Scorpio New Moon -- November 2026

Scorpio has been a busy place recently, with both Venus and Mercury stationing for their retrograde journeys there. All this retrograde motion by personal planets is churning the deep, usually still waters of the Scorpio section of your chart. Like the tidal ebb and flow of seawater into marshland, and boots wading in, disturbing sediment and muck.

This New Moon, along with El Niño conditions and Kelvin waves from global warming, is bringing exceptionally high king tides to Northern California and other coastal areas around the U.S. The floods invoked by this New Moon can be felt on a personal level as well. 

The New Moon occurs at 11:01 PM PST on Sunday, November 8th, 2026. Near midnight on the chart and co-present with the IC, the subterranean angle, this lunation goes even deeper than one would expect of an already seemingly fathomless Scorpio Moon. The New Moon is a restart point in the Moon’s cycle with the Sun. The Sun and Moon come together, a conjunction that purifies the Lunar energies and allows a seed to germinate in the deep, rich darkness of a Moonless night.

In my location, at the moment of this lunation’s perfect conjunction, the fixed, fiery sign of Leo will be rising on the Eastern horizon with Jupiter conjunct the South Node and Mars. Mars rules this Scorpio New Moon and it shares mutual reception with the Sun who rules Leo. This is a special relationship, a form of accidental dignity that elevates both planets in places where they might not otherwise have strength.

Mars is the planet of taking action, aggression, severance, conflict, and confrontation. In Leo, Mars fights for our true identity and the permission to shine. With buoyant, expansive, righteous Jupiter on its side, there is a boundless sense of heroism. The South Node in this mix creates some confusion or lack of clarity, and it also dematerializes the situation, perhaps speaking to a less tangible thing we may heroically be fighting for. Maybe it is an ideal we are fighting for?

Whatever the hero’s journey actually is for you, it’s for sure being fed by the deepest, darkest, most personal feelings and aspirations you have. I’m reminded of the myth of Cupid and Psyche, as told by the Latin prose writer Apuleius in the 2nd century CE in his book The Metamorphoses (better known as The Golden Ass). 

The Myth of Cupid and Psyche

In this story, Psyche is a mortal princess whose beauty is so incredible that people begin to worship her instead of the Goddess Venus. This enrages Venus, and she sends her son, the wily God Cupid, who forces people and deities alike to fall in love with the prick of his arrow, to shoot Psyche and compel her to fall in love with someone or something despicable and completely unworthy of her beauty.

When Cupid sees the beauty of Psyche, he is so startled that he accidentally pierces his own flesh with his devastating arrow. He falls hopelessly in love with her and schemes to have her secreted away to his palace, where they are married without Cupid ever revealing who or what he is to his bride.

He repeatedly insists that Psyche not ever look upon him, telling her in their nighttime meetings that her curiosity will only be her undoing. For a mortal to gaze upon a God is typically a fatal mistake. Her jealous sisters convince her that she must actually be married to a monster since he refuses to reveal himself. 

One night her curiosity gets the better of her, and she takes an oil lamp to gaze upon her mysterious beloved as he sleeps. She is struck by the beauty and perfection of her God husband and also pricks herself accidentally with his arrow. As she leans in to kiss him, a drop of hot oil spills from the lamp and burns his shoulder. He awakes with a start and flees in confusion and anger at her disobedience.

Psyche is pregnant and abandoned to the cruel punishments of Venus, who forces her to complete four seemingly impossible tasks which Venus hopes will destroy her. With each trial, Psyche is aided by some unexpected force – an army of ants, a talking reed, a sacred eagle, and a talking tower. Her final trial is an Underworld journey where she must ask Proserpina, Queen of the Underworld, for a small portion of her beauty which will be brought to Venus in a sealed box.

Once again, curiosity gets the best of Psyche, and she can’t help but open the box. Inside, she doesn’t find more beauty, but instead a death-like sleep à la Sleeping Beauty. By this time Cupid recovers from his burn and gets wise to his mother’s horrible machinations. He escapes the confines of his mother’s palace and comes to the aid of his beloved Psyche. He wakes her with another prick of his arrow and petitions Jupiter, King of the Olympian Gods, to ratify their marriage and bless his wife with immortality, which Jupiter does by giving Mercury a cup of ambrosia to deliver to Psyche.

We can see the seeds of so many romantic fairy tales in this ancient story – whispers of Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty, classic and familiar tales that follow the hero journey arc from the perspective of the female protagonist. Telescoping backwards in time from Apuleius, we reach the original divine feminine hero's journey in the Sumerian myth of Inanna from 1900 -1600 BCE. Inanna is known to correspond directly with the planet Venus, and her descent myth reflects the planet's retrograde journey.

From a modern, psychological lens, the myth is fascinating. Psyche translates to Soul in Latin and Cupid to Love. This story is about the experiences the soul endures in its pursuit of love. Psyche not only has to toil at seemingly hopeless tasks, but she also has to travel to the Underworld and experience a form of death in order to be reunited with her love.

The planet Venus on her current retrograde journey to the Underworld and back, ironically, reminds me of Psyche. Asleep in her home sign of Libra, she’s at the point in the story when she’s returned from the Underworld and opened the forbidden box. Venus in retrograde is currently slowed way down, getting ready to station direct on the 13th. She is caught in a death-like sleep, tucked comfortably, bound in her own bed in her own home. Mars, the warrior planet, feels like Cupid with his dangerous, pointy arrow. Mars is making a sextile aspect - a supportive, Venusian aspect - from the bound of Mercury in Leo to Venus in Libra. That retrograde, psychopomp Mercury, as he also does in the myth, is aiding Cupid by handing Psyche her cup of immortalizing (South Node) ambrosia from Jupiter.

This lunation asks us to consider our soul’s deepest, darkest yearnings, the types of dreams that make us cringe and simultaneously light us up. The erotic power of desire goes beyond the sexual, pulling our soul toward what makes life not only worth living but capable of being immortalized through what we create. What ideals will immortalize your soul? What flavor ambrosia is in your cup? What is it that will wake up your soul? Who along your journey is there to support you? What magical allies will help you with your impossible tasks?

Sit quietly in the darkness of this Moonless night. When the Moon is absent, the stars shine brighter. Feel the immense power of that invisible Moon as it raises your inner tides. Do not fear the flood. When the water recedes, what treasures will be left upon your shores?