The Black Scorpion’s Moon- Wormwood, Drought and Descent

A Bitter Tea

Drinking this Scorpion Brew is like drinking pieces of hell. It is bitter and even with honey to sweeten it, it turns in my mouth. With each large sip, I take another swig of dark, red wine, so that I can hold it down- to bring it up would not serve my purposes.

I have tried wormwood tea once before, when I was younger, I could not swallow it and spat it out with ferocity, but now on the serpent path, I push myself. I swallow this scorpion whole. This is the fall from Eden…The descent into the land of scorpions, snakes and toads.

Sparks are flying by my eyes. I feel heady as I burn some wormwood, imphepho and lavender. This night I will speak with forked tongue and devotion to Hekate, calling up the shades of the dead and deadly, of my Veldkin, of Bubo, of the silent world of spirit and storm.

“When the gods see this willingness to suffer, to sacrifice, they pay attention.”- Marie Laveau American Horror Story: Coven

Black Dogs

Once upon a morning drive to work, I had a vision, Hekate stood at the crossroads and hundreds of black dogs were behind her. I felt strange, it was like fear, and doom, and battle. It was a call to action. The apocalypse is here, and it is human. In our race for progress we have left behind the ethics and morality of nature. We decided that we were separate and in doing so destroyed each other for a piece of the cake, which the ones in power glutted themselves on but that we never even got a crumb of.

We are in a drought, and our government has allowed our water reserves to deteriorate. This makes me bitter. Water is life, it is the blood of the land, Our mother. We knew this day was coming with climate change and the increasingly hot summers, dams and lakes and wetlands once filled with the constant croaking of frogs have dried up, food prices are soaring and water in taps run dry in some places, while water runs down the streets in others. It is a joke, and one that is on all of us. We are suffering the consequences of our actions against the earth and our apathy towards what we have done.

Are the gods punishing us for breaking our oaths to the land and her creatures? Is this The eye of Ra, the wrath of Sekhmet, the ire of the gods? When the Black Scorpion stings it is painful and bitter, and we can no longer deny our culpability.

 We need to sacrifice our egos, our violent inclinations, our apathy, our need for economic progress, our capitalism, our consumerism, our shallow living, for a better and more sustainable world. We need to take back the power we gave over to the corporations and boycott the rabid destruction of the land we live on.

The hounds bay loudly, the wind is grinning through the tree’s, spirits are riding wild and hard and as a witch I join them. I do not want a piece of the rotting cake.

The black dogs are more than just a call from the chthonic chasm, they are not only a political and ecological outcry, they are also a personal reminder of my own decisions and life path. When the Scorpion enters my mouth and I drink the bitter herb, it is my choice. I have no teachers to answer to. For all I know, my familiars and gods could be grand delusions leading me to immanent lunacy and danger. I trust that they are not.

I feel only love and trust in the circle, the air is bubbling and prickling. I can feel the Others watching me as the darkness and the music pound a rhythm. I take another long, deep, sip of tea, and my eyes want to pop out, my mouth is burning with bitterness- it is like the vitriol I feel for the world around me, for how blind everyone is.

I offer some tea to The Veldkin, she knows this taste too.

 Descent

The scorpions are crawling over my body, it is like a scene from Penny Dreadful, almost. This is meditation, an inner listening, a silent embrace of stillness. This is part of my Shadow work. I was born on the Full moon in Scorpio, and now I have to look at its dark twin, my own dark self, the angry, raging, bitter, and hurt self that I am trying to heal.