Scorpio

The sign at a glance

Place in the zodiac

8

Persian month

Aban

Element

Water

Quality

Fixed

The element and the quality are the classical groupings: every fourth sign shares an element, and every third shares a quality.

The eighth borj

Scorpio stands eighth in the order of the twelve signs, in the second half of the year, after the sign that balances and before the one that aims. In this product that position is not only a place in a circle. It is a month, with a first day and a last day, and the sign occupies exactly the days the month occupies.

The borj are the zodiac names that the Persian solar calendar took for its own months. When the year was laid out beginning at the vernal equinox and cut along the twelve signs, each month came to be called by the sign it covered, so the names of the constellations became the names of ordinary months in ordinary use. Those names are still current in the Afghan Solar Hijri calendar, where the eighth month is Aqrab, the scorpion, written and spoken as a month like any other. In Iran the calendar's months carry Persian names of older provenance, and the borj names remain in astrological, literary, and traditional usage.

What the tradition associates with this borj

In the tradition, this borj is grouped with the water signs, and the readings that follow from that grouping speak of feeling that runs deep and is not put on display. Traditional descriptions associate it with attentiveness, with a memory that keeps what it is given, and with a preference for knowing something thoroughly rather than quickly.

The tradition also counts it among the signs of steady quality, and reads that steadiness as constancy: in these accounts the borj is associated with holding to a purpose once chosen, with patience over a long stretch, and with loyalty that is shown by staying rather than by saying. Classical astrological writing assigns Mars as the ruler of this sign, and reads the pairing of a water sign with a martial ruler as resolve carried quietly — courage that works below the surface, and resourcefulness under pressure.

Persian usage keeps the plain image of the name alongside these readings. In the tradition, this is the borj of the scorpion, and the tradition draws from that a sense of self-possession and of guarded thresholds: an association with discretion, with keeping counsel, and with a reserve that gives little away until it has reason to. Where the older readings record a difficulty, it is this reserve seen from outside — a depth that can be hard to read, and an intensity of attachment that the tradition names frankly and treats as of a piece with the constancy it praises.

These are readings the tradition carries, recorded and retold over centuries. They describe the sign, not any person born in its month.

The sign, the month, and the moving dates

The Persian year begins at the vernal equinox, and its months were cut along the zodiac from that point. So the sign does not float free of the calendar; it follows the month. This page maps Scorpio to the month's own first and last day, not to degrees of solar longitude, and there is nothing here that depends on a decan, an ascendant, or a time of day. A civil birth date carries the month, and the month is what the sign is.

The page shows this sign's classical quality as fixed. In plain terms, a fixed sign sits in the middle of its season rather than at either edge: autumn is already well established when this month opens, and the month neither begins the season nor hands it on to the next one. It holds the middle.

Because the equinox does not fall at the same Gregorian moment every year, the first day of the Persian year shifts, and every month shifts with it. Across the span of years covered here, this month has begun on more than one Gregorian date. That is why a printed card or a fixed table giving one unchanging Gregorian range for the sign will disagree with the calendar for some years. When it does, the disagreement belongs to the table: it is a useful approximation of a boundary that actually moves, and this page reports the boundary the calendar itself keeps.

Why a printed table disagrees

What Aban, the month itself, is called in Iran and in Afghanistan

When Scorpio began

The Persian year starts at the spring equinox, so each month starts on whichever Gregorian day the equinox falls on. That is why these dates move.

Across the 101 years below, Scorpio began on 3 different Gregorian dates. A printed table prints one of them.

From 1950-10-23 to 2050-11-21.

1. October 22

   20 yearsEnded November 20.

   1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020, 2024, 2028, 2029, 2032, 2033, 2036, 2037, 2040, 2041, 2044, 2045, 2048, 2049

2. October 23

   78 yearsEnded November 21.

   1950, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2025, 2026, 2027, 2030, 2031, 2034, 2035, 2038, 2039, 2042, 2043, 2046, 2047, 2050

3. October 24

   3 yearsEnded November 22.

   1951, 1955, 1959