Autumn is my favorite season in the Wheel of the Year. This time when the leaves change, the air softens, cools and becomes crisp, connects me to the land again, after the long hot and humid days of summer. As a Virgo, I love the energy of new beginnings, new school years and Fall choral concerts, which seem to often have themes of thanksgiving, gatherings with family, and returning home. In the US, we sing classic American folk hymns and works such as Randall Thompson’s Frostiana, an iconic setting of poems by Robert Frost. I am looking forward to singing in such a concert just next week.
The New Moon in Scorpio was October 28 this year. We are in Scorpio until approximately November 21. This is the astrological sign ruled by Pluto – the heavenly body associated with power, transformation and regeneration. Scorpio then is the sign governing deep work, the deep Inner Work of healing, transformation, renewal and rebirth that we go through on our Heroine’s Journeys, and through the larger great arc of the journey of our Souls.
Also occurring this New Moon week was Halloween, known in Celtic cultures and lands as Hallowmas or Samhain – pronounced “sow-in”, and meaning “summers’ end”. It’s no happenstance that Samhain occurs in the month ruled by Scorpio. In Celtic cultures, the harvest has been completed, and livestock brought in from their summer pastures. In older times, this is a season of endings and rest, and the night of October 31 was a moment out of time, “that belonged to neither the past nor the future, to neither this world nor the otherworld.” 1
In part through Scorpio’s influence this is a time when the veil between this world and the spiritual dimension, known still in Ireland today as the Otherworld, is thin. This is a time when communication with those departed or not presently here is easier, when it is easier for we ourselves, to move back and forth, through the mist into the Otherworld, the spiritual dimension intermingled with the world of form. This is why Samhain has always been associated with the departed and why Celtic traditions include remembering the beloved dead, and even assisting those who have departed to cross through the veil.
This month of Scorpio, which began with the Scorpio New Moon on Sunday, and includes Samhain, falls within the larger cycle and season of Shadow Season. This season began at Fall Equinox and continues until Spring Equinox. Shadow Season is on the other side of the Wheel of Year from High Growth Season. Shadow Season is a larger, longer season of bringing the year’s work and harvest to completion, of rest, and of turning inward. Fields were cleared and sometimes burned after the harvest was complete. This provided a deeper clearing and preparation for rest in anticipation for the next year’s growing cycle.
As Above, So Below. As Within, So Without.
The seasons and cycles of the year such as Samhain and Shadow Season don’t just apply to time-honored agrarian practices in cultures and places elsewhere. They also apply to us. The heavenly bodies and the astrological signs that include them, are a system of understanding the subtle energy influences of the heavenly bodies, as they apply to the cycles and seasons of our lives, and as they apply to the journeys we each are on in this lifetime, and through eons of time.
As Above, so Below, As Within, so Without, is an ancient wisdom teaching pointing to the Natural world as one of our greatest teachers. Just as this is a time for Nature and the Earth to rest, to turn inward and to prepare for the next growing season, so Shadow Season is gifted to us for a similar purpose . And Samhain in the month of Scorpio can be a potent threshold across, into this inward focus and deepened time of renewal and rebirth.
Mystery schools have always taught that renewal and rebirth come after a deep inner change, a deep healing, a transformation of heart and mind and of the recipient’s inner world and sense of Self ~ a remembrance and return to the Self. This deeper healing is the essence of the Inner Work of the Heroine’s Journey. Scorpio more than any other sign helps us take this deep dive, staying focused on the journey through to the completion. To do this Inner Work, we move into the Otherworld, what James Hillman, founder of archetypal psychology called the Imaginal World, intermingling with this world of form, where we can access the primordial stuff of myth and magic, the energy of the process of creation. This is the place of deep healing and transformation.
Shadow Season is the gift of time in the annual cycle of the Wheel of the Year, to support us to engage in this deeper work of Inner Healing, renewal and rebirth that is essential to our Soul paths. And sometimes, we are pulled into the mist of the Otherworld for this very purpose, whether we consciously choose to do so or not.
This has happened more than once in my own life.
Completing the deep healing that was quite miraculous, of my own adoption, began with a spontaneous process of body memory unfoldings, during Shadow Season. Recognizing what was happening, I chose to engage with it. I did the inner work, sometimes momentarily intense, called forth by the process as it unfolded and took the guided actions I was guided to take. In a miraculous healing that came to completion over about 6 weeks, I was completely healed on all levels from the wounds and impact of my adoption, including the preverbal, prenatal imprints and the generational healing of my family lines. This healing profoundly and permanently transformed my inner world and my sense of myself. This deeper healing had not been realized in previous work I had done for healing from my adoption. It took place specifically because it was deeper in the matrix of my body, mind and soul. To do so, I moved back and forth into the Otherworld, the spiritual world, where the process of transformation, renewal and rebirth occurs. The result for me was a deeply experienced and lasting renewal and rebirth in my personal life, and into my family growing up and my family line and relationships now.
Three years ago, another season of deep healing began in Shadow Season, when I underwent surgery and five months of follow up treatments. The surgery was for a serious illness that had been brewing in my body for some time. In addition to outstanding medical care for my body, I also received profound healing on a spiritual and emotional level. Once again, I entered the Otherworld and was literally held in the arms of creation for months. I had outstanding assistance on both sides of the veil, medically and otherwise. The inner healing work I did was just as important, deeply healing and transformative as the physical care and healing of my body.
As I have written about before, I was promised a rebirth prior to that experience. I am profoundly grateful that I am now well, healed, whole and complete. The combination of the physical care and healing of my body, with the deep, Inner Work of healing trauma that was the concurrent emotional and spiritual healing process, was the Heroine’s Journey I took that brought me to this outcome.
It is no accident that both of these personal experiences occurred during a passage through Shadow Season, with the energetic support of the Scorpio New Moon. This deep healing magic is available and opens during Samhain and Shadow Season as a gift from the Divine.
What Deeper Healing Is Your Soul Calling You Into?
So, on Halloween and in the days after, remember this older and deeper meaning and purpose of Samhain in Shadow Season. Remember your dearly beloved departed family members and friends. Help them cross over to the Otherworld if you feel guided.
And ask yourself, what is the deeper healing your Soul is pressing and guiding you to this year? The transformation, renewal and rebirth you hunger for is on the other side. The fulfillment of your Heart’s Desires, and the impact and legacy from fulfilling your Soul’s Highest Calling is waiting for you, on the other side. It has always been the case, and always will be. As above, so below. As within, so without.
Shadow Season is here, inviting you to step across the threshold of your Heroine’s Journey into this deeper healing, transformation, renewal and rebirth. Receive the potent, deep healing magic that is available to you in this season. It could well be the easiest, most miraculous deep healing you ever experience.
If this resonates with you, and you feel an inner recognition of your Soul calling you into a season of Deep Healing and you’d like to learn how I can support and guide you on your Heroine’s Journey, you can do so here.
(c) November 2019. All Rights Reserved.
_________
1. Ruth Barrett, Women’s Rites, Women’s Mysteries: Intuitive Ritual Creation. Llewellyn Publications. Pg. 183.
Debra Brown Gordy, MS MRET is a women’s trauma healing therapist, spiritual mentor, inspiring speaker and teacher, whose work sits at the interface of depth healing, women’s spirituality, and Western wisdom traditions.
From her professional beginning as a marriage and family therapist over 3 decades ago to the present, Debra has found that a woman’s Heroine’s Journey to her True Self to be the path of greatest joy, fulfillment, soul-satisfying love, and highest-level contribution. She is passionate about guiding ambitious, high-achieving women through their Heroine’s Journeys of the inner healing of trauma and the Patriarchy Core Wound, blocking them from the fulfillment they hunger for, to transformation and reclaiming their Sovereign Feminine Souls. Women become free to create the deeply joyful, rich, and meaningful lives and marriages they Desire, while making the highest, Soul-level contributions they are uniquely meant to give the world.
Debra serves clients worldwide. To learn more, visit The Sophia Women’s Institute.
