Let’s talk about sex.

There, I got your attention…right?

Now, let’s talk about money.

Not so interesting, I’m guessing.

The thing is, though, more relationships are cemented and broken on the subject of these two factors than anything else.

Yep. Sex and money.

Money, you might understand, but how can sex be a deal breaker? Sex is fun. Sex belongs in the 5^th house where we fall in love and hook up and shag until we can’t see straight. Right?

Yes…and no.

Sex also belongs in the 8^th house- along with death, taxes, other peoples money and the assets of the relationship. I guess in a way, sex becomes one of those assets.

Eighth house sex, Scorpio sex, is about sex for grown ups, the sex that really means something, the sex that keeps you together, urges you to go forth and populate and the sex that can break you up. Relationship deal-breaker sex.

The fact is, in long term or committed relationships, sex is always an issue that both parties have to address and make decisions on.

It is extremely rare in any long term relationship to find both parties happy with the status quo- one wants more or less than what they’re currently getting.

Failure to address the situation maturely leads to frustrations- depending of course on how important sex is to you personally.

Then there’s the temptation of outside sex- 5^th house sex, the sex you take a risk on, exciting sex.

See what I mean? Sex can be a deal-breaker.

I’m told a lot: “if I could just be in a relationship, all my problems would be over”… the thing is, falling in love is fun, relationship is serious- it’s why Saturn is exalted in Libra.

Don’t get me wrong- relationship is wonderful. It’s enhancing, it’s rewarding, it’s comforting, it’s the stuff life is made of. It’s also bloody hard work- Saturn territory.

Sometimes you make compromises that you don’t want to make, sometimes you accept situations you don’t want to accept, sometimes you do things you don’t want to do. It’s that point in the middle between Aries and Libra. It’s Cancer and Capricorn- the compromises you make may because shared history and shared parenthood may be more important than the issue on the table. It may be because together you are more secure than apart. It may be because the whole is greater than the sum of its two parts.

Then again, sometimes deal-breakers come into play…we all have them. The hard part is maturely assessing the situation and making a balanced decision to stay or to go.

This is where Saturn comes into it.

Our relationships go through a Saturn cycle too.

After having prepared our roots in the 4^th, got our act together communication wise in the 3^rd, known what was important to us in the 2^nd (and, more importantly what our self worth is), and how we need to grow up in the 1^st, we fall in love in the 5^th house.

It doesn’t stop at the falling in love stage- although that’s where the romance novels end. No one is interested in the boring bits that come next.

Sixth house, business as usual. This is where the newness has started to wear off and you’re getting to know the ordinary stuff. How each of you spend your days, your work routines.

You might start to leave things at each others houses, little stuff at first- a toothbrush, spare undies. Then you might do other ordinary things- stay in instead of going out, a t shirt in bed instead of something more sexy. Things get comfortable.

You’re ready for commitment. The two are now one. You are in the 7^th house. There is a fresh burst of energy. There might be a wedding or a moving in together. You’re a partnership. You’ve grown up and accepted the maturity of relationship. Now you can live happily ever after…right?

And then, just when everything looks perfect, along comes a new challenge. The 8^th house. Scorpio stuff. The merging of assets, the relationship budgets, sexually transmitted debt.

You no longer have your problems, you have his too. It’s no longer just your work that you worry about, it’s his too. It’s no longer just your family to drive you mad, there’s his too. There’s juggling of time together, commitments made, who’s turn it is to spend the holidays with their family.

This is why Venus is in detriment in Scorpio- Venus likes to feel good…and falling in love feels great- it’s why we all do it. The real emotional reality is different. More emotional maturity is required for this stage of the game than what has come before.

More than what caused you to hook up, more than what got you through when the newness dulled, more than what made you stand in front of someone (or each other) and make a commitment to each other. More than all of that. And, if you want the relationship to survive, there is no shortcut, no skipping of this step.

Scorpio territory is deep emotional territory, and that requires deep, emotional maturity.

And now Saturn is in Scorpio.

Look at where Scorpio is in your chart- this is where you need to bring emotional maturity. This is where you are now asked to get real.

As with all things Saturn, there is no point looking for a shortcut, skipping a step, shirking on the work. It might be painful, but all things worthwhile are.

For me the first half of this transit will be 8^th house stuff. Saturn has been here for a while now- us Pisceans take a while to get a message. Interestingly, I think I’m finally understanding what that message is- at least for me. Saturns’ transit of Virgo, the 7th house and Libra and the 8th house has not been an easy one. I physically felt the weight lift when Saturn moved out of the 7th into the 8th, but the focus on relationship has still been tough- for a lot of reasons.

Look also at what Saturn means in your chart- where is he? What houses does he rule? These will now have an added emotional intensity and focus. Saturn is no longer interested in the concept of relationship- he is now passionately concerned with the life and death reality of it.

Want more on Saturn in Scorpio?

Check out:

Better the Devil You Know

Climb Every Mountain

Saturn in Scorpio- the missing piece

Saturn in Scorpio- the technical details

When a Scorpio finally gives their heart and their trust (usually the 2 are interconnected), they expect that you will do the same. Scorpio doesn’t just love, they demand complete merging. With that is an assumption that you feel everything as intensely as they do. Like all water Mercuries, there is an expectation that the channels of non verbal communication are wide open. This translates to, they don’t only assume that you can read their minds, it simply doesn’t occur to them that you can’t.

When he was a toddler, no grown up was brave enough to tell Mercury in Scorpio to use his words. So he doesn’t… That isn’t to say he doesn’t know how to. Everything he does say means something- and he assumes the same of you. Don’t say it unless you intend to stand by it.

This is one of the most razor sharp minds in the zodiac. He knows how to dig deep to get at the information that needs to be got at. He will mine for data to support a point of view or to use in order to make a decision. Because of this he is very rarely wrong. On the rare occasions that he is proven to be incorrect, he will simply find more data to back up his original viewpoint. Scorpio went to the John Howard School of Apologies*. Having said that, he fights the fights he will win and will only push a point when it can be proven.

My Scorpio Hubby can cast his eyes over a balance sheet and without even picking up a calculator announce where money is being taken out of a company. He dissects weekly sales and revenue results in a second and pinpoints the errors in two- seconds that is. I had a Scorpio Boss who works in a similar way, but with different numbers, different data. My Dad has always been able to do the same thing. Scorpio and Scorpio Mercury have a brain built for investigation and forensics.

The Scorpio mind is made up of little expandable and labelled compartments within which data is stored until it is needed. This comes in brilliantly handy when it comes to taking revenge on someone who did something at some point in the past or to store in case someone does something at some point in the future.

Slow to trust, and of the guilty until proven innocent camp, Scorpio can tend towards paranoia. He may say he trusts you (and if you have earned his loyalty he will defend you to the end), but mistrusts the motives and intentions of those around you.  If, however, you abuse that trust, he will check your phone messages, the numbers you have called, your diary and your excuses. You may not know he has done so, (and he will deny it in a most believable way) but the information will be stored away- just in case. Digging up the dirt, so to speak.

In the Scorpio mind shades of grey do not exist. The colour scheme is black and white. And as for compromise- what is that again? Yet for all this, when it comes to problem solving and weeding out the good from the bad and deciding exactly who is worth your trust and who will kick you in the guts, Scorpio is the one you want on your side.

As a friend she is loyal and usually right, as an employee she is insightful, and as an enemy pure Machiavellian. Scorpio likes to keep her friends close and her enemies closer. Those who warrant the famous Scorpio wariness will be monitored closely, with absolute inscrutability until further investigations prove their trust worthiness (or otherwise). Scorpio is not scared to launch a pre-emptive self defensive attack (and yes, this actually does make sense) if they feel it is necessary.  The great risk in being careful with your trust is being left with nothing but a new set of lies (thanks Mark Knopfler) at the end of the day.

Scorpio doesn’t offer anything up. You have to earn it. Nor does he do anything or say anything without intention. You just have to work out what that intention is. When a Scorpio calls you out of the blue to talk about nothing, what they are really calling for is so that you can ask the questions that need to be asked so they can tell you without telling you what they need to tell you. If you can speak Scorpio, the exact words don’t need to be said- they are felt.

Do you think we need to talk about this?


I don’t know, do you think we need to talk about this?


If you don’t think we need to, I guess we don’t need to.

You’re right, we don’t need to talk about it…

It has all been said and understood.

*Reference to a previous and very long running Australian Prime Minister who famously had “difficulties” with the word “sorry”.

This sound like you? If you have a Scorpio Sun or Ascendant, this is probably the way you think (if you are honest with yourself). If you have Mercury in Scorpio, your powers of investigation will be remarkable. Likewise if you have Mercury in close aspect to Pluto, you will also tend to think like a Scorpio- the extent of which will be determined by the aspect.

And this weeks song? Private Investigations by Dire Straits…of course. Check out the clip on YouTube here.

I drafted my Saturn in Scorpio piece last Saturday.

It started as a Saturn in Scorpio piece and is more about Saturn in the 8^th house, and the 8^th house and relationships.

I guess that’s Saturn in Scorpio.

I’ve revised and tweaked and delayed pressing the publish button ever since.

I don’t know why. I’ll probably do it later today.

I think part of the reason is because a couple of things occurred to me while I was painting yesterday. I’m re-doing Miss 14’s room- it was a hot pink. Now it’s just undercoat white- so far it’s taken 2 coats to cover the pink.

Back when we first painted this particular room for her, it coincided with her moving out of a “little girls” room into something that had a larger wardrobe, room for a corner desk, a place that she could call her own. I think she was about 8 or 9.

A relatively dark room, I insisted on cream walls, but said she could choose one colour as a feature. She chose hot pink- the same colour that was in the middle of a frangipani. Hot pink it was.

My Scorpio husband was horrified. ‘What about a nice dusky pink?’ he asked.

‘Dad,’ she said, ‘do Mum & I look like dusky pink kind of girls?’

‘But what about when you want to change it?’ he said to me.

I shrugged, ‘so I change it. A couple of coats of undercoat- how hard can it be?’

He was the same when I did the lounge dining room in 3 slightly different shades of William Morris green (I wanted it to feel like a piece of William Morris wallpaper made me feel). Or when I changed the feature colour in the family room last year. In fact the standing joke in our house is that the walls can fall down and the amount of paint on them will hold them up.

This time the job is harder because I’m also gradually re-doing all the trims (from lime wash stain to the same cream as most of the walls) in the house as I paint that room. That means sanding, taping, prepping and glossing each skirting board, window trim and wardrobe surround and doors. It’s a big job.

‘So what if you don’t like it?’ he asks.

‘I’ll think of something else,’ I say.

‘I don’t see what’s wrong with leaving the trims as they are,’ he says.

‘I’ll tell you what’s wrong- it makes the house look very late 80s and I want a more modern look.’

‘But why does she need to change her room? You only painted it 2 years ago.’

‘It was about 6 years ago, she’s grown out of the design and wants to try something new.’

‘I don’t see what’s wrong with keeping everything cream,’ he muttered.

It’s not the colour that scares him- he usually loves it when I’m finished (so much so that before long it becomes a colour choice that was his idea)- it’s the change. Actually, I’ll take that one step further, it’s the fear that the change won’t be enough and will need to be faced again.

And it occurred to me- this is what has everyone so afraid of with Saturn in Scorpio. I associate fear with Saturn, yet I don’t recall hearing this level of fear with Saturn in Libra, or Saturn in Virgo. But with Saturn in Scorpio, it’s real fear. It’s a deep, dark, I don’t really want to know what is lurking under the bed type of fear.

Scorpio and her opposite Taurus are the most change resistant of the fixed signs. With Taurus, the status quo makes like cement- good or bad, you hold onto it. With Scorpio, the fear and paranoia of the unknown has you emotionally attaching to whatever it is that needs to be altered- simply because the outcome is known.

To do nothing is to assume the outcome and to assume power over the future. There I said it.

Doing nothing is safe, but leaves no room, no potential for growth. No possibility to bring colour into neutrality.

Photographers use a technique for exposure that runs from a midpoint known as 18% grey. Focusing on the midpoint, the point of neutrality (they use a grey card, but you can use grass or the back of your hand) allows you to bring the whole picture into correct exposure. Sometimes though, over or under exposing brings some incredible results. Life’s like that. It’s the shade and textures we see from taking risks or letting things just unfold that make the picture interesting.

I’ve stopped doing relationship horary charts for now. Not because they don’t work, but because the very point behind the questions being asked is to determine an outcome before taking the step.

This is different to an electional question where you are looking to choose the best possible time for a venture you have embarked on. I get that. But a question asking something like “should I ask X out and if we go out do we have a future?” is denying yourself the opportunity to experience something.

Sure, if you go out with X, it might end in heartache, but isn’t feeling something the point of life in all of its multi coloured and shitty splendour?

It’s like sticking to a metaphorical checklist and potentially missing out on the one man that mightn’t meet the criteria, but might be one helluva great time. It’s like choosing to stay at home instead of asking X out- simply because it’s safe and the outcome is known.

During the Saturn in Libra period many of us looked hard at our existing relationships and relationship patterns. The data is in and has been weighed up. For some of us decisions have already been made and acted upon, others are still doing the latte vs espresso weighing up of alternatives.

Saturn in Scorpio is about having the bollocks to do something about it. Stay or go- that’s your call, but don’t allow the decision to be made from a position of status quo and fear of an unknown outcome. Make the decision because it is the right one for you to be making and acting on now. If you stay, re-commit. If you leave, leave. If you want to go out with X, ask him out. Who knows, it could work, it could be fun.

Hubby just popped his head around the door, ‘Hey Darlin, I was just thinking how bright that room is now that the pink wall is gone. What colour are you painting it?’

‘Turquoise.’

‘What’s wrong with a nice soft mint green?’

‘Do we look like mint green type of girls?’

‘I don’t see what’s wrong with leaving it white.’

‘Who knows, you might like it…’

Photo credit: wolv for istock

We have a New Moon on Thursday morning (Sydney time), this time in Scorpio.

That means that the next couple of days we are in the dark, or balsamic phase of the Moon. The time of the month we finish off, pack away, banish the banishables. Seriously, is there any better time of the year to do some serious elimination work than at the Scorpio New Moon? Scorpio is, after all, the sign that rules getting rid of waste, shall we say- elimination of the crap that doesn’t do you any good.

Scorpio is that shadowy place where we pack away all of our deepest fears and our deepest desires. It is everything we repress, keep a lid on, hide away, yearn for. Scorpio is pleasure and it is pain, with a very fine line between the two. Scorpio is where we go below the surface to find meaning, solutions, complete healing and transformation.

Scorpio is also about power and facing those fears in order to get to your talents and achieve those desires. And there is nothing that has more power over you than fear.  Eric Francis wrote in Planet Waves last week: “most people who are scared are actually horny but don’t know what to do about it.” I would also add that fear gets in the way of you doing anything about it.

Fear also provides you with the completely mistaken idea that you are in control. So, you stay safe, you say no, you build boundaries around yourself- to stop people getting in and to stop yourself from getting out. And all the while you fool yourself that in doing so you have control. Until you don’t.

This New Moon falls at 3 Scorpio 3’.  This is a super-charged Martian Scorpio New Moon. Why? For reasons I am about to get a little traditional and technical over. Mars, as we know, is the traditional ruler of Scorpio, and 3 Scorpio falls in terms, face and triplicity ruled by Mars. In other words, this New Moon is super diginified by Mars- has a real Mars feel to it. (If you want to know more about traditional rulerships and other dignities, drop me a line. A good reference for this stuff is John Frawley’s books.)

Now for the Moon herself, in Scorpio, she is in the sign of her fall- in a place where she doesn’t operate in a way she feels comfortable. In fact, it is exactly the opposite. Rather than being nutritive and emotionally comfortable, in Scorpio she is penetrative, paranoid and divinely focused.

She is also ravenously hungry. Hungry for desire, hungry for passion, hungry for power, hungry for control, hungry for revenge- hungry. Sometimes it might feel like more than you can handle, that the temptation is just too…tempting.

The hunger keeps you awake at night. You dream it, you replay missed opportunities in your head- things you should have said and done, things you wish you hadn’t said and done. The implications, the complications of diving in too deep.

We can do two things with this appetite:

• Bury the feelings deep down. Dig a big hole in the middle of your soul, throw in the stuff that scares the crap out of you, but that you want so much, heap in 6 tonne of soil and secure it with a big, heavy wrought iron lid…and a key. Then sit back and try not to think about what you have missed out on. Let the discontent fester as you feed it from the fridge or the wine cellar- feeding all the gaps that are left when you locked your desires away. Create a few excuses- a few logical reasons why you haven’t fulfilled your potential, grabbed those opportunities, told that one person how you really feel about them.
• Strip Fear of the power you have given her and use it to fuel your courage to do the things that fear has stopped you from doing in the past. Reclaim that power for yourself. Eliminate those beliefs, behaviours and people that are doing you no good. Let them go- sure you may miss them, but not for long. Look deep into yourself and see the truth- you can handle it.  Then get out there and do it- all of it. Seriously, how hard can it be?

Wow, that’s all a little philosophical and astro-guffy, but do you get my meaning? Essentially this New Moon is asking you to either do the stuff that scares the shit out of you, or bury it. It’s that simple. Just remember- the shit you do bury has a habit of getting dug back up- and then it’s all decayed and manky and even more scary and unpleasant than when it went in the ground. Your call.

For me? This New Moon is smack bang on my 8^th house Mars- which sits happy and darkly proud at 3 Scorpio 7’. Yep- it’s that close. It also completes the cycle of the last Full Moon for me.

Let’s just say there is some examination of the relative toxicity of “stuff” going on in my head. I know there are moves that need to be made. But then, there are lots of “what ifs” hanging about as well.

What about you? Any close hits? Any planets or major chart points at or around 1-5 Scorpio, Taurus, Leo or Aquarius? What about 2-4 Pisces, Cancer, Virgo or Capricorn? Naturally a direct hit is un-mistakeable, but the closer the orb, the more likely you will feel it.

New Moon is exact at around 6.56am Thursday 27/10 in Sydney, 8.56am Thursday 27/10 in NZ, 3.56am Thursday 27/10 on the West Coast of Australia and into Malaysia, Hong Kong. By my calculations (and remember details have never been my strong suit) that makes it around 12.56pm on the West Coast of the US and 3.56pm in New York and 8.56pm in London.

© Christos Georghiou | Dreamstime.com

On the first episode of Grand Designs Australia the story centred around the reconstruction of a very special house in Gippsland. Reconstruction because the house was completely destroyed in the Black Saturday Bushfires of January 2009- after having been completed for just 6 days. Yep, two years worth of blood, sweat and tears all gone in an inferno. Six days. And afterwards all that was left was a concrete slab, a burned out shell and a shattered spirit.

What was really special about this place and its owner/builder was the fact that rather than bulldozing what was left, he chose to recycle what he could to ensure that all the embodied energy of the house was retained. Panes of glass which amazingly withstood the incredible temperatures, warped steel- anything which could be salvaged was. The result was an amazing transformation of what had previously been ruined. Phoenix from the flames…or in the case from the ashes.

The owner understood that the damage was now part of the story of the house. Sure, changes were made. Fire protection was installed to ensure it could never happen again. The owner learned the lessons that needed to be learned, protected himself for the future, but bravely faced that future. As the ruins of the house were transformed, the owners’ healing process was able to begin.

This concept was one also explored in one of my favourite scenes in the movie Eat Pray Love where Liz was sitting in some ruins of old Rome and realised that no matter how badly things were ruined, new structures were able to be built up around them. Through complete destruction comes transformation. The cycle continues.

This is the key message to Scorpio. Scorpio is death. Scorpio is elimination. Through death comes re-birth. Through elimination comes an opportunity for healing. By making room in your life, you allow something else to rush in. Scorpio is transformation.

Scorpio is the dark side. Her passions are volcanic, beginning deep below the surface. Scorpio seeks the ultimate truth, ultimate power and ultimate passion. Intense doesn’t begin to describe her. Wherever Scorpio falls in your chart is where these tendencies will be displayed. It is where your desires are pursued with absolute unflinching and completely direct focus.

Scorpio is that critical point between life and death where nothing else matters and everything comes down to the rawest and most honest truth- and nothing but the truth. And before I hear you say in your best Jack Nicholson voice “You can’t handle the truth.” Let me tell you, Scorpio can and will.

Think about fear… just for a minute. Go on… what are you really scared of? Is it death, dying, aging, crowds, rejection, heartbreak, feeling too much? Think about that fear, go to the root of it and below into the murky depths of your soul. Now you are seeing and feeling Scorpio. This is the place where our most basic fears and instincts live. This is the deepest and most intensely authentic part of you. But before you run away, this is also the area where you have the most potential to effect transformation.

It is this mix of intensity and transformational potential which makes us turn away from Scorpio, and indeed from the 8^th house. It is this fear and the association with life, death and sex that also gives Scorpio, the most deeply darkly emotional of the water signs, a bad reputation. As with all signs, there is a positive and a shadow side to Scorpio, but often it is only the shadow cliché which we associate with Scorpio and which we hold to be true. This makes sense – Scorpio is so incredibly guarded and private that we may only see beneath the surface when a line is crossed.  Few other signs have the healing or transformational promise of Scorpio. Few other signs attach so completely and intensely.

Scorpio is well known for his penchant for obsession, compulsion and revenge. Scorpio is well known for his magnetism and sexual attraction. Scorpio is well known for his focused intension to a goal. Scorpio is also well known for his tendency to paranoia. This is all part of the defence mechanism.

No one can get to your soul, your heart or your truth as effectively as Scorpio.  Unfortunately, this can also mean that Scorpio has the potential to hurt and damage you should they choose to. Scorpio struggles with the fear that comes with these extremes- the fear of feeling too much, the fear of relinquishing control, and the fear of letting go. Above all these is the fear of letting someone in- to do so gives that person the power to hurt, and few signs hurt as deeply and as completely as Scorpio. Fear is a protection mechanism, fear is a defensive mechanism, and very often fear is a desire that you just don’t know how to handle. For Scorpio, very often a pre-emptive strike represents, in her mind, the best possible defence.

If you have the Sun in Scorpio, you will be motivated to experience intense emotional connections- merging with someone else in a way which transcends the physical. It is this, and the fact that Scorpio rules the sexual organs and the organs of elimination in the body, that also gives rise to the cliché of Scorpio being the most sexual of signs. But sex for Scorpio is about more than physical release and pleasure. It is about la petite mort, the little death- the raw transformative experience that complete physical and emotional merging can bring.

It can, however, also be about the darker motivations of control, obsession and possession- Scorpio does not like to share and can guard that which is “his” with jealous paranoia. Feeling with the intensity of Scorpio is also to expose the soft inner core and to risk betrayal, abandonment and heartbreak. Scorpio is, as a result, slow to trust and will not do so until all data has been gathered, examined and you have proven yourself and given yourself body and soul into his keeping. In return he will give himself- not something to be taken lightly.

In the meantime, it pays to listen carefully to your intuition. If Scorpio is interested in you, she will be subtle. The signals themselves are a test. Opening up is to risk rejection. Instead Scorpio needs you to prove your intentions and reciprocation by risking yourself first.

If you have planets in Scorpio, whatever is represented by those planets will be where this plays out in your life. With plenty of Pisces planets, my intuition is pretty good, but with Mars in Scorpio in the 8^th house natally, my Scorpio hubby and I circled each other for some time before we finally hooked up. I was reading his signals, he was reading mine, we both wanted it, but I was not going to risk rejection or the friendship we had built up by making the 1^st move and nor was he.

We only got together because a mutual friend arranged for us both to go to a movie with her and when she (deliberately) didn’t turn up we found ourselves on neutral ground.   Twenty odd years on, I guess I would have to say the risk was worth it.

And the song for this sign? Phoenix From the Flames by Mr Scorpio Moon- the gorgeously inked Robbie Williams.

Silence shields the pain
So you say nothing
Feel they’ve rigged the game
And you’re done with lovin’
Only you can see the darkness in the northern lights

As always, the usual fine print- all rights to the artist & no copyright infringement intended…