8) Scorpio
Direction: south
Period: October 24 – November 23
Element: Fixed Water
Planet: Mars and Uranus
The Night gets longer. Put symbolically, the Sun leaves “our world” for the underground for five months and also takes the vegetation with it, which will once again rise from below in the spring. The growth and development becomes subconscious, collective.
Same as in its opposite Taurus, Scorpio develops the initial impulse of the equinox, transforming the vision of Libra into a concrete experience. Scorpio must deepen Libra’s reality and transform it into an active power of social life and real work with the Night in general. And this power is sex, but sex with a non-reproductive aspect – despite Taurus – a mystical sex of adulthood. In secret traditions sex is known as a gate towards cosmic consciousness which is the goal of Scorpio: on a rocket of ecstasy to cross the borders of the Self and experience the Night in the depth of its own body, in its own blood. Scorpio tries for a physical unification with the Night - a flow into it as small creeks flow into big rivers and the big rivers flow into oceans. The key words are ritual, ecstasy and connection.
The boundary with Libra runs through the “new scene” of the National Theatre or through the Smichov Train Station. The borderline between Scorpio and Sagittarius goes through the Brewery U Fleku or through the church of the Holiest Trinity and the church of Ascension of Our Lady in the street Na Slupi.
Through the watery sign of Scorpio the Vltava river enters Prague as if it brought voices from all over Bohemia for a ritual of unifying. (Water is a basic instrument in most rituals: from baptism to the original ritual of the dubbing a knight.)
The mysticism of Scorpio is further embodied in the most mythical of Czech places: Vysehrad. Here, for instance, the princess Libuse predicted the glory of the future city that would reach the stars. In our walks you can experience the power of this prediction as if we were walking straight through a stellar matrix. Within the precinct of Vyšehrad you can see the Romanesque rotunda of St Martin from 11the century (feast of Martin, btw, (or Mars) occurs on November 11 - Scorpio), the church of St Peter and Paul or the Czech National cemetery "Slavín" of the prominent Bohemian celebrities such as the musc composers Dvořák or Smetana, the writer Karel Čapek, the poet Mácha, and others.
Within Scorpio you can find the Dancing House, a modern building designed by the famous American architect Frank Gerry symbolizing the dancing couple Fred Astaire and Ginger Roberts. The dancing pair is a symbol of sex, and dance itself is the most ancient human ritual used for reaching ecstasy. The controversial building is located in the most suitable place within the Prague Zodiac and just at the watery element of the Vltava river. How many people notice this beautiful coherence with the Prague Zodiac when watching it? And does Frank Gerry even know?
Scorpio also partly touches the mystical messages embossed in the ground plan of the New Town – this big ritual of urbanism. See more in Sagittarius and in the section PRAGUE ZODIAC WALK 4 [The Mystery of the New Town].
