This email brings you readings and resources for our collective cthonic descent. Yay Scorpio Season ;) Here's what's in your seasonal newsletter:
- Enter the scorpion: dark goddesses and the underworld
- Rewilding the Temple, November 8: our new moon with Myrrh
- Psychopomp training is open for enrollment
- An exhibition of dark allies
- Hydrosol drop - save the date
Enter the scorpion.
Three years ago, the scorpion goddess came to me during a particularly potent Scorpio season. Do you know who this scorpionic goddess is?
Serket — a member of the Egyptian pantheon. And one not known nearly enough, imho. She is a goddess of protection, the afterlife, medicine, and magic. In one myth, she sends seven scorpions to protect Isis and her divine child, armored escorts with tails that sting.
Like the scorpion, Serket can heal…and she can destroy.
If you’ve been around here awhile, you know my thoughts on this: The dose makes the poison. ;)
And this year, the dose is…generous. 😬
Right? Like what even was October???
So let's look at where we are now...
We've just entered the realm of the scorpion: From late October to late November, the Sun travels through the darkest sign of the zodiac. 'Tis the season for underworld adventures ;)
✶ the evening star goes dark ✶
Venus is a powerful planet brought to life through many goddesses. She goes retrograde all the time, every 18 months or so, which simply means she appears to move backward through our sky for about 40 days. Astrologically, this retrograde is a call to revisit Venusian themes around love, beauty, sensuality, the feminine, and what we value in relationships and in life.
This month, Venus passed between the Earth and the Sun and vanished from our sky. The bright evening star went dark. When she reappears, she’ll rise before dawn as the Morning Star. Astrologers call this the birth of a new Venus cycle.
The ancient Sumerians saw this cyclical movement as the story of Inanna...queen and goddess of love, sex, and war.
In her most well-known mythic telling, Inanna decides to visit her sister in the realm of the dead, and must pass through seven gates as she travels deeper into the cthonic layers of the underworld. At each gate, she must remove an item of clothing. By the time she enters the underworld, she is nude, stripped of her regalia and power.
Her dark sister...a shadow side archetype...then kills her and hangs her corpse upside down. Yet she is revived with the food and water of life and returns to the surface…only to see that her husband, rather than grieving or trying to find her, has taken her throne.
I mean — the metaphors are not lost on me here. You?
So Inanna sends her husband to the realm of the dead in her place. For someone must stay there — it’s part of the bargain.
For the full descent, with Persephone, Ma’at, and a 1930 Atlantic article that will make you scream into a pillow, read my piece on the goddesses of descent.
Seven gates for Inanna, seven scorpions for Serket. The underworld seems to have a favorite number...
Back to those 40 days of the Venus retrograde. Does this number sound familiar? Yeah…just a whole Jesus in the desert era vibe. Even the word quarantine comes from the Italian phrase quaranta giorni, meaning forty days.
We too have a 40-day container to excavate the underworld and mine the gold that awaits us. On November 14th, Venus goes direct again, reborn as the Morning Star. And like Inanna, may we return with our crowns in place.
In the meantime, I have a few dark and aromatic invitations for you...a mythic gallery, psychopomp skills, evergreen medicine, and more.
P.S I love Scorpio season and Scorpios. Did you know my Mars and Mercury are both in this deep, dark sign? The underworld is my comfort zone ;) Who else?
And now, here's what's happening this month :)
✦ Rewilding the Temple, November 8 — Scorpio New Moon with Myrrh ✦
I can't wait for our Scorpio ceremony with myrrh this month. Myrrh is a timeless aromatic -- sacred to the Egyptian goddess Hathor, given to Jesus at birth, and the namesake of the anointing tradition of the Myrrhophores.
Join me to explore the energy of this new lunar cycle in partnership with Earth and spirit. As always, you'll receive a guided anointing with myrrh, a deep dive into this aromatic ally, a guided meditation, oracle spread, rewilding prompts, and more.
You can still purchase the anointing oil to accompany our ceremony. These ship November 2.
who you gonna call? 👻
Samhain, All Hallow’s Eve, and Dia de Los Muertos: the end of October and first days of November point us to the great threshold from life to afterlife.
Serket knows this territory. In the Pyramid Texts, she walks before the king as he crosses into the afterlife, guarding the path between worlds.
A psychopomp helps the dying and the dead, but they do so much more. They tend the collective thresholds we all must cross.
There are other psychopomp trainings out there, but I don’t think anyone is teaching the unique combination of animist skills and sacred anointing you’ll learn in The Art of Psychopomp…because I’ve created this approach myself. ;)
On-demand training · Enrollment open October 28 through November 30
the dark is on display
Every year the light thins and the old allies come closer.
So this autumn, I gathered them into an exhibition. Allies for the Dark brings together natural perfumes, anointing oils, and plant sets for the dark half of the year, handmade in small batches here in Central Oregon.
Psst: See if you can find my new ghost pipe listing in the Poison Garden here...
The exhibition closes at the Winter Solstice, December 21st.
Water Medicine: Hydrosol Drop November 13th
Scorpio confuses many people because it’s a water sign symbolized by what we tend to think of as a fiery, desert-dwelling animal. In my Serket article, I asked: What if Scorpio had always been associated with the water scorpion?
Water represents our emotional nature, the feminine darkness, and the mystery of the void.
Which makes this the perfect moment to finally relase this year's distillation of sacred waters. 2026 hydrosols are dropping on November 13th.
Every plant I distill is grown or wild-tended on my high desert property, harvested at peak potency with my own hands, and distilled in a copper alembic during a half-day ceremony. Yes, I spend whole afternoons babysitting a copper pot. Zero regrets.
Small-batch means limited quantities. Seasonal means one harvest per year. Here's a peek at what's to come.
Juniper Stokes is a botanical perfumer, soul alchemist, intuitive astrologer, and rewilding guide through mythic landscapes of the nature, spirit, and the cosmos. For over 25 years, she has been guiding soulful humans back to the heart of who they are and why they’re here.
Explore workshops & trainings.
Find alchemical aromatics in The Botanica.
