Scorpio: surrender + control
In astrology, the archetype of Scorpio exists on a spectrum of surrender and control. By surrendering to what cannot be controlled, by choosing power over force, by demonstrating the ability to control only the self, Scorpio can access an empowered expression of self-actualization. When we refuse to engage in a power struggle that was never ours to control in the first place, we liberate ourselves, achieving freedom from the trap of control issues that leave us disempowered and exhausted.
The archetype of Scorpio exists on a spectrum of surrender and control. By surrendering to what cannot be controlled, by choosing power over force, by demonstrating the ability to control only the self, Scorpio can access an empowered expression of self-actualization. When we refuse to engage in a power struggle that was never ours to control in the first place, we liberate ourselves, achieving freedom from the trap of control issues that leave us disempowered and exhausted.
Scorpio manages the realms of secrets, power, trauma, sexuality, and the hidden depths. One of the most powerful commitments any of us can make is one of trust in the self and the divine, ultimately one in same.
When we swallow poison, the harm caused by another, it becomes an opportunity to heal, to tend to our wound, and process the vulnerability, the pain, the betrayal. When we offer ourselves the grace, the antidote to our wound, we make space for the healing cycle to begin. If instead, we hold on to the trauma, turning it over and over, clutching it close as a key part of our identity, we are promised greater suffering. Scorpio is a mark of the healer and in our astrological charts, it speaks to where we must heal old ancestral wounds and unearth secrets of trauma and betrayal.
Scorpio is a water sign in the fixed mode. This means that while it has all the emotional, intuitive, and liquid qualities of water, the fixed mode gives it the solid, contained, and rigid textures of the fixed mode. This can make the Scorpio uniquely capable of holding emotional truth and operating with intuitive discernment. By the same token, if we consider what it means for water to be contained and rigid, we could describe it as a block of ice or a well.
To explore the well metaphor, what happens when poison lands in a well?
The entire well is poisoned. The walls hold the water, now tainted by pain and wounding and the only solution is to find an antidote to the poison.
By holding onto the pain, the trauma of betrayal, and treachery, we keep the poisoned water of the well inside. But when we finally offer ourselves forgiveness, we become the antidote to our own suffering. Often times when we experience a brutal loss or trauma, it is not an apology or amends from the offending party that is the solution to our pain, but the forgiveness and grace we offer ourselves for not being able to protect ourselves, for not maintaining control when we so wish we could have, that will heal our wound. If we can return to ourselves, commit to trusting ourselves to craft the antidote that we need, we can transform our reality and heal.
As a master of transformation and transmutation, the Scorpio archetype is not only embodied and depicted by the form of the Scorpion but by two other incarnations.
The Scorpion
The scorpion is reactive, aggressive, sharp, and biting. It can express possessiveness, it keeps secrets, and refuses to admit emotional vulnerability. The scorpion is prone to jealousy and holds grudges, never letting go of the past, choosing instead to hold resentment and anger. In this way the scorpion can poison itself by refusing to heal from wounds it alone must tend to.
The Eagle
The eagle has achieved more liberty and perspective, no longer crawling on the earth or drinking its own poison. The eagle takes an elevated approach though still deeply judgemental and razor-sharp in its approach. The awareness and presence of the eagle is powerful and even lethal but it is still deeply self-protective and unwilling to find grace in vulnerability.
The Phoenix
Finally, the phoenix embodies the transformation of compassion for the self and the healing balm it can create. By accessing the antidote to the poison from traumas beyond its control, the phoenix can find alchemical solutions to powerlessness by asserting the power that resides within. Surrendering to what cannot be controlled and choosing to control the only entity within our control, ourselves, offers the phoenix a chance to rise from the ashes, stronger than ever before. All this can be achieved by trusting the self and relinquishing the urge to control what is beyond our power.
The magick of Scorpio is to transcend and transform through the discipline of trust. When we trust ourselves to be present and mindful through the process of healing, when we forgive ourselves for being wounded and vulnerable, we access the blessing of transformational liberation.
Scorpio speaks from desire.
As shown in the etymology of the word desire, there is something greater than wanting in the expression of desire. It is not just lust or covetousness, it is an inspiration of longing from beyond, from a heavenly body, one that is set upon a soul with celestial significance. It is a sacred wanting, the expression of desire and it can lead us to purpose.
To express desire is to be vulnerable in longing. It acknowledges a force external to our own power, one that moves us to action and inspires feeling. For Scorpio to truly embody its power, it must acknowledge its vulnerability and learn to trust in what it can control and honor what it must surrender to. Empowerment is not the absence of vulnerability but the awareness of desire, the willingness to be inspired, and the compassion to offer healing and forgiveness.
Everything does not Happens for a Reason
Everything does not happen for a reason and why this is not a trauma informed statement. The healing power of meaning making and the logo therapy technique.
I will never accept that ‘everything happens for a reason,’ but as someone who believes in the power of faith, and someone who desires to assert my own sense of free will, I have chosen to believe that I can make meaning from anything.
That is not to say I can make sense of tragedy or justify the unjust, but in an effort to find peace, I can accept that I become stronger through the endurance of the catastrophe.
As someone who has survived sexual assault, I can hardly imagine a way I could be convinced that what happened to me, what happens to more than a third of the women in the world, was reasonable or happened for a reason. Neither am I willing to attach to a victim identity. Instead, I have chosen to make meaning of my experiences. This practice of meaning-making is by no means my own innovation, in fact, I imagine it is as ancient a practice as the development of mythology. Just as myth is the creation of a story, the telling of a tale for the understanding and sense-making of an entire culture, so too is meaning-making, the process of creating a story from the fragmented, chaotic, and seemingly meaningless parts of our inner culture.
Our own narratives are, more often than not, a reflection of the myths of our culture.
The real challenge comes when we attempt to liberate ourselves from the toxic mythologies of our own cultures. The stories of blame and shame seem to punish us just for being born into a world full of dangerous and violent narratives.
In Man’s Search for Meaning, a book I cannot recommend highly enough, Viktor Frankl recounts the atrocities of surviving the Holocaust and explains the therapeutic technique he developed. He refrains from many of the narratives that depict the incredible violence of this genocide, instead focusing on the opportunities for meaning-making that he would develop into the therapeutic technique called logotherapy, the therapy of making meaning. As with all senseless violence, there is absolutely no justification or reasoning that can be used to address the Holocaust, instead, the author makes meaning of who he is and how he became who he was meant to be. Despite the irreconcilable losses and violence that Frankl endured, he was able to shift his perspective from one of victim of circumstance to one of purpose. His purpose? To survive. To endure the impossible, to go on to make meaningful written works, and to fulfill his sense of purpose as a therapist with a greater understanding of traumatic experiences than most. Not only did he live on to create meaningful therapeutic techniques and texts, but Frankl credits his ability to maintain a sense of meaning as the reason he was able to survive torture and enslavement in the Nazi internment camps.
Frankl seems to have created an inner narrative that could sustain him even in the face of the murder of his wife, parents, and all of his family. Not only this, he maintained a sense of purpose and trust in his purpose whether he survived the internment camps or not. He continued to provide medical care and relief to his fellow prisoners even as he was tortured and fell terribly ill himself. In the face of senseless violence, he stayed connected to his own reasons for living, his own meaning of it all. Though there was no reason Viktor Frankl should have faced the devastation he endured, from his own sense of free will and belief, he created meaning and purpose, tools that helped him survive spiritually and literally.
In The Myth of Normal, Gabor Maté, an infant when he and his mother fled Nazi-occupied Hungary, the renowned physician and author speaks to both the empowering and disempowering qualities of myth. He begins his book with a critique of the modern myth of productivism and the symptoms of ill health we have normalized in the name of work, propped up by certain concerning practices in modern medicine.
He demonstrates the power of myth and how significantly it impacts human behavior and therefore our culture and sense of health and well-being.
Finally, he calls on the power of myth to guide us to more sustainable and regenerative behavior. He points to how, generations ago, people took lessons of moral obligation from mythology, learning how to grow food sustainably and treat one another well from ancient mythological resources. Without regenerative cultural stories to guide us, what meaning do we make of our experience as over-worked and highly traumatized beings, paying handsomely to live in a culture that challenges our health at every turn?
While Nietzsche said “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” he couldn’t have meant that trauma itself makes for stronger stock. Instead, the overcoming of adversity, the growth in spite of violence, and pain is the fire where strength is forged.
No one should have to be so strong as to look assault or any trauma in the face with the determination to go on, yet so many of us are called to this strength training. We face it, hopefully with the support system that reminds us that nothing we have ever done deserves the trauma we have received. The kind of fortitude that we must find within us is our reward granted in the face of a punishing society full of false and toxic narratives.