For Women in the Underworld : Scorpio New Moon of 11/20/25

This is the season of darkness.

In Greek mythology, Hades abducts Persephone and takes her to the underworld. She descends against her will. She returns as Queen.

In mystery schools, indigenous rites of passage, and in all initiatory traditions: this journey was recreated. We died symbolically to be reborn transformed.

Certain events in life will force this descent into the underworld - whether we choose it or not.

The burnout that reduces to ash.

The illness that hollows you out.

The separation that destroys everything built.

The grief that splits the heart.

The financial collapse that strips illusions to the bone.

If you are crossing one of these passages now: you are exactly where you need to be. At the heart of an initiation, deep in the underworld.

I wrote this for you.

For those who descend, who search, who prepare to rise again.

A ritual awaits you further in this text - a path from this New Moon to the Winter Solstice when the Light returns.

This New Moon gathers Sun, Moon, retrograde Mercury, and Lilith in Scorpio's depths. A drum beats under the stone. Spirit says: "I open the door deep inside your bones, where abuse stole the memory of your sacred fire. Descend. Walk with those who descend beside you. Take back what was taken. The world awaits your return with the power you had forgotten."

The Grand Water Trine forms a cauldron. Water does not fight: it erodes, it pierces, it takes everything back.

Neptune and Uranus at 29°29' close a cycle: the mystic and the revolutionary hold space together before Neptune enters Aries in January 2026.

The nodal axis at 15° Virgo/Pisces places us face to face with the essential: releasing the savior archetype and turning toward the Great Void.

Every ending is an initiation with the promise of rebirth, if we accept to descend to the depths.

This New Moon opens a portal.

As the last leaves fall in the northern hemisphere, one question matters:

What must die so we can be reborn?

--

SABIAN SYMBOL FOR 28–29° SCORPIO

“An Indian woman pleading to the chief for the lives of her children.”

A woman negotiating with a power that holds what she loves most. This is for every woman who has poured time, energy, years into holding a family, relationship, team, business, only to face injustice or abandonment while the other walks away stronger.

It is the woman pushed out of her job, dismissed by the medical system, unheard by family or partner, unseen by those she carried.

Mercury retrograde conjunct the New Moon in this degree flips the story. What if these “children” are not literal

but psychic fragments? The most innocent parts, buried under trauma, burnout, impossible loyalties, survival-pleasing.

Suddenly the scene shifts:

it is no longer about saving someone else, but about protecting what is most authentic, most intact, most ancient within us.

--

MERCURY AS HERMES: GUIDE BETWEEN THE WORLDS

Retrograde Mercury in Scorpio carries the essence of Hermes, guide of souls - the only god free to pass between the living and the dead. He was the one who found Persephone in the underworld and brought the message to Demeter.

According to Demetra George, the Eleusinian Mysteries (likely of Egyptian origin) initiated through this myth: descent, quest, ascent. The initiates drank the kykeon, descended into darkness, confronted their mortality, and emerged transformed.

This New Moon reactivates this ancient cycle:

Descent: Loss, surrender, stripping of false identities

Quest: The wandering soul, pleading, remembering

Ascent: Rebirth, reunion, renewal

--

AT 28° AQUARIUS, Persephone squares the Scorpio cluster.

To those facing divorce, illness, burnout, this New Moon says:

 "Descend fully."

But Persephone reminds us: "You are becoming a Queen. Do not mistake your wound for your identity."

We cannot bypass the underworld. But we cannot live there and call it healing.

Persephone in Aquarius is the pioneer. She refuses to stay trapped in the archetype of the abducted maiden OR the Underworld Queen. She stands in Aquarius - the sign of equality, of collective vision that transcends old roles.

She no longer plays the patriarchal game: not victim, not saved, not perpetrator. She wants a world where these roles no longer exist, where no one must beg for their life.

“I have walked through hell. But I do not make a home there. I build a world where no one else must descend alone."

--

PERSEPHONE & LILITH: TWO PATHS, ONE SOVEREIGNTY

Persephone was taken, torn from the fields of flowers. She learned her power in forced descent and returned as Queen, able to move between worlds.

Lilith refused submission from the beginning. She chose exile over servitude, solitude over false harmony. She paid the price of her integrity: demonization, erasure, exile from the garden.

One learns through what is done to her.

The other learns through refusing what they try to do to her.

Yet both arrive at the same place: in the knowledge of their own nature, intact and unalterable.

This New Moon unites them both: the returning Queen with the wisdom of death, and the returning Exile with the memory of her original fire.

Whichever path is yours - transformation or refusal, descent or revolt - the truth is the same: You never needed permission to be yourself.

--

A RITUAL FOR THE NEW MOON IN SCORPIO

(Between Monday, November 17 and Sunday, November 23)

STEP 1: Write to the woman you have been

Address the versions of yourself who held everything together without support, who endured silently, who kept going because someone had to.

Those who stayed out of fear, loyalty, or conditioning.

Those who carried others’ burdens believing that was the only way to be loved.

Write to them with kindness, like to a child who was never truly protected:

"Thank you for holding on.

Thank you for carrying me further than you knew.

You can rest now.

I am here. I take the lead."

Pause. Breathe. Notice what shifts inside you.

STEP 2: Write to the woman you are becoming

On a second page, write what you choose to embody from today forward.

A peace that is non-negotiable.

Relationships rooted in true reciprocity.

Boundaries held as holy ground.

An inner world that is gentle, spacious, and alive.

A truth that settles in you like a long-awaited homecoming.

An abundance that feeds every layer of your life.

This is your contract with your future.

You may write:

“I release the illusion that my worth is measured by what I give.”

“I choose relationships where I am already enough.”

“I trust the solidity of my own being.”

“I allow myself to receive without guilt or hesitation.”

“I reclaim the tenderness that should always have been mine.”

“I speak my yes and my no with ease, clarity, and authority.”

“I choose what honors me: respect, joy, and love.”

“I am free, and I am loved.”

“I welcome abundance that nourishes my whole life.”

End with:

“I deserve this, and I welcome it into my life.”

STEP 3: Release the old story

Hold the first letter.

Tear it slowly, with intention.

Burn it.

Let the fire transform it.

Flush the ashes away.

Say:

“I release what I carried for too long.

The old cycle is complete.

My new life begins.”

STEP 4: Anchor the new story

Place the second letter on your bedside table with a stone or object that feels like a talisman.

Read it every night until the Winter Solstice.

This is how the nervous system rewires through repetition.

The magic is not in perfection but in devotion to yourself.

STEP 5: The Final Release at the Solstice

On December 21, the longest night of the year, take your second letter into nature.

Burn it, if you can.

Return the ashes to the earth, to water, to a place that calls you.

Say:

“I have become what I wrote.

I return the old version of me to the earth.

A new cycle begins.”

THE ARC CLOSES:

Descent, Crossing, Return.

Scorpio asks for courage, the courage to descend so the ascent can be real.

Between this New Moon and the Solstice, we move through the darkest threshold of the year, gestation time, the composting of what must die so what wants to be born can root.

So what must die now?

The illusion that our worth equals our usefulness.

The version of us that apologizes for existing.

The obedient girl with the clenched jaw who kept herself small.

The loyalty to those who never saw us.

The habit of carrying others to avoid our own emptiness.

The fear of our own strength.

Let them go.

Light returns only when the old self is allowed to fall away.

--

FOR THE WOMEN IN THE UNDERWORLD

Those who have lived several lives in one body.

Who raised children, built worlds, held families together with bare hands.

Who are the black sheep of their families.

Who loved fully, lost everything, began again.

Who survived what was meant to break them.

Who chose solitude and courage over lies.

I see you.

Those who carried others to exhaustion.

Those who stayed silent and submissive so long you forgot the sound of your own voice.

Those who finally left and were punished for it.

You are in the middle of a passage. It is brutal. And you are not alone.

Come back.

Not to beg to be given a place. To take it.

In a world that prefers women silent - we speak.

In a world that prefers us smooth - we show our scars.

In a world that wants us young, pleasant, easy to consume - we stand whole.

The world does not need another infantilizing feminine ideal.

It needs wise women: women who see in the dark, who speak, who cut through.

Women who teach, who protect, who share their knowledge.

The lineage of powerful women is not extinct.

We are crossing the underworld.

We will rise crowned.