♓ Pisces · 20 to 30 degrees
The third decan of Pisces
Pisces with Mars: the last ten degrees of the zodiac, with something driving them.
At a glance
| Degrees | 20 to 30 degrees of Pisces |
|---|---|
| Face ruler (Chaldean) | Mars |
| Decanate ruler (modern) | Scorpio (ruler: Pluto, and Mars traditionally) |
| Golden Dawn card | Ten of Cups |
| Element and modality | water, mutable |
Mars in the final face of the circle is read as feeling that acts: compassion with force behind it, and a sensitivity that is not passive.
Associated with emotional fulfilment shared rather than held, which is the corresponding Ten of Cups and the end of the sequence.
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 Ten of Cups, which is why that card carries Mars and Pisces 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.
Ten 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.
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