Mars in Scorpio I: From Devil to Light
Sep 22–Oct 7, 2025
Mars has now entered the first decan of Scorpio, a place tied to the Five of Cups in tarot. In the Thoth deck, Aleister Crowley called this card Disappointment. I tend to call it Desire. The difference might sound small, but it’s everything: when we get too adjusted or attached to our desires, disappointment is almost guaranteed. If we cling too hard—whether to what we want, or to unmet needs—we set ourselves up for misery.
This decan isn’t evil, but it does challenge us. Crowley asked Frieda Harris to paint the five cups in the shape of a reversed pentagram on this card, an image often linked with the Devil. And in many ways, that symbolism makes sense. The number five itself carries chaos—energy that makes it harder to see things as they truly are. With fives, the door opens more easily to confusion, projection, and temptation.
So, the questions this decan brings are simple but piercing:
What do I really want?
What do I actually need?
And why do I think I need it?
That piece of chocolate, the booty call, the shopping spree, the doom scroll—what are we compensating for? Are we feeding the body, the emotions, or simply the craving? These two weeks ask us to get honest about desire itself, and to recognize the ways in which desire can quietly entangle us in disappointment.
Mars, as always, has another twist: it acts like a time machine. If our present life feels steadier than in the past, this is a chance to “clean house.” We can’t physically step into a capsule to visit our past selves or wave to our future ones, but we can shift how we relate to those timelines. Neuroscience confirms what mystics have long known: memory is subjective, and every time we recall an event, we subtly rewrite it. The present self changes the past self’s story. In that sense, Mars in this decan invites us to edit—not the facts of the past, but their emotional weight. We can diminish pain, or elevate meaning, whichever is most supportive to who we are now.
During this transit, Mars also weaves into some powerful aspects: Saturn and Neptune form a biquintile to Mars, while Uranus holds a triseptile. Quintiles carry Mars’ volatile energy; septiles, associated with Venus and Saturn, connect us to the feminine side of Saturn, the primordial sea. These are not easy currents—they echo the Tower, the Devil, and the Aeon (Judgement) cards of tarot. Heavy, chaotic, transformative.
But the reminder is simple: we can endure this. The chaos will pass. And more importantly, darkness never stands on its own. If we feel lost in shadow, it only means it’s time to use our light more fully.
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