Scorpio is black. In Roman myth, Pluto is god of death, sex, and transformation. Hades is lord of the underworld in Greek myth. The Devil is alive and well in Christian myth. The Death card, Queen of Cups, and High Priestess symbolize Scorpio in Tarot. Voldemort, Darth Vader, Mummy, and the Big Bad Wolf are modern versions.

Pluto inspires rapists and terrorists and seduces priests who sexually abuse the children whose innocent souls they’ve been entrusted to protect. The prospect of an eternity in hell both tempts and terrifies them. A path of too many dark secrets leads to the palace of the sociopath. Pluto rules executioners, coroners, undertakers, and morticians. From our first breath to our final exit, Pluto ruthlessly awaits our arrival with a kiss of death.

Pluto can be controlling, compulsive, manipulative, jealous, possessive, fearful, resentful, obstinate, secretive, suspicious, subtle, and subversive. Pluto also has a bright side that can love without coveting, lusting, seducing, controlling, or possessing another’s soul. Pluto can transform into the Phoenix who rises triumphantly from the ashes. Scorpions have a powerful sense of purpose when they’re not at war within themselves. They can envision their deepest desires and know that they will eventually realize them.

Scorpio is fiercely loyal, but Scorpio’s greatest loyalty is always to himself. It may take a near death experience to awaken the Scorpion to her higher self. I say ‘her’ because Scorpio and Capricorn are feminine signs, even though we always refer to Saturn and Pluto as ‘he’. When ‘he’ and ‘she’ are balanced, Scorpio can be born again and again. Scorpions make excellent researchers, clever problem solvers, sleuthful spies, skillful surgeons, and insightful psychiatrists, psychologists, and therapists. Scorpio attracts many of the best and worst mystery, crime, and horror writers.

When the Sun entered Scorpio on October 23^rd (after passing through my Libra 12^th house), I began to examine my character flaws and ponder my darkest secrets. I devoured dark music, read dark literature, and watched dark movies for many dark, cold, damp, and dreary days before I began writing this blog entry. Retrograde Mercury (Scorpio / Libra), escorted me to Pluto’s door, mercilessly exposing my sacred lies and starkly reminding me that even the best kept secrets eventually die. As a serious professional palmist, I guard many thousands of secrets. Many people reveal their most intimate secrets to readers because they misguidedly believe that we already know them. I don’t, until they tell them to me.

For those interested in astrology, Gemini rules my sun, hands, and resultant behavior. Scorpio rules my unconscious. Scorpio rises in my natal chart along with the asteroid, Chiron (hand). Jupiter in Scorpio is in my first house is a singleton in the bottom hemisphere of my horoscope. Pluto is in my tenth house closely conjunct my Leo midheaven and ninth house Saturn. My Sun Uranus and Venus North Node conjunctions are in Gemini in the 8^th house (along with my vertex, asteroids, and outer planets). When Saturn transited my ascendant back in November of 2012, it squared my Midheaven and compelled me to create more structure and discipline in my life. Saturn forced me to focus more on achieving realistic goals and challenged me to let go of everything and everyone that wasn’t working for me.

The hardest part of the whole process and experience for me has been letting go of people who are no longer right or good for me. Even if they’re responsible for my current thinking and actions, I still feel guilty for having to pull away my love and for abandoning and betraying them for reasons that accept no compromise or excuses. Losing faith and trust in someone is the beginning of the end of that relationship for me.

A couple of weeks ago, I let go of a 25 year friendship that I believed was something it wasn’t. Here’s my version of that story. My friend was smart, talented, creative, and funny, and a deeply emotionally wounded person. Frequent late night phone calls often centered on his complaining about or blaming his family, friends, and colleagues for his loneliness, suffering, and struggles. I don’t think he ever took responsibility for his part. I listened for many hours while trying to be empathetic and supportive. So many times, my friend told me how much he loved me and my family and how much he valued our friendship. That felt good. We shared our philosophical and spiritual ideas. I never asked my friend for anything for myself. That became the crux of our impending crisis.

Most of you know that I have written a narrative non-fiction palmistry book called ‘Hand Book’. My goal was to help people realize that they don’t have to be palmists to see their relationship, career, health, and other valuable potentials in their hands. Back in April, I sent out 100 reviewer copies to friends and important players in the helping professions. My friend raved about his copy. I told him I was seeking credible reviews. I wanted to be more visible when someone searches for a palmistry book on Amazon. Since that time, Hand Book has gathered more legitimate five star reviews than any palmistry book on Amazon. He asked me if I’d like him to write a review. I said “sure”.

Weeks passed and nothing happened. Honestly, I could care less about his couple of lines on Amazon, but the idea of getting nothing back after giving so much for so long began festering in my mind. This was the first time I had asked my friend for something, and nothing happened. When I confronted him, he said that he had read some of my reviews and was totally intimidated by how well conceived and written they were. He felt inadequate.

I suggested he take a few favorite review lines and rewrite them in his voice. Maybe he could call one of his other close friends and say something like, “I told Mark I’d write a review for his new book and I’m having a hard time. Could you help me?”  You get the point. ‘Actions speak louder than words’ is not just a hollow saying.  A lot of gratuitous platitudes and excuses don’t pay the proverbial rent. The moral of this story is that my dedication to a friendship is not unconditional, but based on expectations that have been set and agreed to by all. My faith in my friend’s caring words died due to his inaction.

Pluto is also lord and master of the Sexual Orgasm (little death). One exquisite moment of fully losing oneself, however, is not enough for Pluto. Temptation, seduction, and betrayal are his M.O. While seduction turns Pluto on, betrayal gets him off. Guilt, obligation, shame, and remorse safeguard his evil secrets. Pluto tempts us to rationalize our bad behaviors by telling us, “Everything is OK as long as no one gets hurt”. Unfortunately, someone is often hurt, intentionally or not.

Many of our darkest fears are connected to our secret obsessions, lusts, fetishes, and sexual desires. Fear of getting caught turns a lot of people on. The more taboo the behavior, the more erotic and pleasurable the action. Pluto falsely assures us that our secrets will stay secret. Poisonous spiders, slithery snakes, and hungry crocodiles stealthily lurk beneath his stagnant waters. Society frowns on unconventional sexual experiences. Fortunately, however, it agrees that sex should be consensual among adults and that adults must stay away from children sexually.

Everyone has dark secrets. Abusive parents, jealous partners, manipulative bosses, and mean spirited jailers mask the shadowy unstable side of their emotional natures. Your friendly neighbor, a model citizen, devoted husband, loving father, loyal friend, and faithful parishioner conceals his secret lusts for sex, money, and property while he indulges in his physical, mental, emotional, psychological, and spiritual perversions. When he dies, his family finds hidden pornographic literature, sado-masochistic sexual supplies, secret love letters, illegal drugs, and concealed money.

A coroner secretly collects perverse photos at death scenes. A career of fatality has warped his reverence for life into a morbid sense of humor. He shares his handiwork and pathology with his deviant friends. One photo has immortalized a man’s greatest fear as he accidentally electrocuted himself while trying to sexually get off when he switched on the alternating current that he had wired to his genitals.

A cadaver awaits a makeover. The mortician lights a match by his decaying anus and gently presses on his stomach. The methane produces a torch that singes the hair on his thighs. It smells horrible. The mortician and his friends laugh. Pluto is pleased.

One emergency room nurse told me about a couple that was in a horrible automobile accident. She was sitting on his lap and having sex while he was speeding on the freeway. They were unable to separate and were still together when the emergency vehicles arrived. The Plutonian part was that they were both married to other people.

Life’s most painful lessons are a result of choosing darkness. It’s easy to rationalize the darkest behavior when your head rules your heart. I never intended to hurt anyone. No one did anything they didn’t want to do. I may not have told the whole truth, but I didn’t lie. I’m sorry for my part. It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Can you keep a secret? Do you depend on someone whose hard lessons result from bad moral values? Is temptation strong? Do guilt, shame, remorse, and fear hold you in darkness?

Entire societies and cultures are corrupted by the Plutocratic power of corporate money owning their raw materials, energy, communications, transportation, food, health, and their financial, religious, and political processes.

Everyone has heard the saying “The only guarantees in life are Death and Taxes”. Death and taxes are definitely Plutonic. If there’s a particular industry that fits Scorpio and the 8^th house of the astrological chart, it’s insurance. Insurance is a contractual arrangement whereby one party pays another party to guarantee them against a specified loss. Insurance implies that we have something of value. Perhaps we can’t afford not to value something.  We worry less about the costs of bad shit happening to our family, health, home, car, or property if our premiums are paid.

Insurance is a form of gambling. Your insurance agent is your bookie. Your insurer is the casino. The house is always favored financially due to statistical permutations, combinations, and probabilities. High risk means high premiums. Actuarial tables decide the odds. The insured always loses, even when he wins. My good friend Lloyd tells me that he’s depending on winning Lotto for his retirement. He assures me that it gives him hope. “You’ve got to play to lose” he quips.

Insurance does not protect us from bad shit happening. If you’re poor and healthy, having insurance that you can’t afford may be a bigger gamble than not having insurance. That’s why we need affordable healthcare. Insuring can be confused with ensuring or assuring. Spraying crops with pesticides ensures fewer bugs and weeds. It assures that we eat, drink, and breathe toxic chemicals. Investing Social Security in the Stock Market does not insure that the market won’t collapse. Drilling for oil in pristine wilderness does not insure that we will have enough oil. It does ensure and assure we will have environmental, social, and political problems. Conserving energy ensures that we will have more energy and waste fewer natural resources. Offering vengeance as a solution to violence assures more violence. Does having a nuclear arsenal insure, ensure, or assure that we will not have Nuclear War?

People frequently ask me, “Am I going to die?” or “When am I going to die?” I assure them that everyone dies. Only God knows when. Life insurance protects the living. What are your last years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds of life worth? What’s the premium for a graceful and painless final exit? That’s why I’ve created my very own “Dr. Death Do it Yourself Kit”. When it’s my time, I have a logical, practical, painless, and peaceful alternative to facing a future of pain, dependency, lack of awareness, loss of love, or poverty in old age (hopefully).

Recommended books:

Final Exit by Derek Humphrey – to learn more about dying with dignity.

Denial of Death by Ernest Becker – for death psychology.

I’ve written way too many words to put into one blog entry, so stay tuned for several more installments. Next – A tragic tale of Mercury and Pluto