Scorpio Season Is for Celebrating Your Ride-or-Die Pet

Solder on those friendship bracelets, all ye who enter here; the season of the loyal and protective scorpion hath arrived. Emerging at the fullness of autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, Scorpio comes to courageously guide (drag) us into the darkness of the coming winter. So pack your black lingerie, Persephone; we’re off to the underworld. 

Scorpios are our sexy secret collectors, citizen sleuths, dark tourists, and disenchanted divas. This is the Hound that will literally go to hell for you, the most empathic and devoted emotional-support animal, and the protective guardian who will defend you until death. All they ask in return is to possess your soul and be buried in a crypt beside you. It’s chill. 

As the light dies, things die; this is the cycle of nature. This seasonal association of the entrance of winter with death is why Halloween, Samhain, and Día de Los Muertos are all celebrated during this season. Because the sign arrives at the celestial juncture where the destructive potency of nature is taking hold, Scorpios possess an inherent understanding that there is a certain amount of breakdown and chaos that happens in life.

While dark qualities are not inherently bad or evil, many people have an aversion to the uncomfortable truths that Scorpios embody. This speaks to why they are one of the most misunderstood signs in the zodiac and perhaps why black cats are less likely to be adopted than others.

This is why the mysterious and secretive side of Scorpios can also be considered a self-protective defense against the vulnerability that comes with their deep capacity for emotional depth, empathy, and presence. Despite cherishing their privacy, famous Scorpios do not have the luxury of residing in the domain of anonymity. The price of authenticity is that their downfalls, complications, brushes with death, or shoplifting incidents at Saks Fifth Avenue are broadcast on the world stage.

Before telling your Scorpio friend to chill out, let’s consider its two ruling planets: Mars, the god of war, and the cosmic undertaker, Pluto, king of the underworld. Mars speaks to how we pursue what we want, our survival instincts, and libidinal drives. Pluto governs Scorpios’ unconscious compulsions and all things relegated to the basement of the collective psyche. While it is linked to more chaotic, destructive forces, Pluto translates as “the giver of wealth,” speaking to the capacity for tremendous catharsis that is found only by confronting those things we bury. This is the casual cosmic assignment of the Scorpio.

Scorpio forms the emotional and intuitive water sign trinity with Pisces and Cancer. Think of the dark high-pressure waters at the bottom of the Mariana Trench or scalding deep sea hydrothermal vents. Despite the extremities of these environments, unique forms of life flourish in such places. Consider Scorpio as such a creature, thriving in the watery abyss, enlivened by immersing themselves in situations that are unsettling to others. This is the sign you want around in a crisis.

Leonardo DiCaprio kindly provided a very literal example of the Scopionic immersion process a couple years ago, when he jumped into the icy waters of a frozen lake to rescue his two Huskies, Jack and Jill. DiCaprio adopted the two puppies during the pandemic, and they have since become known in Hollywood circles for being a little disorderly (or “psychotic,” according to Jennifer Lawrence). In the true Scorpio style of voicing uncomfortable truths at inconvenient times, Leo is one of Hollywood’s most outspoken environmentalists, using his 2016 Oscar acceptance speech to describe the climate crisis as “the most urgent threat to our entire species.”

Fellow awards-show activist and Scorpio Jamie Lee Curtis advocated for animal adoption at the Oscars in 2022 while holding a shelter dog, Mac & Cheese. The dog was subsequently adopted by John Travolta, who fell in love with the pooch backstage. Curtis has spoken frequently about her obsession with her Terrier / Poodle, Runi, describing an elaborate process to secretly pack her bags so he wouldn’t become sad at her departure to promote the final Halloween movie. She also regularly promotes dogs that are up for adoption on her Instagram grid.

Curtis is recognized as one of the most iconic scream queens of the horror generation. She‘s also the perennial “Final Girl,” which refers to the female character who is the only person to survive until the end of a horror film. Once memeified as Jamie Lee “Trowma” Curtis, she articulated the central shadowy themes of Mars and Pluto alive in the sign of Scorpio as she spoke of the Halloween movies as a study in rage and trauma.

Winona Ryder, a Scorpio of the brooding Tim Burton variety, is more of a cat lady. Her cat Bianca (also a Scorpio) lived until she was 21. Never one to skirt around the topic of death, Ryder has spoken about Bianca’s passing, how she became allergic to cats after Bianca died, and the wisdom of cats as they approach the end of their lives. Ryder has also been frank about the severe bullying she experienced during her painful Hollywood trajectory and the effects of the ruthless celebrity and tabloid culture in the ’90s. Her reemergence into the limelight on Stranger Things and enduring cultural cache speak to the tremendous resilience (and the extremely long-game style of revenge) that lies at the heart of this sign.

Following the lineage of the Winona Forever/Wino Forever tattoo transformation and in the Scorpionic spirit of the snake shedding its skin, the king of Staten Island, Pete Davidson, is currently in the process of getting his many tattoos removed. Look to RuPaul Charles and Caitlyn Jenner for further examples of Scorpionic metamorphosis, where the body becomes the site of radical renovation.

Despite being allergic to dogs (maybe the real reason why his engagement to Ariana Grande and her nine dogs never ended in marriage?), Davidson says that getting his dog, Mabel, was the smartest decision he’s ever made. Davidson has openly discussed his experiences with depression and the pain of struggling with mental health in the public eye and has described how Mabel helps him manage his anxiety and the grounding effect of an animal who is always happy to see you.

Just as your dog knows you’re coming home 10 minutes before you get there, Scorpios have an acute radar for shadowy intentions and dishonesty. This penchant for plumbing the depths also explains why this sign is the private investigator of the zodiac, the armchair detective investigating cold cases in their downtime. It’s no surprise that the whistleblowers Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, and Julian Assange all have moon signs in Scorpio. The most energetically crafty of the signs, a Scorpio can get what they want without saying a word. They can attract someone to them at a party simply with vibes. The same goes for the Scorpio pet, who can wordlessly call the shots, announce meal times with the look, and don’t even think about outstaring them.

A Scorpio animal knows when you are upset, even when you say you are fine. These animals tend to be devoted to one person and may not appreciate you bringing other animals into the fold. Hyper-perceptive and cunning, the spirit of Scorpio is alive in the inextinguishable predatory spirit that lingers inside your purebred Pomeranian. In fact, games of hunting and prey offer immense catharsis to these animals, so make sure you give them items to chase, ravage, and destroy. 

If the multibillion-dollar Halloween industry and cultural obsession with the true crime genre tell us anything, it’s that on some level, we are all fascinated by the macabre, by death, and by the darkness on the edge of town. Rather than teetering at the perimeter, Scorpios are not afraid to plunge headfirst into it. The aim is to know it, to understand it, and to ultimately be changed by it. While this sounds a little... intense, we are all phoenixes rising from the ashes as we encounter the many small deaths in life.

This season invites us to honor those losses while remembering the promise at the heart of this sign: that even when it seems unfathomable to imagine new life coming from the current conditions, nature (the ultimate “Final Girl” herself) shows us how inevitable this is.