; something transpired. 
  • Ask yourself, What happened? What was the experience? Describe it objectively.
  1. We may have an emotional response to what occurred. This is the level of feeling. One or more emotions may arise in our body, such as anger, sadness, happiness, fear, shame, or some variation of these. 
  • Ask yourself, How did I feel? What emotions arose naturally and spontaneously? Name the emotions you felt. 
  1. Often we have experienced these emotions before. A similar emotional charge from the past may arise and add to the present emotional response, intensifying its energy.
  • Ask yourself, When have I felt like this before? Allow any memories to arise. Make a note of them. Is this experience part of a pattern that repeats in your life?
  1. On the third level we can reflect on the spiritual significance of our experience: the message, lesson or learning we can gain from it. Often an unaddressed issue or theme surfaces when ‘triggered’ in life and we have an emotional response. This allows us to gain insight into unhealed parts of ourselves, or parts of ourself that need to be nurtured or strengthened. When we take ownership of our responses and reactions to events and circumstances, we can affect change, rather than spinning into stories about them. We can take back our power rather than blaming others for our feelings.
  • Ask yourself, What in me is attracting or creating this experience, so that I may become aware of it? What judgments did I make about it, about others, or about myself that interfere with understanding the message, lesson, or learning about the issue?
  1. Finally we can consider what needs to change, be healed, resurrected, transformed, or transmuted in us. How might we grow as a person and appreciate the spiritual significance of our difficult experience and the opportunity for growth it provides?
  • Ask yourself, What in me needs healing? What in me needs to be eliminated, shed, or released? What do I need to do to connect with my inner source of strength, power, love and creativity?

Pluto, god of the underworld in Roman mythology, guides us to explore the deeper levels of innermost self, hidden from the light of our conscious awareness. Once we summon our courage and descend into our subconscious to uncover its hidden mysteries and secrets, we can face them, transform them and reclaim our power.

“We all need to look into the dark side of our nature – that’s where the energy is, the passion. People are afraid of that because it holds pieces of us we’re busy denying.”

– La Gitana Eva

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Scorpio: Instrument of Spiritual Regeneration and Rebirth

The negative polarity of Scorpio gives it an introspective, investigative energy that is secretive and penetrating. Scorpio has a passionate desire to probe the depths of life’s mysteries. It uses its determination, intensity and inner strength in resourceful ways to overcome its fears and face the darkness: the turbulent swampy underworld with its shadows and demons. It understands that darkness and light cannot exist without each other. They are co-creative forces in life.

Scorpio uses its transforming and resurgent powers to cleanse and heal itself. Unafraid of death, Scorpio strips away the superficial and extraneous. It surgically eliminates the unessential and the false to reveal the “bare bones.” It uncovers deeper truths, discovers its true nature, and reveals its innate essence.

Scorpio knows that we are spiritual beings, only temporarily having this human experience. Our ego enables us to navigate our earthly life. Yet there comes a time when the ego and physical form we identify with must die. Death is but one stage in the cycle of reincarnation. In this cycle, our spirit climbs upward in an ever-expanding spiral, similar to the kundalini force surging up the spine during awakening.

Just as a snake sheds its skin, we need to periodically shed parts of ourselves so we can spiritually transform and regenerate anew. Scorpio asks us to venture into the deepest parts of our subconscious, face our shadows, and experience the “death” of our ego-identified self so we can become transfigured and experience rebirth. This how we evolve at the soul level.

Scorpio is magnetic and sexual. The key phrase for this fixed water sign is “I Desire.” It is strong willed, intense, persistent, and has difficulty letting go. It can be extreme, obsessive, a lover of chaos, fear, pain and suffering. The emotional nature of Scorpio is expressed in powerful ways. Scorpio is attracted to catharsis for its drama and intensity, and uses it to provide relief from strong or suppressed emotions. The vast amount of concentrated energy stored deep within Scorpio can burst forth unexpectedly and destructively, like a volcano.

Psychologically, Scorpio is associated with the “shadow side” of our psyche: our fears and obsessions, fixations and compulsions; our need for control and personal power; and acts of betrayal and manipulation, treachery and vengeance. Preoccupied with power, Scorpio ultimately comes to understand that true power cannot be gained by being obsessive, controlling and dominating others. We must plumb the depths of our own inner psyche, and exorcise our demons. Exercising self-control, being insightful and inscrutable allows us to reclaim our own power and use it to transform and regenerate ourselves.

Scorpio is represented by different colors and symbols, which correspond to the levels of its spiritual awareness and expression. The black scorpion represents the lowest level of Scorpio. When threatened, it inflicts pain with the venom injecting barb at the end of its tail. The deep red phoenix rising from the ashes of its ego-identified self represents the resurgent power of Scorpio. The eagle soaring on high with its piercing depth of vision symbolizes Scorpio’s ability to see clearly into the heart of the matter while keeping an objective distance above emotional chaos. Having transcended death itself, the white dove, known in Christianity as the Holy Spirit, symbolizes the highest and purest spiritual expression of Scorpio, the rebirth of the Soul.

Areas of life ruled by Scorpio include other people’s values, shared possessions, joint assets and wealth, as well as power struggles over shared resources and sexuality. Scorpio rules politics, political relations and economics, which contain elements of power and control. Death, mysteries, secrets and hidden things fall under the sign of Scorpio. Significant breakthroughs and other deeply transforming emotional experiences are in its domain.

Occupations and archetypes for Scorpio include private investigators, criminologists, researchers, surgeons, psychiatrists, pathologists, politicians, organized crime, terrorists, sex workers, occultists and vampires. Parts of the body ruled by Scorpio are the organs of reproduction and elimination. The gem for Scorpio is onyx. Its metal is plutonium. Thorn-bearing shrubs and chrysanthemums are Scorpion plants. Snakes, spiders, scorpions, scavengers and parasites are Scorpio animals. Parts of a house that are ruled by Scorpio include sewer drains and septic systems, exhaust vents, toilets, and garbage systems.

“Your lost power resides in the hidden depths of your Being. Do not be afraid to go there. The things you fear are only shadows. The power you can reclaim is necessary to power your Solar Light. You cannot shine fully in the world without it. You will only be a weak version of the Divine Flame you are meant to radiate.”