Scorpio Full Moon

Sometimes when it rains, it pours. I am reminded of a time a few years ago when my dishwasher, my heat pump, and my water heater all failed within two months of each other. It was a frustrating time to say the least, having to deal with the laundry room flooding, extended family staying for a visit and having to wash all of the dishes by hand. Me and my credit card are both still trying to recover. Isn’t that just how things happen sometimes? We take hit after hit wondering when the Universe will give us a fucking break already. Typically I find when these types of pummelings occur it’s because I’m not paying attention. Whatever lessons I am supposed to be learning aren’t getting through, so it has to get louder and more dramatic. Okay okay I’m listening.

Change is hard, but a fresh start can be worth it. I was terrified to leave the restaurant industry, even knowing firsthand how abusive it can be. I knew that type of suffering, that type of pain. It was comfortable as I knew exactly what to expect from people. I knew I was going to get screamed at at some point during the day, whether that be by a boss, a coworker, or a customer. Oh wait! We are supposed to call them guests. I have never had a guest come over to my house and treat me the same way people treat waitstaff. And if I did, they would no longer be welcome. People still see restaurant employees as servants instead of servers, and I am lucky to be out of there. It wasn’t easy though.

I saved a bunch of money before I left, knowing that my income was going to take a massive hit. I didn’t have a job lined up. Shit I didn’t even have a plan! I just knew that I needed to get out of there. My mental health had been circling the drain for a long time, and it became all too clear that it was time to move on with my life. The dreams I once had of owning and operating my own restaurant had fizzled out, much like a sparkler discarded after the Fourth of July. A burnt up stick was all that remained. I threw it aside, opening myself up to something different, a new dream, but really an old dream that I had long since forgotten.

Rainbows come after the rain, and so do the buds erupt from inside their seed coats. If we aren’t open to these types of transformations in our own lives, then we end up stuck. We never evolve out of these past chapters of our lives. We essentially remain maidens, when we should in fact be learning how to become crones. I’ve suffered myself for far too long in this “victim mentality.” Woe is me! I believed the Disney stories of my youth that told me some White Knight would come to rescue me, and we would ride away on his giant, noble steed. I rage-cried when I realized that the day would never come, when I figured out that I had to be the one to rescue myself. I was angry about that fact that I had been marketed a lie my whole life. I was sad that I spent so long believing it, and I was determined to get myself out of this godforsaken mess.

It royally sucks to know that it is your job to dig yourself out of the holes that other people threw you into. That is unfortunately a product of our society. We demonized asking for help, so we come from a generation of people with unresolved trauma. Those people, my parents included, end up passing on all that garbage to their children. I can draw direct lines from their trauma to mine. I know exactly why the things happened to me, and how that played out in my life. I know why I tolerated so much abuse at the hands of others. And quite frankly I am sick and tired of it.

I started to see that I was no longer being valued for my efforts, for all of my hard work, for the blood, sweat and tears I gave to the success of that business. Ironically that place has since gone out of business and closed. Some would say that it was due to the pandemic, but I could see the writing on the wall as clear as the black sharpie that was used to graffiti the bathroom stalls. I still hung on for far too long, not wanting to give up a place that I had called home for eight years. We tend to do that, to hold on way too tightly to the things that aren’t necessarily meant for us, or at least things that we have maybe outgrown.

Lessons Learned

Scorpio is ruled by Pluto, the planet of the shadow self. Maybe we chose that planet to represent this dark night of the soul because it is so far away from Earth, from us. We don’t like to realize that there are parts of ourselves that we don’t actually like, that we’ve done things that are out of alignment with our own values. It sucks, on like a really deep level. I have absolutely claimed not to be a racist while saying or doing something that I now know to be. Ignorance can be bliss, but it can also cause you a lot of problems, especially in relationships.

Full moons represent the completion of a cycle. The Three of Cups, the coven card, invites us into a deeper connection with the spirit helpers that are on the other side of the veil. “It is the friends you can call up at 4 AM that matters.” (Marlene Dietrich, German-born American actress and singer) Yeah, I lost all of that when I walked away from that life. My so-called friends were no longer very friendly. In my own naivety, I didn’t take into account the fact that some of them were only nice to me because I wrote their paycheck. For some dumbass reason I thought this was different, I thought I was different. Just like every other time I have run away, (This is a consistent pattern in my life.) I had to start all over again.

Hagalaz, the rune of disruptive natural forces, demands that we grow and evolve into the people we are meant to become. Symbolized by sleet and hail, this is yet another illustration of that pummeling we sometimes need in order to propel us into action. My therapist has told me numerous times that action is the only way to move forward, even the smallest step. When I was in the deepest throes of my depression, the thing I would do to get me moving was to brush my teeth. I would literally tell myself to get out of bed and brush my teeth, then I could go back to sleep if I wanted. By the time I finished cleaning those pearly whites, I started to feel a sense of accomplishment. I never once went back to bed. Sometimes all I did was move to the couch, but that was something. It was enough to keep making progress, and to this day I still brush my teeth as soon as I wake up.

Mad love, Jenna