♏ Scorpio · 0 to 10 degrees
The first decan of Scorpio
Scorpio with Mars, its traditional ruler: intensity without any dilution.
At a glance
| Degrees | 0 to 10 degrees of Scorpio |
|---|---|
| Face ruler (Chaldean) | Mars |
| Decanate ruler (modern) | Scorpio (ruler: Pluto, and Mars traditionally) |
| Golden Dawn card | Five of Cups |
| Element and modality | water, fixed |
Mars rules Scorpio in traditional astrology and also takes this first face, so the tradition reads the most concentrated ten degrees of the water triplicity: appetite, will and a refusal to look away.
Associated with loss faced rather than avoided, which is the territory of the corresponding Five of Cups.
Two systems, two answers
There are two decan rulership systems in circulation and they give different rulers for the same ten degrees. The older face system runs the seven classical planets in Chaldean order around the whole zodiac, and gives this decan to Mars. The modern decanate system gives each decan to one of the three signs of its own element, here Scorpio.
Neither is presented here as the correct one. The tarot attributions follow the face system, most popular modern astrology follows the decanate system, and knowing which one a source is using explains most of the apparent contradictions you will find elsewhere.
What Mars means →The tarot connection
The Golden Dawn mapped the 36 decans onto the 36 minor arcana pips, two through ten. This decan is the Five of Cups, which is why that card carries Mars and Scorpio as its attributions in any Golden Dawn-derived deck.
The pips run by modality rather than in zodiacal order: the cardinal sign of each element takes two to four, the fixed sign five to seven, and the mutable sign eight to ten. It is the detail most often got wrong, including by us until a test caught it.
Five of Cups on Memento Arcana →Which decan are you?
Your decan is decided by the degree of your Sun, not by the date alone, and the chart gives you the degree of every planet as well.
Calculate my birth chart