Scorpio III: The Seven Deadly Sins

Hieronymous Bosch, “The Seven Deadly Sins”

In the video below, I explore Scorpio III, the final decan of Scorpio—a realm of deep psychology and imagination where emotion, desire, and fantasy converge. People with points or placements here often navigate powerful inner landscapes, seeking to understand the true nature of their longings. Ruled by Mars, Venus, and the Moon, this decan fuses action, attraction, and intuition, making it one of the most complex and transformative parts of the zodiac. It invites us to face our desires with honesty and awareness, walking the fine line between soulful yearning and illusion.

At its heart, Scorpio III is about clarifying desire—seeing through illusion to know what we truly crave at the level of soul. Closely linked to the Seven of Cups in the tarot, this decan reflects both imagination’s creative potential and its pitfalls. In the card, each cup offers a glittering vision, representing the seven deadly sins—symbols of longing that can enlighten or ensnare. The work here is discernment: learning to transform fantasy into insight rather than confusion. The Moon’s emotional depth, Venus’s allure, and Mars’s driving passion all interplay in this space, where balance brings creativity and awareness, while imbalance can spiral into escapism or obsession.

In the video, I discuss the Seven of Cups and how ancient texts—from Ibn Ezra to the Picatrix—portray this decan’s dynamic blend of instinct, imagination, and desire. I also explore the charts of Liz Greene, the astrologer and Jungian analyst, and Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane, whose song White Rabbit captures this dreamlike, otherworldly energy. Both women embody Scorpio III’s essence: the courage to face the unconscious and the transformative creativity that arises from diving into those depths. If you enjoy the post and video, please like and subscribe—it helps others find my work, and I truly appreciate your support.

Transcript (Revised and Expanded)

Hi, this is Cathy Gnatek. I’m continuing my exploration of the 36 decans of the zodiac today with Scorpio III, the last 10 degrees of the sign of Scorpio. Scorpio is a water sign with fixed energy, ruled by Mars, the god of war. All the Scorpio decans deal with deep, intense emotions and connection with others.

This last part of the sign, in addition to Mars ruling the sign, also has the Moon and Venus ruling the decan. The Moon relates to imagination and the body — memories stored in the body and the unconscious. If you understand the idea of the unconscious or the collective unconscious from Carl Jung, the famous analyst, that’s part of this sign’s energy. We bring imagination to questions of desire. Scorpio is about that Mars energy — going for what we want. Then we add Venus, the goddess of love and receptive desire and pleasure.

When you bring all that energy together in a decan, we find that people with points or planets in this part of the zodiac often work with or grapple with questions around desire and what it means to be human — how to explore the deep unconscious, face desire, and come out changed. It’s about clarifying what you really want from your soul rather than from a more ego-based point of view. I know that sounds like a lot, but we’ll see it clearly in this decan through the idea of the seven deadly sins and the questions of desire. Desire is especially strong here. We see this not only in the tarot card, the Seven of Cups, which is associated with this decan, but also in the chart of Liz Greene — the astrologer and Jungian analyst — who has her rising degree in this part of the zodiac. One of her reports on astro.com even focuses on the seven deadly sins.

We’ll explore that, as well as Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane, who wrote White Rabbit, which resonates with this upside-down world of imagination and exploration of the unknown. I know that sounds a bit heady, but it fits the energy of this decan — I have my rising degree here as well, so I relate to both of their charts and what they express.

Here we go — I’m going to pull up the whiteboard to explain what I’ve just been talking about in more detail.
Whoops — that’s the last of my slides. Let me scroll back to the first one.
Okay, here we go.

Scorpio, just to ground us in the sign in general, is ruled by Mars, the god of war and conflict — but also passion, courage, and drive, that “I’m going for what I want” kind of energy. It’s a water sign. All water signs deal with emotion and intuition. They have a sensitive and imaginative quality. This particular water sign is associated with depth — like the deep, dark water of the ocean floor.

Scorpios are known for covering up, for hiding, for playing their cards close to the vest. I often say that’s partly because they can read others’ emotions or psychological states so well that they fear others can do the same to them. This is one of the reasons Scorpio tends to be so protective. We’ll see that reflected in the shadow side of the tarot card connected to this part of the zodiac.

Now, let’s look at the planetary rulers for this last 10 degrees, from 20 to 29°59' of Scorpio — the Moon and Venus. The Moon is the triplicity ruler. Like water, it governs emotion and the subconscious. If the Sun is the light that guides us by day when everything is visible, the Moon is the light that guides us by night — softer, dimmer, sometimes frightening, the realm of the unknown and the subconscious. This is what we tap into in dreams.

The Moon also represents mother, body, instincts, and memory. Then we have Venus — the goddess of love and beauty, receptive desire, pleasure, relationships, art, values, and justice — also ruling this part of the zodiac.

If we combine that energy—those archetypal constructs—it begins to tell a rich and layered story about human experience. When I use the word archetype, I mean it in the sense that Carl Jung described: fundamental patterns of energy and meaning through which consciousness organizes itself and interprets life. Archetypes operate both collectively and personally; they are the deep images and symbols that shape how we understand the world and our place within it.

In astrology, the seven traditional planetary energies can be understood as seven archetypes that express different aspects of life and the psyche: the Sun as what is known—the Self, the light of consciousness and vitality; the Moon as what is unknown or shadowed—instinct, emotion, the body, and the maternal realm; Venus as love, harmony, attraction, and the goddess principle; Mars as the warrior spirit—the drive to act, assert, and pursue desire; Mercury as the messenger—the voice of thought, intellect, and translation between worlds; Jupiter as expansion, wisdom, and faith; and Saturn as boundary, form, and discipline.

Together, these seven archetypes form the symbolic language of astrology, describing the full range of human potential—from the luminous to the shadowed, from our creative urges to our fears and limitations. Each chart becomes a unique composition of these mythic forces interacting within a person’s psyche. When we look at a particular decan, such as Scorpio III with its planetary rulers Mars, Venus, and the Moon, we’re really looking at how these archetypes weave together into a specific story about passion, imagination, and the evolution of desire in the human soul.

Turning to the tarot card associated with this part of the zodiac, we have the Seven of Cups. You can see here that the cups each represent one of the seven deadly sins — or, symbolically, the seven planets of classical astrology, which are connected with these sins. I’ll show a slide about that soon, but I found that really interesting.

In the image, a figure stands before seven cups, each filled with glittering visions — wealth, power, beauty, victory, and so on — fantasies of potential. These cups echo the ancient idea of the seven deadly sins and the many forms of desire.

7 of Cups, Rider-Waite Tarot

Remember I said this part of the zodiac has to do with desire — Mars and Venus, the two planets connected with desire — and the Moon, which rules imagination. Here we have a card that combines imagination with all the possible things we might reach for or receive. The positive side of this card points to fertile imagination and visionary potential. People with their rising degree, planets, or points in this part of the zodiac often have a powerful creative mind and the courage to face their deepest longings. The card honors the imagination’s ability to dream new realities and to see beyond the visible world.

We see this with Grace Slick. Her song White Rabbit evokes that imaginal world we access not through the conscious mind, but by plunging into the depths of the unknown. The shadow side of this card — and of this decan — lies in the potential to be seduced by illusions and fantasies, exploring one desire after another without reflection. It’s important not to get lost in the imaginal realm, where confusion can take over. If we think about Alice in Wonderland, which inspired Slick’s song, we see this theme — entering the unconscious, that dreamlike realm of imagination and altered perception. The psychedelic experience referenced in White Rabbit can bring great insight, but it can also turn disorienting, even chaotic, if awareness is lost.

I also want to point out the seven deadly sins and how they reflect the shadow side of each planet’s archetypal energy. Liz Greene, who has her rising degree in this sign, offers a report on astro.com called The Seven Deadly Sins, which explores how each planetary energy can express a shadow side in a chart: the Moon with envy, Jupiter with gluttony, Mars with wrath, the Sun with pride, Venus with lust, Mercury with deceit, and Saturn with sloth. This captures the energy of this part of the zodiac — exploring the complexity of being human, acknowledging darkness as a path toward greater self-understanding and the clarification of desire.

This is a deeply psychological part of the zodiac. A drive for self-exploration often appears in people with points or planets in these last 10 degrees of Scorpio. Looking at the ancient sources that describe this third decan of Scorpio, we find vivid imagery that captures both its instinctual depth and its potential for distortion. Each text—Ibn Ezra, the Picatrix, and Agrippa—offers a symbolic window into how earlier astrologers understood the nature of this face of the zodiac.

According to Ibn Ezra, “A dog, and two pigs, and a big leopard with white hair, and various prey animals.” This image speaks to the raw animal vitality and instinct that characterize the decan—energies of appetite, loyalty, and aggression that must be recognized and integrated rather than denied.

The Picatrix portrays an even darker dimension: “A horse and a rabbit with it. And this is a face of evil works and taste, and joining oneself with women by force and with them being unwilling.” Here, desire becomes distorted through domination and loss of awareness, reflecting what happens when instinct overwhelms consciousness and the human capacity for empathy collapses.

Finally, Agrippa writes: “A man bowed downward upon his knees, and a woman striking him with a staff; and it is the signification of drunkenness, fornication, wrath, violence, and strife.” This vision depicts the consequences of being overtaken by passion and emotion without restraint—the chaos that follows when desire is not tempered by reflection.

Together, these ancient descriptions reveal the dual nature of Scorpio III: the wild, creative, instinctual power of the unconscious, and the danger of being consumed by it. The challenge of this decan lies in transforming raw emotion and fantasy into awareness—learning to guide instinct with consciousness rather than allowing it to rule.

So let’s talk about the Kabbalah. We can always take the tarot card associated with the decan and look to the Tree of Life to understand where this energy lies on that path of manifestation and learning. The Tree of Life is a mystical diagram representing the descent of divine inspiration into the material world. The lightning-flash pattern shows spirit descending into matter, culminating in Malkuth, the final sefirah — the point where divine energy becomes manifest in the real world. This illustrates how spiritual forces take shape and connect the divine to the earthly realm.

Here we are at the seventh sphere on the Tree of Life — Netzach. We’ve moved from the Six of Cups, which was Scorpio II, to the Seven of Cups, which is Scorpio III. Netzach continues the theme of desire and delusion, working with imagination (the Moon) and desire (Mars and Venus). The movement from Tiphereth, Beauty, to Netzach, Victory, marks a shift from balanced harmony — the sixth sphere, the heart of the Tree — into the testing of emotion. This is a moment of testing around desire: how do we work with it on the human plane? The Moon represents the body and the way we manifest things in the physical world, while the Sun represents the divine inspiration that animates us.

So I’ll read the whole statement again. The movement from Tiphereth to Netzach marks a shift from balanced harmony into the testing of emotion — where love, the sixth sefirah of the heart, takes on the forms of desire and imagination. Tiphereth’s clear radiance descends into the fertile waters of Netzach, where beauty seeks expression but risks distortion — the distortion of imagination. In Scorpio III, ruled by the Moon and Venus, feeling and fantasy merge: the Moon deepens sensitivity while Venus stirs attraction and delight. That’s the figure standing before the seven cups. The Seven of Cups reflects this blending of emotion and dream — perception blurring into longing. Here, the nourishing waters can also deceive. Desire without awareness multiplies into mirages of fulfillment. The work in this part of the zodiac is to unite the Moon’s depth with the steady light of Venus — to let imagination serve love rather than illusion.

That inner heart — the center of who we are, which is not intellectual but intuitive — becomes the guide that helps us grapple with these deep questions of longing. Are we yearning from the soul or from the ego? That’s the essential work for people with planets or points in this part of Scorpio.

Now let’s look at a few people with their rising degrees here. First, we have Liz Greene — astrologer, Jungian analyst, and author known for shaping modern psychological astrology. Her books are remarkable. I’ve been working with a Jungian analyst for over 20 years, have attended the Minnesota Seminar in Jungian Studies for many years, and have studied Carl Jung’s work extensively, as well as practicing astrology myself.

I’m a Hellenistic astrologer, which is a little different from modern astrology, but I resonate deeply with everything Liz Greene writes. Her work is rich, complex, and full of mythology and archetypal detail — more so than many astrologers who write today. I really recommend books like Saturn: A New Look at an Old Devil and The Astrology of Fate, where she explores how myths and archetypes bring deeper meaning to life’s patterns. For Greene, astrology is a way to speak with the collective unconscious — a term Carl Jung, the depth psychologist, used to describe the patterns of understanding that lie beneath the surface of awareness.

She works with the collective unconscious as a map of the inner world as much as the outer one. Each planet in astrology expresses a distinct archetype, revealing how personal experience mirrors universal stories. For example, the archetype of the mother in the chart is represented by the Moon — where it falls can describe our mother, how we nurture others, and how we like to be nurtured. Through this lens, Greene helps readers and clients find meaning in their emotional and spiritual challenges. This is how I work as well. My ascendant degree is in the same place, and I find that using mythology, stories, and archetypes in astrology fits beautifully with Scorpio III.

As mentioned earlier, the Seven of Cups in the tarot relates to the seven deadly sins — and Liz Greene actually offers a “Seven Deadly Sins” report on astro.com that explores each planet through the archetypal shadow side of its energy. With her rising degree in Scorpio III, Greene reflects the lessons of the Seven of Cups: the movement through illusion and imagination toward deeper self-understanding, the capacity to get lost and then find clarity again through awareness.

We can also see this energy reflected in Grace Slick’s chart. I won’t go into her chart in detail, but she wrote and performed White Rabbit with Jefferson Airplane — a song inspired by Alice in Wonderland, where Alice descends into a fantastical world where up is down and down is up. This mirrors the Scorpio III realm of imagination, desire, and the unconscious — that deep, watery place where confusion and revelation coexist. Like the Seven of Cups, the song blends perception, fantasy, and temptation. It refers not only to Alice in Wonderland but also to psychedelics — experiences that can bring confusion or profound clarity, depending on how consciousness meets them.

In this way, White Rabbit embodies the tension of Scorpio III: imagination both liberates and overwhelms. This part of the zodiac invites exploration of the unconscious — illuminating but also risky, even disorienting. People with planets or points here may live that energy internally, through rich psychological experience, or externally, by acting out intense desires in the material world. There’s always a need to bring awareness to how desire and imagination manifest. If any of you have planets or points here and this resonates, I’d love to hear your reflections. I’ll see you soon for the first decan of Sagittarius. Have a great day.