the new moon in scorpio and the way the world ends

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Happy Samhain to all who observe. Wishing those celebrating Día de los Muertos all the love and peace. And sending good vibes to all the parents of trick-or-treaters. Godspeed, friends.

Before we get into the astrology, a reminder that the last Showing Up to the Work of the year begins tomorrow! New Moon, new writing project? Come write with other like-hearted artists three days a week, two hours a day (1-3pm Eastern) from November 1st to the 29th. If you’ve been in need of an energetic reboot or are looking to re-integrate writing into your everyday life, this container offers tremendous support. Here’s what past group members have had to say: 

• “This container created a generative space that spilled out into every part of my life.” — Laura G.

• “It was magic to join this group of writers. I came away from these six weeks with exactly what the session's full title named: a viable draft.” — Sarah H.

• “Jeanna's magic lies in offering a practice of accountability that feels generative, rather than punitive. Downright lovely; what a gift.” — Ames W.

• “I was able to finish a complete outline and initial synopsis for my entire book over a month before I thought I'd have it done. I'm in such better shape preparing for the next stage of this project because I participated in this container.” — Shelley S.

Last thing! My Year Ahead 2025 readings are officially booked out. If you’d like to get on the waitlist in the case that there are cancellations, email me at jeannakadlecauthor@gmail.com. 

This is what you must remember: the ending of one story is just the beginning of another. This has happened before, after all. People die. Old orders pass. New societies are born. When we say “the world has ended,” it’s usually a lie, because the planet is just fine.

— N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season

In every ending, there is a beginning. This is made especially clear to us in Scorpio season which, in the Northern Hemisphere, marks the dying time of autumn. I’m reading N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy right now (I’ve read almost all her other books! But I am late on this one, I know!), and am struck by how resonant her worldbuilding is with our contemporary moment: namely, in highlighting the devastating collateral exacted by a changing world. 

Here in the United States, we are not quite in a Jemisinian apocalypse, but it sure feels close. The political conversations that float on the air in this coffee shop amongst multiple other patrons ask whether the cost of living here in New York will change post-election, if someone should move to Portugal, if their best friend who wants a baby should move to a state with more abortion protections. That last one feels especially salient in this moment, with recent news out of Texas that yet another woman, Josseli Barnica, was murdered in 2021 by the United States government for the “crime” of miscarrying a pregnancy. Scorpio stellium Jessica Valenti wrote “they are killing us,” and she’s not wrong. Barnica died from an entirely preventable infection three years ago, and news is just now breaking nationally. How many more cases like hers are there? How many have been murdered by the decisions of Trump’s Supreme Court?

What does it mean in this moment, to be safe? Who gets to be safe? Where is there only death? How do we find hope for rebirth — as women, as queer people — under a government that is actively trying to kill us? 

This is where the New Moon in Scorpio finds us. Exact at 9* at 8:47am Eastern tomorrow, November 1st, this New Moon initiates us into a cycle of death and rebirth.

Jemisin, again: Old orders pass. New societies are born.

It feels appropriate that this New Moon comes just days before the US presidential election. Death-and-rebirth themes are loud right now, and not only because the fascist control of reproduction has led to heightened maternal mortality rates. As I discussed in the election episode on Call Your Coven, the days following the election will feature a waxing Capricorn moon connecting with Pluto in Capricorn for the last time in any of our lifetimes. In the birth chart of a nation, the moon represents the body of the people, and the US is presently in the final throes of our Pluto Return. This very much has the energy of a capstone project. Did we pass? If we did, what do we do with the rule of law we have fought so hard to salvage? Tomorrow’s New Moon, and the moon-Pluto conjunction in Capricorn next week, highlight just how much has to die in order for new structures to be birthed. 

It is also notable to me just how much in the world is not dying, right now. Climate change has resulted in prolonged high temperatures here in the temperate mid-Atlantic. It’s October 31st, and I am wearing a short-sleeved cotton dress with a thigh-high slit and sneakers. No layering sweater, no jacket. The high in New York City today is set to be 80 degrees Fahrenheit. This is not normal, everything in me screams. I grew up in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s when it was not uncommon to have snow on Halloween, for trick-or-treating to be canceled in favor of my mother hiding candy around the house. This heat, this lack of dying in a region where the leaves should have turned and fallen by now but are still green as can be, feels unnatural.

The world is changing, and the honest truth is that astrology cannot exactly predict the outcome. Change is life’s only guarantee. And so I can see that the astrology of 2025 has once-in-a-century vibes, with Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune all changing signs and all connecting, by trine or sextile, with Pluto, which next year will be at the very earliest degrees of Aquarius. Wild astrology. Once-in-a-lifetime astrology, for many of us. But will it be the kind of rare change that encourages and invites rebirth, or that only brings more destruction and death? That is less clear — and you don’t need an astrologer to tell you that change is coming. 

What I can offer is medicine, for the ways in which this New Moon is serving as the initiatrix of the US election.

What I can tell you is that this New Moon sits with Mercury in Scorpio. First off, talk about, or at least journal, your feelings. Keep your therapy appointment. Process with your nearest and dearest. Don’t push yourself to be social with new friends, folks you haven’t yet built that intimacy with. And also: phone bank, text bank, canvas door to door. Make sure folks you know are aware of the local and state issues on the ballot. Don’t let the emotions fester and stagnate. Keep it moving through the body, through the conversational ether. 

I can also tell you that this New Moon is moving into a trine with Saturn in Pisces, which I think is especially helpful for giving form or shape to the unsayable, the ineffable. Saturn in Pisces is actually quite wonderful for art-making, and for processing through our art. And so if the emotions are too difficult to speak, take out your sketchpad, or go for a drive and sing your favorite power ballads. Knit, crochet, collage. Put your phone in the other room and focus on the art. 

Change is stressful, and we are in a period of great collective change, so it is perhaps not an exaggeration to say that most of us are stressed. On top of that, many of us are in periods of individual shifts, as well! Just this week, I had a “let’s really reexamine and redefine our relationship” conversation with dear friends that, itself, was very much an acknowledgment of death-and-rebirth. But it’s important to remember that however needed, however supportive, however good the overall change, change is still stressful. 

I think of snakes shedding their skin, an apt metaphor for this season. Scorpios are represented by the scorpion but are perhaps most frequently associated with snakes. I recently learned that snakes are, actually, quite anxious and stressed when shedding their skins! And this makes sense because, of course they are. It doesn’t matter that snakes shed their skins roughly four times a year, a process which can take up to a few weeks at a time — it’s regular and even predictable, but it still stresses them the fuck out. It’s an important part of their overall health, an objective net good for them as creatures, and yet: change is uncomfortable. In the middle of the process, it feels uncertain.

Which is to say. If you are stressed (and then judging yourself for feeling stressed) about change in your life, or the collective changes in the US we are undergoing: that is normal. That is okay. You don’t have to feel super confident and sure and good about everything in your life right now. Honestly, in this particular moment, I wouldn’t trust someone who was. 

The ending of one story is just the beginning of another.

This is not the way the world ends — but it is perhaps, the way this world ends. Shore up your reserves, and get ready to co-create the next. 

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