November ushers in the season of descent.

Trees surrender their leaves. Seeds disappear beneath the soil. Roots stretch through places untouched by sunlight. The veil between seasons lingers as the energy shifts from the bustling energy of the autumn harvest to the quieter, and more introspective spirit of winter.

In many Pagan practices, this part of the year naturally lends itself to ancestor work, remembrance, divination, shadow work, rest, death/rebirth symbolism, and tending what cannot yet be seen. We go inward; confronting our grief, mortality, fears, and hidden desires.

It’s a season for honoring dormancy, gestation, and unseen growth.; releasing what has completed its life; and learning to acknowledge and accept our shadows.

The first half of the month asks us to revisit old stories, relationships, desires and wounds. Early in the month, The Scorpio New Moon invites something to die so that something more honest can take root. By midmonth, Mercury and Venus turn direct and we begin carrying our revelations back toward the surface.

Later in the month, Mars and Jupiter test the ego, while the Gemini Full Moon disrupts the stories we thought we understood. By month’s end, Mars in Virgo asks us to take everything we have uncovered and put it into practice. We are left with the gift of discernment.

The question November leaves us is simple: Now that you know, what will you do differently?

Week 1: November 1-7

For the first two weeks of the month, Mercury and Venus linger in retrograde. Mercury Retrograde in Scorpio continues to highlight hidden dynamics, fears, shared resources, grief and internal narratives. While Venus Retrograde lingers in Libra until November 13th, asking us to reconsider reciprocity, desire, equality, and what we actually find worthy of our time energy and effort. Together, these transits demonstrate the dialogue between intimacy and reciprocity. This is a good time to find clarity through self assessment and internally review any unspoken needs, expectations, or power dynamics.

Many will experience a “light bulb” moment on November 4 when the Sun conjuncts Mercury retrograde in Scorpio creating a Mercury Cazimi. This transit encourages us see clearly and allow new truths to arise from old storylines. You may find renewed clarity on parts of your path that were previously obscured.

Witchy workings:

This would be wonderful territory for shadow journaling, ancestor work, tarot, scrying, dreamwork and divination. Revisit an old journal entry. Pull cards around a repeating relationship pattern or sit at the ancestor altar and ask to realign with what belongs to you. Consciously, release any outdated beliefs you may have inherited emotionally, relationally, spiritually or culturally, and ask yourself “What ends with me?”

Week 2: November 8-14

This New Moon in Scorpio brings focused attention to the lessons of Scorpio Season. You may find yourself swimming with the taboo, sifting through connections with intimacy, trust, vulnerability, power, sexuality, shared resources, grief, and familial or ancestral patterns.

Scorpio reminds us that transformation inevitably asks something of us. New beginnings bring the death of an old storyline. You may find yourself shedding old identities, attachments, resentments, expectations, inherited beliefs, unhealthy dynamics, and outdated fears.

Venus retrograde sextiles Mars around November 10, and then Mercury and Venus both station direct November 13. This has been a long awaited transit for many.

On November 12, Jupiter in Leo opposes the North Node in Aquarius, introducing a tension that follows us into the next week: individual recognition versus collective participation.

Despite stationing direct, integration takes time, and you may find yourself reflecting and recalibrating for the next few weeks as you lean more deeply into the truths you’ve uncovered. Deeper awareness comes for many, as Mercury prompts us to consider what we have learned about love, desire, beauty, money and relationships.

Witchy workings:

Integration takes time. Rest. Eat something nourishing. Take a walk. Tend your altar. Spend time with people who help you feel grounded. Give yourself enough quiet to hear what has actually changed

Use this week to integrate, recalibrate, and calm the nervous system. Change and uncertainty can feel destabilizing. Focus on self-soothing and regulating your emotional space to build confidence in the path ahead. Return to whatever helps you feel grounded, supported, and connected. You have the strength to walk the underworld of the unknown.

Week 3: November 15-21

This week brings some challenges with the ego.

After weeks of deep reflection, we are asked to choose growth over glory. Scorpio has spent weeks revealing hidden motivations, but on November 16th Mars conjuncts Jupiter in Leo and all that quiet introspection catches fire.

Mars wants movement, desire, and courage. Jupiter expands whatever it touches, while Leo asks us to consider what makes us feel alive, creative, confident, and worthy of being seen. At its best, this can be a tremendously courageous, creative, and expressive period of time. We may feel ready to take up more space, pursue something we want, share our gifts, or act on what we’ve learned about ourselves.

At the other end of the pendulum, that same fire can inflate drama, impulsiveness, self-righteousness, overextension.

The First Quarter Moon in Aquarius on November 17 adds another voice to the conversation. Leo asks what makes me shine; Aquarius asks how that light contributes to something larger.

On November 18, the Sun squares Jupiter, encouraging faith, possibility, and expansion. Balance is required to navigate this transit. We may discover where we have promised too much, taken on too much, or become so attached to our own perspective that we have stopped listening. We may ask ourselves: Where has confidence become certainty? What am I trying to prove, and to whom?

Then, on November 19, the Sun squares Mars, adding heat to an already fiery week. Mars governs action, desire, assertion and courage. When Mars clashes with the Sun, frustration can rise quickly. We may feel impatient with obstacles, defensive when challenged or tempted to fight simply because we have energy that needs somewhere to go.

This transit can also give us tremendous courage to confront what we have avoided. It can help us advocate for ourselves, move through fear, take decisive action, or finally put our energy behind something we deeply care about.

Balance plays a large role as we learn how to effectively direct the flame.

Witchy work

This is a week of fire energy, so consider mirroring that element intentionally in your spellwork. Candle magick, bonfire rituals, creative expression, movement, courage spells, and workings centered on confidence or personal power can offer somewhere purposeful for this energy to move.

Consider lighting a candle and asking yourself what you want your fire to sustain. What deserves your energy? What are you ready to protect, create, pursue, or become? You might write down the places where ego, resentment, comparison, or the need for validation have been consuming your energy and safely offer them to the flame.

Weeks 4 & 5: November 22-30

On November 22, the Sun enters Sagittarius, and after weeks spent traveling through Scorpio’s underworld, the atmosphere begins to shift.

Sagittarius lifts our eyes toward the horizon. It is concerned with meaning, belief, wisdom, exploration, and the stories we use to understand our lives. After Scorpio asks us to uncover what is hidden, Sagittarius wants to know what it all means in the larger scheme of things.

This curiosity becomes heightened on November 24, when the Full Moon reaches 2°20’ Gemini at 9:54 AM EST, and closely conjuncts retrograde Uranus in Gemini. Gemini illuminates communication, curiosity, language, learning, perception, and competing narratives.

With Uranus sitting beside the Full Moon, certainty becomes especially difficult to hold onto. Uranus disrupts patterns, challenges convention, and awakens us to possibilities we may not have considered. Information may arrive unexpectedly. Conversations can change direction. Something we believed we understood may suddenly look different from another angle.

There is a Trickster quality to this lunation. Touched by the disruptive spirit of Uranus, we are asked to question the established narrative and allow new information to shift our perspective. The Trickster disrupts certainty, crosses boundaries, exposes contradictions, and seeks truth through unconventional measures. Expect intense revelations, surprises, and unconventional thinking to disrupt the stories we tell ourselves.

Are you willing to question the answer you think you already have?

This energy continues through November 25, when Mars enters Virgo and the Sun opposes Uranus and sextiles Pluto. Whatever the Full Moon has illuminated may now demand a response. Uranus challenges the established narrative while Pluto asks us to look beneath it, toward the deeper structures, motivations, and systems of power that helped create it. Virgo grants discernment and the capacity for developing systems to help us act on our newfound knowledge.

Routines change, Boundaries shift, Conversations happen, Plans are established, Something gets organized, repaired, practiced, or finally put into motion.

Then a massive collective transit- On November 29, Uranus retrograde in Gemini trines Pluto in Aquarius for the second time in a five-part series stretching into 2028.

Uranus and Pluto are both agents of profound change. Uranus disrupts, liberates, innovates, and awakens; Pluto exposes what lies beneath the surface and transforms systems from the roots. In the air signs of Gemini and Aquarius, their conversation draws our attention toward technology, communication, networks, knowledge, community, and the ways ideas move between people.

This is bigger than one person’s transformation. This brings evidence of the massive societal change all the astrologists are talking about.

The collective shift.

Throughout November, we have been asking what happens when we recognize our own patterns, reclaim our power, and choose to act differently. Uranus and Pluto widen the lens: What happens when enough people begin doing that together?

Transformation doesn’t have to mean replacing one hierarchy with another.

Perhaps it means discerning: What does shared power look like? What knowledge should circulate rather than be hoarded? What can community accomplish that individualism cannot?

Themes of reform, distributing resources more fairly, alliances, independence, social change and challenging established systems are all reasonable interpretations of the aspect.

Witchy work

The Gemini Full Moon and Uranian energy make this an especially interesting time for divination, particularly practices that leave room for surprise: bibliomancy, tarot, oracle, automatic writing, charm casting, runes, dreamwork, or opening a book to a random page and sitting with what you find.

Ask: What truth am I overlooking because I’ve already decided what the story means?

This is also powerful energy for writing, speaking, breaking silence, challenging inherited narratives, and intentionally seeking perspectives beyond your own

As Mars enters Virgo, bring some of the magick down to earth. Clean your altar. Organize your herbs. Rework a daily ritual. Learn a new skill. Clear an overdue task. Establish a boundary. Create a plan around something that has existed only as an intention. Choose one revelation from this month and identify one concrete action that allows you to begin living it.

Closing thoughts for November:

November began with descent.

We followed the season underground, into the places where roots stretch through darkness and seeds disappear beneath the soil. We revisited old stories. We examined desire and relationship. We released what had completed its life. We confronted ego. We questioned what we thought we knew.

And still, the seed doesn’t emerge the moment it is planted. Roots develop invisibly before anything breaks the surface.

This month forge’s a deeper relationship with our own discernment, a willingness to remain curious, and the courage to live differently because of what we have learned.

Now that you know, what will you do differently?

In September, we explored the Witch’s Garden: tending what was growing, questioning what no longer belonged, reclaiming our agency, and learning to embody the lives we are choosing.

October carries that work deeper.

The garden is entering its autumnal decline. The harvest has been gathered, the leaves are changing, and the things that once flourished are beginning to return to the earth. What remains is the work of examining our roots: the attachments, beliefs, relationships, desires, and old wounds that shape how we move through the world.

This month brings us into the underworld of our own making.

October opens with intensity, secrecy, and the possibility of transformation. Venus begins her retrograde journey through Scorpio, drawing us into the underworld of relationships, money, intimacy, and self-worth. The Libra New Moon asks us to reconsider how we participate in our relationships and examine the agreements that hold them together. As the Sun enters Scorpio and Mercury turns retrograde, we are called to look beneath the surface and listen for what has been left unsaid. The month moves us toward deeper truths, shadow work, and the release of what has outlived its purpose.

The energy of the month closes with Samhain.

At the threshold between autumn and winter, we are invited to honor the dead, commune with our ancestors, reflect on the cycles of life and death, and consider what must be released, reclaimed, or transformed as we move into self-awareness and inner truth.

October reminds us that transformation is not only about what we create. It is also about what we are willing to release.

October 1–7 | Reveal, Confront & Reclaim

October opens with a sharp, intense energy. The first days of the month emphasize communication, confrontation, and the exposure of what has been suppressed.

Mercury square Mars and Mercury square Pluto bring the potential for strong words, difficult conversations, and the revelation of uncomfortable truths. These transits can illuminate conflicts that have been simmering beneath the surface and invite introspection regarding our underlying motivations. What are we fighting for? What are we trying to protect? What truth are we struggling to acknowledge?

Midweek (October 3) Venus begins a retrograde journey that asks us to revisit our relationships with love, intimacy, desire, money, and self-worth. Scorpio’s energy invites us to confront old relationship patterns, unspoken resentments, or desires we have been reluctant to acknowledge. Rather than falling into self-judgement, we are meant to observe, investigate, and understand what our attachments reveal about us. At the same time, we will experience a Waning Quarter Moon in Cancer, which further encourages the release of emotional burdens and supports a return to genuine nourishment. Here we bask in the reality of what is- allowing grief, disappointment, and old feelings to become part of the compost from which something new can eventually bloom.

Use This Energy:

• Shadow journaling and honest self-inquiry.

• Cord-cutting or release rituals for attachments that no longer serve.

• Protection and grounding work before difficult conversations.

• Cleansing spaces and clearing stagnant energy.

• Working with water, ancestors, and the emotional body.

October 8–14 | Rebalance, Renegotiate & Reclaim Reciprocity

As we dip into the second week of the month, the relational work of Venus retrograde is brought into sharper focus. Some of us will be reflecting on the cost of our relationships. What are we getting from our relationships? Is the relationship pattern sustainable? What does the relationship require to maintain? Is the cost worth the benefit?

The Libra New Moon on October 10 becomes the energetic anchor of the week. Libra asks us to consider fairness, partnership, harmony, and the ways we balance our own needs with the needs of others. Here we are being given the opportunity to plant seeds for more intentional relationships.

With Venus retrograde in Scorpio and Venus square Mars on the same day as the New Moon, there is tension between desire and compromise, independence and intimacy, and personal truth and relational harmony. We may ask ourselves, What does reciprocity look like in practice? Where have we been over-giving or under-asserting? What agreements need to change?

This new moon offers us the opportunity to reconsider if we are fulfilled in the ways we participate in our relationships. Libra knows harmony that requires self-abandonment will never offer true balance or stability. We can honor our connections without disappearing inside them/

Use This Energy:

• Relationship intention-setting.

• Rituals for balance, justice, and reciprocity.

• Written agreements or boundary-setting practices.

• Glamour magick focused on self-worth and authentic expression.

• Candle work for restoring equilibrium and strengthening personal agency.

October 15–21 | Power, Freedom & the Patterns We Inherit

Mid-month, the focus expands from individual relationships to the collective systems that shape our lives. Pluto stations direct in Aquarius on October 15, bringing the report’s attention toward power, community, technology, social structures, and the meaning of liberation. This offers an opportunity to reflect on the systems we participate in and the ways power operates within them.

Early in the week (October 15th/ 16th) The Sun sextile Jupiter and Mars trine Saturn offer a counterpoint to the month’s intensity. These transits provide an opportunity to consider how we can turn insight into grounded action. Rather than trying to change everything at once, we can focus on the choices and commitments that support the future we want to build.

Meanwhile, in the later part of the week (October 20th & 21st), Venus squares Pluto and the Sun opposite Chiron. This transit brings the month’s deeper relational themes back into view; returning to the focus to themes of attachment, power, and old wounds. These transits invite reflection on jealousy, control, vulnerability, fear of abandonment, and the wounds that shape how we seek connection.

We may be asked to distinguish between genuine intimacy and the desire to possess, manage, or control what we fear losing. This is also a moment to explore how personal wounds intersect with the larger structures of power and belonging. We may find that Liberation begins when we can recognize the patterns that have been shaping us and actively choose how we will participate in them.

Use This Energy:

• Ancestral and collective shadow work.

• Rituals for reclaiming personal power.

• Reflection on inherited beliefs about love, money, authority, and belonging.

• Community care and acts of solidarity.

• Practices that help distinguish personal responsibility from burdens that were never ours to carry.

October 22–28 | Speak the Truth, Tend the Body, Release What Is Finished

The Sun enters Scorpio on October 23, shifting the month’s energy toward depth, intimacy, transformation, and the mysteries of life and death. The following day Mercury stations retrograde in Scorpio, beginning a period of revisiting conversations, reconsidering assumptions, and looking beneath the surface of what has been said.

October 24th offers an invitation to slow down and listen more carefully. What has been left unsaid? What assumptions have shaped our understanding? What conversations need to be revisited? The goal is to understand what has been hidden, clarify what has been misunderstood, and make room for more honest communication.

Venus retrograde returns to Libra on October 25, bringing the relational work of the month back to questions of fairness, partnership, and mutuality. After the intensity of Scorpio, Venus’s return to Libra shifts attention toward the agreements and dynamics that hold relationships together. After weeks of soul searching, we may ask ourselves what feels fair in our relationships. This week may find us renegotiating relational expectations and our contributions within our relationship dynamics.

The end of the week brings the Full Moon in Taurus on October 26. After weeks of examining desire, attachment, power, and vulnerability, Taurus brings us back to the body and the tangible foundations of our lives.

What do we truly value? What makes us feel secure? What nourishes us? What have we been holding onto out of fear? What must be released so that we can build a more sustainable relationship with ourselves and the world around us?

The Taurus/Scorpio axis invites us to examine the tension between holding on and letting go, stability and transformation, personal resources and shared resources. This is an important time to notice that we do not have to carry everything forward. Some lessons are now complete.

Use This Energy:

• Grounding and body-centered practices.

• Ancestral offerings and remembrance.

• Protection work around home, finances, and personal boundaries.

• Rituals for releasing outdated attachments and reclaiming self-worth.

• Working with earth, stones, food, and tangible offerings.

• Full Moon release rituals.

October 29–31 | Honor, Remember & Cross the Threshold

The final days of October bring the month’s work to its spiritual culmination.

By now, we have examined our attachments, questioned our relationships, confronted uncomfortable truths, and considered what makes our lives meaningful.

Samhain invites us to honor the cycles of life and death and acknowledge the thresholds we are crossing. What are we ready to lay to rest? Are there ancestral patterns we can leave behind? Knowing all we know now, how do we choose to move forward?

This is a time to remember those who came before us, honor the dead, reflect on the year that has passed, and make space for the quiet season ahead.

Samhain reminds us, The garden cannot grow indefinitely. It must also be allowed to rest.

Some things must be harvested. Some must be pruned. Some must be returned to the earth.

Samhain gives us a moment to honor that process. We can acknowledge what has ended without dismissing its importance. We can grieve what we have lost while recognizing what those experiences have taught us. We honor the dead not only by remembering them, but also by consciously considering what patterns we choose to carry forward

Use This Energy:

• Ancestor altars and offerings.

• Dumb suppers or other remembrance traditions.

• Honoring beloved dead, elders, and those whose lives shaped our own.

• Divination and reflective journaling.

• Rituals for endings, release, and protection through the darker months.

• Fire and candle rituals to honor memory, continuity, and the returning light.

October brings us to the threshold of Samhain, where we are invited to honor what has ended and make peace with the cycles that shape our lives.

We have spent this month examining our attachments, confronting hidden truths, reconsidering our relationships, and asking what is truly worth holding onto.

Now, as the veil thins and the Wheel of the Year turns toward winter, we are invited to remember those who came before us and acknowledge the parts of ourselves that are ready to rest.

What have you harvested? What are you ready to lay down? What wisdom will you carry into the dark?

The garden is returning to the earth. The work now is to honor what has been, release what is finished, and trust that even in the darkness, transformation continues.

Come Celebrate Samhain with Asheville Raven & Crone

As we cross the threshold into the dark half of the year, let your rituals be rooted in intention and care. Whether you’re crafting a quiet moment of remembrance at home or joining the circle in community, we’ve gathered everything you need to honor this sacred time.

Check out our curated collection of Samhain products here: tinyurl.com/4fhfpjwh

And if you’re in the Asheville area, we warmly invite you to join us on October 31st for our Samhain Ritual and Vigil Service- a powerful gathering of remembrance, release, and renewal. Together we’ll honor the ancestors, share our grief for the dead, celebrate the turning of the wheel, and welcome the deep magic of transformation as the world turns toward winter.

We will begin assembling at 11:30. Service begins at high noon!
📍 640 Merrimon Ave #207, Asheville, NC

Let the veil’s thinning guide you home; to yourself, your lineage, and the sacred stillness of the season.

Blessed Be.