Scorpio

What the sign is like

Scorpio is fixed water, water at full strength. It cannot be squeezed and it always finds its own level.

The will here is very strong. Scorpio goes straight to the point, faces facts other people avoid, and keeps digging until it reaches the bottom of things. It has huge patience and capacity for work, and it often builds for a future it may not see.

The older books said Scorpio shows the widest gap of any sign between its best and its hardest. The same will that can serve a great purpose can turn into stubbornness, long memory for hurts, and a need to have its own way.

With other people

Scorpio is magnetic and often leads its circle. People admire it and sometimes fear it.

It loves intensely and wants things done its way. A partner who is patient and steady does well with it. Scorpio does well to remember that not everyone is as strong as it is.

The older books paired Scorpio with the other water signs, Cancer and Pisces. With Taurus, Leo and Aquarius they asked Scorpio to soften its edges.

How it was read before

Scorpio had two symbols in the older books, the scorpion and the eagle. The eagle was the higher form, the one that rises.

Mars rules Scorpio, but the books said it is a different Mars from the one in Aries: the seasoned veteran, not the young soldier.

They read the three water signs as time: Cancer the past, Scorpio the present, Pisces the future.

Its tarot card

The card most decks pair with Scorpio is Death. The 1927 book I draw on names no card for this sign, so I follow the Golden Dawn's pairing, the one printed on most decks.

Death never means a physical death in my readings. It means something ending so something new can begin. That is Scorpio's great gift: deep change, and the courage to let it happen.

Sit with this

You feel everything, even when you show nothing. That depth is a gift.

Sit with this: is there a hurt you have been holding so long it has become part of you? Letting go can make room.