The Stories in the Stars
The fixed water sign of the celestial Scorpion is the zodiac archetype of Halloween. Still waters run deep, truly, but this is water as steam, like the steaming geysers of Iceland, bursting out from sources deep down in the heart of the hot rock.
Traditional Associations
Zodiac glyph
Scorpioās glyph is symbolic of a serpent representing the life force energy, the flow of that energy and the release of it. Imagine the M as a coil with the energy flow going outward with an arrow sign attached. This arrow represents the sting of the scorpion. It also represents futurity, but is also the arrow of Sagittarius, the next sign of the zodiac. The other āmā glyph in the Zodiac is Virgo, but here the M is imagined as a coiling serpent with its tail folded inward in protective, healing mode.
Ruling planets: Traditional: Mars. Modern: Pluto following Plutoās discovery in 1930.
House: The Eighth House of power, secrets, sex, death, finance, legacy
Symbols: Scorpion, Serpent, Eagle/Phoenix (nearby constellation, Aquila, the Eagle.)
Element: Water (but this water STEAMS.)
Quality: Fixed
Keywords: I desire. I transform
Hebrew letter: Nun, meaning the snake. Scorpio has three glyphs, the only sign to do so; the snake, scorpion and eagle (or phoenix.) The snake sheds its skin and thus represents transformation, healing and magic.
Colour: Dark red
Birthstone: Yellow Topaz, Opal, Aquamarine, Tourmaline
Body: reproductive/sex organs
Tissue cell salt: calcium sulphate, repair of tissues and resistance to infectious diseases.
Trees: Walnut, hawthorn, blackthorn
Tarot Cards: Death, King of Cups, 5, 6 and 7 of Cups. The major arcana card in the Tarot representing Scorpio is the Death card, one of the most feared cards in the Tarot deck. Note the Biblical āpale horseā of Death and the white rose. He comes for all, the king, the archbishop, the child. But the rose signifies beauty and immortality. All that has ever once been, is recorded somewhere, somehow, forever.
The Death card is not usually about the literal death of any person. It may represent the death of something else, like the ending of a situation, chapter, project, plan, or relationship.
But. BUT. I have learned in my own experience as a reader, the Death card can mean exactly that, physical death, like it or not. The cards can mean exactly what it says on the tin and this has more than once hit me hard and very close to home in the literal, physical human sense. There is no Life without Death. We die. Even rivers can die. Even the stars die.
Old age is not our natural birth-right. Few animals reach old age living in the wild. It is this sharp focus of such an awareness that gives Scorpio its drive, intensity, its passion, or its preoccupation with the ādarkerā side of life, and with the occult and the mysterious, but also its power of regeneration, and the drive to procreate new life.
The Real Life Scorpion
- The scorpion is a staggeringly ancient creature. The earliest evidence dates from the Silurian period 450 million years ago, when the first scorpion ancestors left the seas for the land. Fossils from the Carboniferous 300 million years ago indicate little change since then but early scorpions may have had compound eyes.
- They are arachnids:Ā arachnida scorpiones, with a body in two sections, 2 pincers or pedi-palps, 8 legs like a spider, and an exo-skeleton made of chitin. They are more closely related toĀ HarvestmenĀ than spiders.
- They dance before mating, a stately promenade. They give birth to live young and carry them on their backs until the babies have their first moult and disperse. The mothers may eat the young if resources are desperately scarce.
- They have a long life span compared with other arachnids, 2-3 years in the wild but they have lived up to 25 years in captivity. They can live a year without food and they eat insects, spiders, otherĀ scorpionsĀ and lizards. They alsoĀ eatĀ small mammals, such as mice.
- They glow in the dark except when newly moulted. Scorpion fossils still fluoresce, despite spending hundreds of millions of years embedded in rock.
- They are famously venomous. However of the nearly 2,000 known species of scorpions, only 25 have venom powerful enough to be dangerous to an adult human. In the U.S., the Arizona bark scorpion,Ā Centruroides sculpturatus, produces venom strong enough to kill a small child, but anti-venom means deaths are rare.
The Stars of Scorpio
Nature, science, religion, astronomy and astrology were intertwined in the ancient world.
Scorpius is a massive, spectacular j- shaped constellation located in the skies over the southern hemisphere near the centre of the Milky Way. In the Northern hemisphere it can be seen in July and August, and in the Southern hemisphere, itās visible from March to October.
Sometime around four thousand years ago the Babylonians looked up, discerned the huge and brightly leaning āJā- shape in the summer stars, saw in this the shape of a gigantic scorpion and called this constellation MUL.GIR.TAB ā the āScorpionā, literally read as āthe (creature with) a burning sting.ā
The movements and relative positions of Scorpius were mapped by Babylonian magicians and astrologers, who left written records of the omens they observed.
āWhen a halo surrounds the Moon and Scorpio stands in it, it will cause men to marry princesses, (or) lions will die, and the traffic of the land will be hindered.ā
A comet appearing in Scorpius (Scorpio) was read as a dire warning of a coming plague, but when the Sun rose in Scorpius, alchemists saw their chance for the transmutation of lead into gold.
There are 18 known stars in Scorpius, the most famous being the red giant star Antares (rival of Mars, the god of war and the original planetary ruler of Scorpio) Antares, its biggest star, is almost unimaginably huge ā our sun is barely more than a dot in comparison- is one of the brightest stars in the night sky.
Methuselah
Scorpius contains exo-planets, some extremely old, while others may be potentially habitable. The planet PSR B1620-26 b, nicknamed āMethuselahā is estimated at 12.7 billion years old (The universe is about 13.7 billion years old.) Methuselah has a mass about twice that of Jupiter and it orbits around not one, but two stars.
Cue existential angst. I may need to lie down awhile in a dark room. Where, pray, is the eau de cologne?
Scorpio Season 2025
Hot water under pressure but itās in a hosepipe this month, and it has sprung a few leaks, spouting scalding jets and clouds of steam. Water as steam. Full force.
Veritable spiders webs and networks. Flexing. At home here in the UK, amongst so many other terrible and furious things on the world stage right now, we see China threatening the UK government behind the scenes. Long suspected. Now we see it in plain sight. We are told it is presented as a case of āYou will authorize the building of this monstrous new super embassy in the historic heart of your capital. Or there will be consequences.ā
One thinks of the unquiet ghost of the failed Guido Fawkes. There are fireworks outside my window even now.
More hopeful news, The Met Police are now declaring they will no longer be policing NCHIās – Non crime hate incidents. No more knocking on the doors of the citizenry to threaten them over social media posts that have upset āsomeone.ā May the other police forces now swiftly follow suit. This is Britain, not North Korea, and there can be no apologies for drawing the parallel.
A bill to introduce Islamophobia as a new crime has not passed in the House of Commons. Thank goodness. But after all the furore a few weeks ago, they seem to have kept that rather quiet. England finally did away with blasphemy laws in England in 2008. The history is cruel. Ans so are the things that still happen now, in countries where blasphemy is still punishable by death. We do not want blasphemy laws creeping in again by the back door, enabled by our government in the name of so-called diversity and inclusion.
Just as in Scorpio season 2024 we are challenged with keeping our own equilibrium while watching yet another intense month of massive threat and fury in world events. And keep it we must, while maximising our own energy bursts to fix, to clear, to burnish, to cherish all those and all that which we most rightfully hold dear.
This month we are all children of The Scorpion. Scorpio may sting. And it may heal us. Scorpio is a great healer. Natural charisma andā¦anti venom.
I beg your pardon
I never promised you a rose gardenā¦
But remembering the Death card, and Death offers a perfect white rose. Still, there are roses, always and for ever, even in the season of the Scorpion.
Salutations to the celestial Scorpion. Wishing a very Happy Birthday season 2025 to our savvy, deep and subtle Scorpio friends.
Till next time š
True Tarot Tales 