How to heal imperfectly
Scorpio energy gets us started
The abundant grass green heart shaped leaves spilling out of the blue pot caught my attention on a gray morning earlier this week. Why hadn’t I noticed this newcomer to my garden? I snapped a pic and plugged it into my identification app: Wavy bittercress. I scrolled through the info all the way to the end as if I knew there was a sign waiting for my recognition, and there it was in the Symbolism section: “Ardor, Parental Ardor, Paternal Error”.
For most of this year, I have held a memory of my mother’s father, abusing me sexually as a baby. I say “held”, because I wasn’t able to feel it, process it, or begin to integrate it until recently. I know from others in my life, that unfortunately I am not alone in holding such memories and puzzling through what to “do” with them.
In my case, this man’s sexually abusive behavior to children (I wasn’t the only victim) was covered up by others. Certainly by my mother’s “parental ardor” for her idolized father. Then there was my own father’s “paternal error”. He could not or would not take a stance against my mother, the emotional cost one that he could not pay, given he had lost one wife to an early death.
As I have pursued deeper training in mediumship, I have enjoyed a sort of co-worker relationship with my father in spirit. When he was alive, I did in fact work with him on and off while in high school and college. On the surface, I was the receptionist/secretary to his lawyer, yet he always treated me as a respected colleague. This tone between us reverberated effortlessly as we began to work together again, this time solving spiritual instead of legal problems.
As colleagues do, I asked my father for a favor recently. On October 31st, I lit a candle by his photo, and asked. “Please, if you have any pull and it won’t get you in trouble, can you ask around about calling off the sugar ant infestation in my kitchen? I promise I understand the message about my poorly defended boundaries as a daughter and a mother and I am working on it!”
As I emerged from sleep the next morning, I felt certain the ants were gone. Sure enough, I did my usual scan for little black creatures on the counters, floors, cupboards, and backsplash, and for the first time in four weeks, did not see a single ant! In my heart, I knew this was no mere favor. This act was healing to my dad, as well. It was a small way to begin repairing the damage, the “paternal error”, he carried with him to the spirit realm.
Perhaps the old me (if we pretend the old me believed in communication with the dead!) would have measured this penance on some scale of pain and repentance, tried to assign some sort of value to my dad’s Miracle of the Kitchen Ants. The old me would likely have said, “Nice try Dad, but this hardly makes up for the lifetime of being unable to comfortably inhabit my own body, my underlying sense of being in danger at all times, my sense of having sinned before I knew what a sin was.”
Thankfully, I know there is no such equation or rating system pertinent to healing. And if there are rules, they are meant to be broken in this time period of accelerated dealing-with-our-shit we are in. I feel the freedom on the other side of acceptance of what is given, and the release of an imagined reality.
I had a premonition on the Full Moon of deep grief coming as a gift to me. Over the last week or so, in finally feeling and releasing the fear my body has held since I was a baby, the grief which followed was indeed a gift upon which growth will occur. Just as in my garden, there is new growth in the form of the Bittercress amidst the spent calyxes and fallen leaves.
Now for the astrology of the week. My recent experience surfaced as a topic to explore because it fits so nicely with the heavy Scorpio - Taurus axis energy of this New Moon. What can you shed? Even if you don’t feel quite ready yet, even if you must shimmy out of that last bit of skin still clinging to a wound that has almost but not quite healed? Scorpio pushes us to examine why we are still clinging to that which no longer serves us (often, the Taurus side finds some security in it). Scorpio implores us to see that once we have experienced the pain and learned the lesson, there is nothing left to be gained from picking at the scab.
Mercury sits alongside the Sun and Moon, pushing us to examine our perceptions, while Uranus in Taurus, opposite the New Moon, nudges us to find true inner security. We cannot cling to false family stories which uphold a mirage, nor can we cling to the numbness surrounding those painful truths buried in our bodies, for what good does either bring to our energy and that of our lineage? As long as we seek ballast through identification with something which holds no love for us, we cannot access the divine within, that which is our ultimate security.
It is not so simple as forgiving and forgetting, though. It means asking the deep questions without a specific desired-for response in mind. It means meeting the discarded parts within and showering them with love. It means sharing the truth with those ready to transform as a result, and perhaps protecting yourself from those not yet ready, rather than trying to force understanding (trust me, I know this is tempting).
As my friend said when I previewed this energy, “Just in time for the holidays!”
Relevant Sabian Symbols for the week1
These symbols help me flesh out the themes of the lunation of the week in the context of the larger astrological themes at play. The symbols relevant to each lunation mirror and/or enhance many of the themes of the outer planets as they make significant transits.
We have Pluto (co-ruler of this New Moon, with Mars) early in its tour through Aquarius, a fixed sign co-ruled by Saturn and Uranus. Uranus is currently in retrograde in Taurus, another fixed sign, where it will remain until it enters Gemini again near the end of April 2026. Saturn and Neptune are in retrograde finishing up their tours in mutable watery Pisces. We are meant to be asking ourselves meaningful questions, thinking about how adaptation at the individual and group level affects the future state of all that exists.
The New Moon is exact on 11/19/25 10:47 PM PST at 28° Scorpio
Sun, Moon, Mercury. Sabian Symbol: Scorpio 29°: An indigenous woman pleading to the chief for the lives of her children. Keynote: Love as a principle of redemption.
Uranus. 30° Taurus: A peacock parading on the terrace of an old castle. Keynote: The personal display of inherited gifts.
Tarot themes
For your consideration, here are the tarot cards (sorry, I didn’t make space today to write the haikus) which came for each Zodiac sign in relation to shedding and accepting.
The theme of the twelve cards together speaks to experiences of grief, levels of understanding, and degrees of acceptance for what is. If you wish to read about the meanings, this is the website correlated to this deck.
Aries. XXI. The World.
Taurus. XVI. The Tower.
Gemini. V of Pentacles.
Cancer. IV of Wands.
Leo. XV. The Devil.
Virgo. XIV. Temperance.
Libra. IX of Swords.
Scorpio. Ace of Swords, reversed.
Sagittarius. II of Wands.
Capricorn. VIII of Cups.
Aquarius. VII. The Chariot.
Pisces. XVIII. The Moon.
I’d love to hear what resonates!
With love,
🦋 Maria Luz
Excerpts from An Astrological Mandala: The Cycle of Transformations and its 360 Symbolic Phrases by Dane Rudhyar
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So interesting, Maria! Wow, what a spread. It made me think of what the larger culture is going through collectively. The Tower always gives me pause... but here we are. In the end, it's a good thing.
I’m so sorry about what happened to you, but I’m glad you’re still able to continue your healing journey with your father.