This Week in Magick: 2/9-2/15

✨ THIS WEEK IN MAGICK ✨

Feb 9th - Feb 15th, 2026

The moon goes dark. Last Quarter in Scorpio hits Monday morning (7:43 AM EST), then we descend into the Waning Crescent, the true dark moon phase. This is the week before the eclipse. The week before Lunar New Year. The week before everything resets. Use it.

Scorpio's Last Quarter asks one question: what needs to die? Not metaphorically. Actually. What pattern, what attachment, what story are you still feeding that should have been buried months ago? Scorpio doesn't do surface work. It goes to the rot. It finds what's festering and cuts it out. This moon squares the Aquarius sun, creating what astrologers call a "crisis of consciousness." You see the gap between who you are and who you're pretending to be. The space between your values and your actions. It's uncomfortable. It's supposed to be.

Then the moon wanes toward dark. Waning Crescent energy (Feb 10-16) is surrender time. Release time. The time when you stop trying to control outcomes and let the cycle complete itself. In hoodoo, this is when you do reversal work, uncrossing, and ancestor petitions. In ceremonial magic, this is banishing season. The lunar cycle is ending. Clear the field.

ROME FEEDS THE DEAD

February 13th begins Parentalia, the nine-day Roman festival of ancestors. This isn't Samhain. It's not about the veil thinning or spirits walking. It's about family obligation. The Romans believed that if you didn't feed your dead, they would haunt you. Literally. So from February 13-21, Roman families visited graves, poured wine libations, left bread and violets, and spoke the names of their ancestors aloud.

During Parentalia, temples closed. Marriages were forbidden. Magistrates removed their insignia. The whole society paused to honor the dead. The public portion happened on February 21 (Feralia), but the private work started now. This is the work of February: tending the line. Acknowledging the bones you stand on. Feeding those who came before.

LUPERCALIA RUNS WILD

Then, February 13-15, Lupercalia overlaps with Parentalia. Lupercalia is the wolf festival. The purification rite. The fertility magic. It honors the she-wolf who nursed Romulus and Remus, and Faunus (the Roman Pan), god of shepherds and wild places.

Here's how it worked: priests sacrificed a goat and a dog. They cut goat-skin strips into whips. Young men (Luperci) smeared themselves with sacrificial blood mixed with milk, then ran nearly naked through Rome's streets, whipping anyone they passed, especially women. Getting struck by the goat-skin whip was believed to cure infertility and ensure safe childbirth.

This wasn't romantic. It was raw, ecstatic, boundary-breaking magic. The kind that makes modern people uncomfortable. Lupercalia is about breaking social order to renew it. Running through the city limits to purify them. Striking the civilized to remind them of the wild.

Modern attempts to connect Lupercalia to Valentine's Day are mostly wishful thinking (Valentine was martyred February 14, 270 CE, but the connection is tenuous). They're different energies entirely. Lupercalia is blood and milk and running. Valentine's Day is roses and chocolate. One breaks you open. One makes you comfortable.

THE ECLIPSE APPROACHES

All week, we're building toward February 17's Annular Solar Eclipse in Aquarius. This is the first eclipse on the Leo-Aquarius axis since 2018. It inaugurates a new eclipse cycle running through January 2028. It's also Lunar New Year, shifting from Year of the Snake into Year of the Fire Horse. And it's Mardi Gras. And Ramadan begins at sundown. Everything converges.

The eclipse squares Uranus in Taurus, so expect disruption. Unexpected changes. Systems breaking. The old order cracking. This is revolution energy. But revolutions don't happen on eclipse day. They're prepared in the dark. Right now. This week.

WORK WITH IT

For Last Quarter Scorpio (February 9): Write down everything that needs to die. Be specific. Not "my fear" but "the story I tell myself that I'm not good enough to lead." Not "my anger" but "the resentment I'm still holding against [name] from [specific incident]." Burn the list. Bury the ashes at a crossroads or flush them.

For the Waning Crescent (Feb 10-16): This is the best banishing time all month. Do uncrossing work if you feel stuck or blocked. Take a spiritual bath with salt, hyssop, and rue. Wash from head to toe, then pour the water at a crossroads behind you without looking back. For ancestor work, set up a simple altar with photos, water, bread, and a white candle. Speak their names aloud.

For Parentalia (Feb 13-21): Visit graves if you can. If you can't, set up an ancestor altar at home. Offerings: bread, wine, honey, violets (or any flowers), salt. Speak to them. Tell them what's happening in the family line. Ask for protection and guidance. Pour libations onto the earth (or into a bowl you later pour outside).

For Lupercalia (Feb 13-15): This isn't safe for public recreation, but the energy is purification through wildness. Go somewhere liminal (edge of town, boundary between properties, threshold between forest and field). Run. Actually run. Let your body move without restriction. If you want the fertility aspect, make an offering to Faunus/Pan: milk, honey, shepherd's tools, or wool.

For the Dark Moon (Feb 15-16): Rest. Do nothing. This is void time. The silence before the eclipse. Don't start anything new. Don't make promises. Sit in the dark and let the cycle end.

TOOLS FOR THE JOURNEY

Black candles for Scorpio work / Salt, hyssop, rue for uncrossing baths / Bread, wine, violets for ancestor offerings / Photos of the dead for Parentalia altar / Milk and honey for Faunus/Pan / Crossroads dirt for releasing work / White candles for ancestor veneration / Graveyard dirt (ethically gathered) for death magic

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