♎ Libra · 20 to 30 degrees
The third decan of Libra
Libra with Jupiter: fairness widened into something like generosity.
At a glance
| Degrees | 20 to 30 degrees of Libra |
|---|---|
| Face ruler (Chaldean) | Jupiter |
| Decanate ruler (modern) | Gemini (ruler: Mercury) |
| Golden Dawn card | Four of Swords |
| Element and modality | air, cardinal |
Jupiter in the last face of Libra is read as social ease with substance: diplomacy, law, and a genuine interest in what is right rather than merely what is acceptable.
Associated with rest after dispute, which is what the corresponding Four of Swords describes.
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 Jupiter. The modern decanate system gives each decan to one of the three signs of its own element, here Gemini.
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 Jupiter means →The tarot connection
The Golden Dawn mapped the 36 decans onto the 36 minor arcana pips, two through ten. This decan is the Four of Swords, which is why that card carries Jupiter and Libra 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.
Four of Swords 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