Scorpio

Fixed water, ruled by Mars and Pluto

Fixed water is feeling held still and deep, a well rather than a stream. The tradition reads Scorpio as intense, private and loyal, a sign that commits wholly or not at all and forgets nothing either way. Cancer, the cardinal water sign, is read as protecting, and Pisces, the mutable one, as merging; Scorpio concentrates. The reading gives it courage, perception and staying power, the ability to look at what others avoid, and on the other side secrecy, jealousy and a long memory for injury.

Scorpio’s traditional ruler is Mars, the same planet that rules Aries; in water Mars is read as endurance and strategy rather than open attack. Modern astrology adds Pluto, read as power, compulsion and what grows back after an ending, and both rulers are in use. The Moon is in its fall in Scorpio, feeling drawn into depths where it cannot rest, and Venus, the ruler of the opposite sign, is in detriment. No planet is exalted here in the traditional scheme. The decans are Mars, the Sun and Venus as faces, or Mars, Jupiter and the Moon through the water signs.

Scorpio as Sun, Moon and rising sign

The Sun in Scorpio

A Sun in Scorpio is read as a self defined by depth and control: someone who wants to know what is really going on, keeps their own counsel, and brings great concentration to whatever they care about. The tradition describes a magnetic, perceptive person, fiercely loyal to a few and wary of many, and able to rebuild after a loss. The shadow in the same reading is suspicion, the need to keep the upper hand, and an all-or-nothing temper.

The Moon in Scorpio

The Moon has its fall in Scorpio, and a Moon in Scorpio is read as feeling intensely and showing little of it. It needs trust, privacy and loyalty, and is read as testing people before it offers any of them. Emotions run deep and last, and betrayal is what it takes hardest. The tradition does not read the fall as a flaw of character, only as the Moon working against the grain of the sign. The Moon crosses Scorpio in about two and a half days.

Scorpio rising

Scorpio rising is read as a contained, watchful presence, a steady gaze and the sense of someone giving little away, with Mars, and for modern astrologers Pluto, ruling the chart. Scorpio is the natural sign of the eighth house: shared resources, intimacy, and the changes nobody chooses. At the latitude of London it takes nearly three hours to rise; at the latitude of Sydney about an hour and a half.

Scorpio is mid-autumn north of the equator, when the leaves come down, and mid-spring south of it. Halfway through, about 7 November, the Sun passes the cross-quarter point close to the old festival of Samhain and to All Saints and All Souls at the start of November. The Sun is moving faster by now and spends just under thirty days in Scorpio.

The scorpion

The scorpion is the one that killed the hunter Orion in Greek myth, and the two were set on opposite sides of the sky, so that Orion sets as the scorpion rises. Many writers also give Scorpio the eagle, which stands for it among the four fixed signs when they are matched with the four living creatures of the Bible. The glyph is an M with a stinging tail.

Scorpio and Taurus across the wheel

Opposite Scorpio is Taurus, fixed earth facing fixed water. The axis is read as the shared and the owned, bond and possession: Taurus keeps what is its own, Scorpio merges with another and deals with what that costs. It runs through the eighth and second houses. The tradition reads planets across it as the tension between security and transformation, with both signs slow to give ground.

The sign and the constellation

The constellation Scorpius is one of the few that looks like its name, a long curled tail with red Antares at its heart. Yet the Sun’s path clips only a narrow corner of it, and the Sun is in front of Scorpius for barely a week, about 23 to 29 November, before it moves into Ophiuchus. During the sign Scorpio the Sun is in front of Virgo and then Libra. Sidereal Scorpio begins about 16 November. The page about signs and constellations explains the difference.

Common mix-ups

Ophiuchus, the supposed thirteenth sign, is a constellation the Sun reaches after leaving Scorpius, but the signs were never measured by constellations, so nothing about Scorpio moves. Its two rulers are not a contradiction either: traditional and modern astrology simply count differently, and many astrologers use both. Births on 22 or 23 October and on 21 or 22 November need a time and a place to fix the Sun’s sign, which a birth chart does.

What this page claims

This page sets out how Western astrology reads Scorpio and where each part of that reading comes from. It describes a vocabulary rather than a person, and it predicts nothing about anybody born with the Sun, the Moon or the ascendant in Scorpio.