Twelve Signs of the Zodiac: Deep Diving into Scorpio

The Sign of Scorpio is symbolic of our New England fall: trees burst with energy showing off all their rich colors only to fall and return to the earth. People born under this sign understand its symbol of the phoenix rising from its own ashes. Pluto rules the sign – when that planet makes an alignment to your chart you also can experience the effects of change and regeneration. Keywords for this fixed water sign are: passionate, perceptive, resourceful, possessive,  determined,  and focused.

Healing for Healers

Almost twenty years ago, a group of healing professionals began meeting in Yarmouth Port for peer teaching and supervision. Over time, like the phoenix, we evolved into a healing for the healer’s group sharing our lives and our faith. Four years ago we said goodbye to one of our original members, Don, who moved to Florida. When COVID hit we lost two of our “regulars” and regained two of our “off Cape” friends Don and Marilyn.

Don, a retired Presbyterian minister, contributed a deep resonant spirit of caring, depth, and aliveness to our gatherings.  Don created “good trouble” reaching out to make our society more just. A gifted listener, he was comfortable with his own vulnerability and that of others.   Each week we persisted to get him on Zoom with his iPad. We celebrated his 90th birthday last winter shipping colorful cookies to his home. He was proud of his 45+ years of sobriety knowing what it was to dive into deeper waters and emerge whole and reborn. Every so often he wasn’t able to connect usually because of medical appointments and the accident he had when a man plowed into his car this summer. But he always returned… except for the last two months.

This week we got news Don had died the end of September. What happened? His dear wife Jane, who was such an integral part of his ministry, has memory loss. Annie remembered this poem shared in group last time by Mary Oliver. Don would have liked it; he always had us  read a poem twice  so it would sink deeper into our souls. When I requested permission to quote a couple of Oliver’s lyrics for my book, I discovered that she only allowed a poem to be quoted in its entirety.

Here’s to the memory of two great spirits:

In Blackwater Woods By Mary Oliver

Look, the trees are turning their own bodies

into pillars of light,

are giving off the rich fragrance

of cinnamon and fulfillment,

the long tapers of cattails

are bursting and floating away

over the blue shoulders of the ponds,

and every pond, no matter what its name is,

is nameless now.

Every year everything I have ever learned in my lifetime leads back to this:

the fires and the black river of loss

whose other side is salvation,

whose meaning none of us will ever know.

To live in this world you must be able to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it against your bones

knowing your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.

Listen to Pavia sing “Les Feuilles Mortes” (The Autumn Leaves) by Johnny Mercer, Sun in Scorpio

(composed by Joseph Kosma in 1945,  original French lyrics by Jacques Prévert) 

  Pavia