A mirrored image on the Scorpio season and the Day of the Lifeless
by Sarina Romero
I used to be sleeping when the scorpion stung me. In my dream, a sizzling, sharp needle caught deep into my finger, all the way in which to the bone. The ache woke me; I keep in mind yelling. I keep in mind one thing crawling over my proper shoulder, down my again.
Scorpions are predatory arachnids. They belong to the identical household as spiders. They’ve eight legs. They’ve a gripper. Their tail is slim, segmented and curved. On the finish of the tail, a stick.
Their historical past started 435 million years in the past within the desert. However it does not finish there. Now they are often discovered on each continent besides Antarctica. I used to be in Oaxaca, Mexico when it occurred. It was 2022. The Scorpio eclipse on Could 15 had occurred rather less than two weeks earlier.
Most web sites insist {that a} scorpion’s sting isn’t not like a bee’s. That it seems like being burned on the finish of a cigarette, one mentioned. Or being calmly electrocuted, supplied one other. Their poison-laced tail is used for assault and protection. However most don’t pose a menace to people. In reality, solely about 25 species have venom able to killing a human. That is lower than 1% of all scorpions.
I am undecided which species stung me, though the web appears to agree that the scorpions of Oaxaca aren’t lethal—until you are an toddler, have a compromised immune system, or are allergic. “These pack a giant punch,” somebody wrote additional Save your in response to a video of a scorpion in Mazunte crawling up the wall of somebody’s room.
The venom launched from a scorpion is filled with neurotoxins and my response to the venom was not typical. Inside an hour of being stung, my muscle groups felt like they have been tightening from the within out. Numb tingling pushed throughout my physique, pulsating, altering course, growing and radiating throughout my face, my neck, my again, my arms, my torso and my legs. An unbelievable weight is pressed down on me. It was troublesome to raise the pinnacle or lean ahead. Though I finally managed to stand up, I had bother strolling.
As intense because the signs have been, outwardly nothing had modified. Because the poison labored its manner into my nervous system, I sat on the kitchen desk and iced the finger that felt prefer it had been burned. Panic did not really feel like an possibility. I used to be so scared, I used to be prepared. Quiet, even. The idea of alternative was out of attain – the feeling so complete that it required my sole give attention to it. That I observe it as if it have been a path that may ultimately lead me out to security once more. I needed to resolve to manage.
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In astrology, scorpion stingers – like different piercing issues, corresponding to cacti, crops with pointed edges and leaves – are dominated by the planet Mars. So it is no shock that Mars guidelines the signal of Scorpio. Which means Mars is at dwelling on this signal and in a position to do what it does finest there. However Mars can also be the planet of sharp, decisive motion. It’s cussed and decided. It’s targeted and daring. And it isn’t afraid to ruffle feathers to get what it needs. Since Mars guidelines Scorpio, these Martian qualities are an inherent a part of the signal, like a strand of DNA.
Scorpio can also be a set water signal. This mounted nature offers it a high quality that’s simple. It has a sense much like strolling right into a tunnel and realizing that you’re as far in as you’re out. It’s deeply rooted, persistent and generally cussed. Not straightforward to shake. And its factor makes it topic to emotionality – it regards emotion as each a tether and a software. However not like the flowing contemporary water of Most cancers and the liquid salt water of Pisces, Scorpio’s emotionality is just like the water discovered within the depths of a frozen lake.
As a result of I grew up within the northern hemisphere, the scorpion has at all times aligned with the time of yr when the leaves left on the timber are brown and popping out. Most branches are naked. The air bites. The birds are quiet. And every day is shorter than the one earlier than it. This era, which extends from across the finish of October to the tip of November, carries a way of sparseness. It makes us in the reduction of till we attain our basis. This season, fall not seems like a candy pumpkin. You may’t simply throw on a shawl and name it a day. And for those who’re north sufficient, it is chilly. Truly chilly. Because of the pleasantries of Libra season, Scorpio cools down the people-pleasing—a welcome aid after a interval that generally seems like an enormous, sad networking occasion.
Within the Scorpio season, we’re greeted with the signal’s willingness to spend time on what you in any other case concern or keep away from, and the reminder that demise is a part of life’s commerce. So it is smart that this season not solely homes Halloweenhowever quite a few historic traditions that in a technique or one other honor the thinning of the veil between our world and the spirit world.
My very own custom isn’t any exception. Each November 1 and a couple of, my household and I rejoice Day of the Lifeless. These 48 hours are after we invite our ancestors again into our properties to spend time with us. We activate candles and burn copal over charcoal. We sing them songs in Spanish and within the older languages. We put their footage up in frames. I say their names out loud. I say thanks to the folks I come from, to these I do know and people whose tales and names I should not have.
That Day of the Lifeless tailored round and despite Catholicism. It’s what stays of an Aztec custom that honored the useless all through the month of November. Lengthy earlier than the Spanish arrived, my ancestors invoked the goddess of demise (Mictecacihuatl) who oversaw the underworld (Mitlan) along with the god of demise (Mictlantecuhtli). This custom was rearranged by the church to land on November 1 and a couple of to synchronize with All Souls Day. Like so many results of colonization, what we rejoice in the present day comes from an historic observe, pressured assimilation and the beginning of latest traditions over a whole lot of years that morphed into what we now name Day of the Lifeless.
There may be nothing quiet concerning the Day of the Lifeless. Streets closed down. Folks gown up. Cemeteries are remodeled. Thick-petaled marigolds crowd altars and canopy each floor. Garlands of flowers and paper cutouts beat and cross overhead. All over the place: candles. All over the place: sugar skulls and skeletons. The skeleton is the human physique stripped of all however its foundations – a reasonably Scorpion notion – and the Day of the Lifeless celebrates this. That makes the naked bones stunning. Throughout these two days, skeletons are in every single place – from huge papier-mâché sculptures to miniature collectible figurines – doing every part an individual can. They dance, drink, eat, cuddle in mirrors, raise their skirts, wave flags, play music and stroll skeleton canine between plates of meals, candles, bread of the useless, and footage of family members. All through this celebration, bones and faces repel candles from one another. And altars act as bodily, sacred areas you can embellish and redo yearly. On this manner, the vacation is about honoring the useless and the sacred by making, gathering and arranging one thing infinite – corresponding to our lives.
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Scorpio, not not like a scorpion’s sting, strips us of pretense. It doesn’t have the persistence to settle. And because of this, it clarifies what is prime. It retains going. That is what stable water does: It will get to the underside of issues. And that entices us to observe alongside.
The one clear thought I had the night time I used to be stabbed was easy: Both I am fantastic or I am not. The closest ambulance was hours away, so a taxi driver and his spouse drove me and my associate half-hour inland to the closest hospital – a squat, two-room brick constructing.
I keep in mind the quiet nurses and the mattress they arrange within the hallway. The outdated girl within the mattress subsequent to me breathes briefly, shallow bursts. My IV and antivenin drip. And machines within the room subsequent to us work all night time, whirring and beeping as they join with the opposite folks – all of whom have been dying.
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It has been greater than a yr and a half for the reason that stabbing, and I nonetheless return to that second. It’s ignited a starvation in me – I’ll perceive it. I hold wanting to inform and retell the story to make sense of it. To get to the “which means”. However it makes me giggle. It mocks my insatiability. It forces me to ask myself why and what I need to perceive. I used to be scared for my life. After which I used to be positive.
One thing was taken away from me that night time, however I do not know what. “Once you get again dwelling, we are able to discuss concerning the symbolism of what it means to be stung by a scorpion,” my buddy’s mom, who had additionally been stabbed as soon as, texted me. However after I returned, I by no means adopted up along with her. I could not bear the considered lifting into the summary. I couldn’t sq. the physicality of my expertise into illustration. After I tried to inform folks the story, I did not acknowledge the info. The descriptions felt off.
Like my expertise in Oaxaca, Scorpio forces us to face our fragility, our interior reserves of energy and ourselves. It’s not afraid of the laborious components. I used to be afraid of the laborious components. I did not suppose I might face my very own humanity. Then I had no alternative. Incessantly is the phrase I like to make use of after I consider Scorpio. This signal does not thoughts mucking by the swamp; wanting below the hood; edges additional into the deep, darkish cave; turns into the ashes and what’s born of them; or push by the lengthy night time. As a substitute, it thrives on the problem. Its vitality is pervasive, unceasing even. Its underlying motivation is to hunt out every query and to deal with every reply as a bridge to extra questions.
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This yr I’m wondering if I may also get the scorpion plug on mine Day of the Lifeless altar, or who I used to be earlier than that. Within the poem “One Artwork”, Elizabeth Bishop writes, “I misplaced two cities, beautiful. And, better,/ Some kingdoms I owned, Two rivers, a continent./ I miss them, however it was not a catastrophe.” Though this loss might not have been catastrophic, she nonetheless mentions what’s gone. She commemorates her loss by placing it on the web page. If the Day of the Lifeless presents an annual house to honor these we have misplaced, if it presents an area to bear witness, then this yr I need to embrace the losses that weren’t catastrophic however nonetheless pierced me, modified me and arranged the time in clear earlier than and after.
Scorpio season jogs my memory that it is okay to be scared. To not know. To supply. It pushes my life again on me. The timber are empty. The sunshine slopes. Absence is made tactile by absence itself. However I am alive. This yr I cannot solely honor loss; I want to make room for it. I need to make it shine.
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Sarina Romero is a author from Oakland, California. She holds an MFA from New York College, and her work seems in POETRY, The Yale Assessment, and elsewhere. She can also be an in-house astrology author at WHAT and is engaged on his first ebook. To see extra of her writing, go to sarinaraquelromero.com.
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