That spooky time of the year, the season of the witch, every goth’s favourite month – the dark and murky waters of Scorpio. The most mysterious and dangerous of them all, or at least the one with the baddest rap. Is this reputation unfounded? Like all the other archetypes only partly.

Scorpio is fixed water. Take a moment to consider what is fixed water. It’s ice, or a swamp. Both fitting descriptions – one is hard armoured water, the other a dark and humid environment in which things are tangled together.

The primary association of water is with emotions, so when we apply that quality of fixation to emotions we get things which are extreme. Fixed fear becomes paranoia, fixed passion becomes obsession, fixed love becomes possessiveness. All of which are pretty dangerous things to feel.

Just like Aries, Scorpio is ruled by Mars. Where Aries is the cardinal explosion of fire, it’s the just do it, the machine gun requiring a lot of ammo and running out fast, Scorpio is the other side of martial intensity and war, the fixed focus and control, the mastermind devising the strategy, it’s the sniper needing only one well-aimed shot.  And it’s not just a sniper, it’s a stalker sniper with a stinger, it will get that headshot blindfolded because it knows where you’ll be, it has watched your steps and figured out your pattern of movement.

The whole process through which arachnids hunt is a fitting description of Scorpio. Patient, observant,  and deeply perceptive – watching for the best time to strike.
Most scorpions kill their prey by overpowering with their claws, usually only using their stingers in defense. When the pincers are not enough they sting with a venom which is different than that of a snake. It will block the channels through which the ions enter telling the muscle cells to move, paralyzing the prey and leaving it vulnerable.

But vulnerability runs both ways, and even though the fact that scorpions sting themselves is just a myth – their carapace is actually hard enough to withstand their own stingers and they are immune to their own venom – they do have a major weakness in not being able to regulate their body temperature, making them extremely sensitive to the external environment, especially to high temperatures which can kill them by overheating (and overstimulate their nervous system resulting in convulsions which makes them look like they are stinging themselves #mythbusted).

If in the other water signs we had a sea of cardinal nurture and care of Cancer, or the eternally flowing river of consciousness through which we all float of Pisces, then in Scorpio we have a well or tunnel of emotions.

The idea of Scorpios holding grudges and not being able to let go of things is rooted exactly in this depth of emotions. Not only do still waters run deep, but if you drop something in still water it will reverberate without opposition through the whole thing, it will be felt thoroughly and kept in the depths, it will eventually be transformed.

Not being able to regulate your own feelings can be deadly in itself, which is why being controlling is actually a safety measure. When things cannot be controlled on the inside, they must be controlled on the outside. Sometimes the best form of control is remaining hidden.

But the truth is – and if Scorpio likes something it is the truth – this is the most enduring of the signs. Beyond the raw Leonine physical strength, the patient Taurean relentlessness, or the obstinate Aquarian non-conformism, comes the insatiable Scorpionic hunger. Because Scorpio is a hunter with a deep lust for understanding things at the deepest level, it will dive pincers-first into whatever mystery needs to be uncovered and fueled by the penetrating qualities of Mars it will not stop until it unravels whatever it desires to be unraveled, it will hunt the deeper layers of truth and pursue it to its essence, ultimately merging with it.

Hence the association of Scorpio with secrets and the occult. In a sense correcting Libra, which glides and covers the surface of many things, Scorpio  burrows straight down and tries to find the interconnective tissue and underlying truth. Later, in Sagittarius comes the breakthrough and pursuit of freedom.

Sometimes the hidden mystery is the human mind, like in the case of Freud who had Scorpio rising, and sometimes it is data, like in the case of  J. Edgar Hoover who had four placements in Scorpio.

But this intensity is exactly why planets like the Moon or Venus have their respective fall and detriment there. The Moon wants to care for things and provide a good experience, while Venus wants to find common ground and relate to as many things as possible. A Moon in Scorpio will hold on to emotions until they cascade, while Venus will love only one person forever past the time the physical carcasses expire.

The modern rulership of Scorpio assigned to Pluto is not entirely amiss as the two are definitely connected. Richard Tarnas defines Pluto as ‘the archetype of primordial energy, the universal life force which impels all evolution and transformation. Pluto represents the principle of power itself, of elemental force, of primal libido and aggression, and is essentially identical to Freud’s notion of the id. It is the Dionysian energy of life, the Serpent power, the Kundalini. It compels, empowers, overwhelms, transforms; it destroys and resurrects. Pluto governs the instincts and the forces of nature.’ 

Pluto is a slow moving planet – actually the slowest, and we can see its influence in the different generations, particularly in that born between 1983 and 1995 when it was crawling through Scorpio, marking its territory with an intense emotional drive and determination that might seem exaggerated to those lacking the influence.

No matter the placement, Scorpio is the sign of the mystery seeker, the researcher, the detective, the psychologist, the prober of the things seen and unseen. It’s the one that is always fascinated with danger, going as far as dangling on the edge. It is armed and armoured with a stinger of transformation which is rarely seen but always felt.