(Living)

Your November Horoscopes Are Here

by Nylon

November 7, 2017

Scorpio Season is here, astrology lovers, and in more ways than one. With the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter and the new moon transiting Scorpio this month, we’re in for a lot of change and transformation. Scorpio is represented by the Death card in the Tarot, which promises the seed of a new beginning inside every end. And November is the 11th month, the 11th card of the Zodiac being Justice. Scorpio moves in the service of justice and feels keenly the ripples of inequity and falsehood. Scorpio season is the perfect time for an indictment, for the landslide that followed the Harvey Weinstein allegations, for the coming together of women artists following the Knight Landesman resignation, for witch hunts against rapists and sexual predators.

Scorpio season is witching hour all month long, so there’s no better way to enjoy it than by reading Anne Sexton poems to yourself while you burn a list of mistakes in the fireplace. Also, it’s a good time to learn how to make soup because it’s flu season, and you can’t curse someone if you’re sneezing.

In this season of transformation, of death and rebirth, what are the patterns you're willing to break so healthy habits have space to form? There's no one more tired of running on empty than you, Aries, and no one more likely to keep doing it anyway. Your optimism is contagious, but optimism without reflection is dangerous, and it depletes you. It makes you act in ways that you regret. Aren't you done with whatever your old life was offering? Don't you want to shed old skin and take your more powerful form? Be gentle when feelings of shame come up. Children learn shame first because they don't have a wealth of language to frame their experiences and are taught to map their experiences onto the judgements of their parent. Shame is ego's long shadow. Your self-knowledge is wider now and more nuanced. You are the strength behind so many people, but it's time to be your own strength. Fall back in love with yourself in the truest way you can imagine. I'm not talking new outfits or strenuous workouts either; I'm talking inner work. You've got to do it. Otherwise, you leave yourself open to manipulation and self-destruction. Put time into yourself, and give yourself time. You're the realest thing you've got, and everything that comes to you and everything you hold is only as nourishing and strong as you are.

Which ideas and beliefs about who you are limit you, and which sustain you? Ask yourself if there is a person that you have been in the past who you would never be again. Think back to decisions you made five or even ten years ago that you would never make today. Admit, Taurus, that although you might know a great many things, you don't know everything about who you are and what you will want a year from now. Accept that life knows how to surprise you. If you dig your hooves in deep about who you imagine yourself to be, you leave no space for who you are ready to become. The world can't bring new to a closed home, can't set dessert onto a table crowded with leftovers. This month, the Sun, Jupiter, the new moon and Venus will be in your Scorpio, and this energy will pour water down into your roots and comb your dreams out like knots from a witch's mane. You've spent a long time holding onto what you know, because familiarity gives the illusion of control, safety. Taurus, the familiar suffocates your vast spirit. You are more powerful than your past, and you're wider than the experiences you've already had. This November, your intuition is going to gear up and whir in your gut with the full moon in Taurus, pushing to change the game. Forgive yourself for whatever mistakers you're afraid you'll make, for whatever hurt you might cause to those who stand in your way.

I want to tell you that if you're looking for something to change, that something wants to change. Something—or someone—in your life has been making you question you self-worth and your agency, and if that is the case, then you've got to climb out of the hole, you've got to assess if your connections are nourishing who you want to be. Listen, nothing stays in limbo forever, and at some point, the other shoe does drop, but it never surprises us. Have an active relationship with the truth. Don't be lazy. Instead, be brave. When you stay inactive, you make a choice to suffer. Mercury has been in Scorpio, so let me be clear: You know the truth deep down in your bones about what is happening around you. Denial is a heavy shroud, and it depresses you, but it's not a part of you, it's yours to throw off. You might not know what to do next or why it has to be this way. Financial, emotional and creative independence can only be possible when you turn toward it fully. When Mercury moves into Sagittarius, move toward right action, toward decision-making, toward calling a spade a spade.

We all know time makes a wound fade but forgiveness makes it easier to bear. November is the month of Scorpio—who serves justice as if it only comes in the forms we expect? Don't mistake justice for healing or a precursor to forgiveness. Don't mistake the work of transformation as somebody else's lot. This month's Taurus full moon has questions for you: In what ways do you evade responsibility for your emotional well-being? What destructive behaviors do you hold onto in this season of letting go? What are you willing to do, Cancer, for joy, so that joy can come to you? If there's one thing you need to know about Taurus, it's that Taurus is relentless, especially when it comes to figuring out what it takes to feel good and steady deep down in your bones. We don't forget our largest traumas, especially not water signs that remember everything and make a god of memory. The scars remain, and we have to choose to love them and understand them as part of our story, our wizened image. The moon knows you've worked hard on your health, the moon knows you get up early every day and do the work that is required. The moon also knows there's some work beyond deadlines and paper trails that calls you by your name, and it won't stop calling until you answer.

It's not easy to trust your intuition when intuition and ego sound so much alike. Can you parse, dear Leo, which one is telling you that you're better off going it alone and which one is pushing you to stay and fight and hold on to hope that things will shift and start to feel natural and good and charmed? Know that the answer to this question can't hinge on the behaviors or actions or hopes of another, but only on your own sense of self at this present moment. Make a list of what sustains you, what you need to feel inspired and powerful, what you need to cultivate in order to be able to give your best self to others. If you are courageously clear, you might find that much of the list is work you've got to do on yourself and for yourself. Much of this work is what makes our intuition stronger. Now, make a list of all the different times in your life when you faced something difficult about yourself and chose to make a change. Remember how hard it was, how impossible-seeming and how ultimately worth it. Every few years, every few disappointments, breakups, losses, we are reminded of something we find very easy to forget when we're not focused on our work in this world. Every person you meet who impacts you is a teacher, but some of them will feel a lot like an enemy. It is your responsibility to see the teacher in your enemy, to find the true shape of the offering they give you. And, despite how harrowing and endless it can seem when you're in it, it's always you who decides when your lesson is done.

It's not unnatural to suppress what troubles us when there's work to be done, especially work that has our name written all over it. And, painful as it is not to see our own emotional needs, it's not so unfamiliar to put our material contracts before our spiritual ones. The current state of the world encourages us to stock up, to stay alert, to busy ourselves in preparation for disaster. Virgo, more than most, knows how to heed the call and serve. I would call your arduous nature admirable if I weren't so concerned. In fact, I'm willing to congratulate you for all that you've managed to accomplish in such a short period if you're willing to admit that you're in a new season now and it's time to shift your focus. In light of the full moon, I want you to examine what wealth means to you. I want you to think about how wealth is cultivated, shared and sustained. I want you to ask yourself who benefits from the wealth you generate. If you run yourself into the ground, who will be there to reap the rewards of your hard work, a tired zombie Virgo who can't see beyond their own hand? Spooooky.

Many people believe the new year begins in January, some cultures believe it begins in February, but all witches and fall babies know fall is the season when the ground is turned over and what's dead is left to rot so new life can begin. If October kept us working into a late harvest, November charges us to prepare for the cold nights and fruitless days ahead. When I say fruitless, I mean eating seasonally; I mean learn to suck the marrow and reinvent the squash. I mean let all fruits around you be the ones you bear up in a creative frenzy. When Venus is in Scorpio, it's time to come clean about what the relationships in your life mean to you, about what your own solitude has left to teach you. To be emotionally responsible, to learn the difference between interdependence and codependence is a life's work. Jupiter in your sign taught you many lessons, and just because it moved on doesn't mean those lessons are done with you. You might have suffered, Libra, you might have felt a poverty of spirit, you might have felt powerful connections slip through your hands as quickly as they came, but weren't you charmed, too? Weren't you given gifts beyond your imagination? In your most painful moments, remember that time and time again, no matter your battle, a net was woven wide and beautiful beneath your tightrope.

Happy solar return, Scorpio! And when I say solar return, I do mean that the Sun has come back to you, and that means more than ever now. For many Scorpios, this year has been nothing but growth the hard way. Growth like a muscle ripping, like polishing your heart against a whetstone. Well, now that your heart is a sharp dagger, have you been guarding yourself against it and protecting others who come close?

Here's something you know, but it bears repeating: You can make a choice and still be free to make another. Don't turn down a job just because you're afraid you won't like it; turn down the job when it's not the job you want. Don't agonize whether or not your work is worth doing, do the work and send it out. You can always do something else when something else occurs to you. Don't cancel a trip because you're afraid you won't have fun, you can make your own fun, and you're the funnest person I know. Marry a lover, marry a city, marry a project, go to a country dinner and marry a salt and pepper shaker that don't match. Wee how lovely it is to bring something together and not know what will come of it all. Oh, I know you're wondering what to do with doubt."What if I'm not ready?" you ask, "What if I'm not sure?" I think you're smarter than you let on. I think you're more sure than you're willing to admit. Ask yourself why you hold back or ask yourself why you hold on. You know that being sure means taking risks, so ask yourself why you keep acting like you're not up for the challenge.

Just because you know how to work hard doesn't mean you don't know how to celebrate. In fact, every Capricorn I know can throw down when it comes time to party, to feast and raise the spirits. This November is so soaked in Scorpio that the veil is sure to stay thin much longer than Samhain, so talk to your ancestors, Capricorn, and give them the offering of your joy. There's nothing the dead resent more than their descendants taking life for granted.

Can you feel your work paying off? Can you feel the creative energy you've been reining in now pulling hard on your reins and charging forward, pounding the ground to the rhythm of "come one, come on, come on." What's been waiting long enough can't wait any longer, so whether you want to keep putting your work off or not, the work is no longer accepting your timeline. With that in mind, take another look at the life you're building. Take stock of the synchronicities we often take for granted when our lives are busy and full of obligations.

Congratulations, Pisces, Neptune finally stations direct this month, but don't take forward motion for granted. This shadow period that follows will push you to examine the places in your life as it is happening. In what ways do you expect the impossible from reality and from the people who make up your reality; in what ways do you honor the ordinary magic life offers you every day? If you're willing to do the work on the ground, which is to say the work of showing up and being accountable, then your dreams of the future will be that much more possible.

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