Third Decan of Pisces (20°–30°)

Mars's double face at the end of the zodiac

The third decan of Pisces covers 20°–30° of the sign, the last ten degrees of mutable water and of the whole zodiac. In the Chaldean order the face belongs to Mars. In the triplicity scheme it goes to Scorpio, the third water sign counted from Pisces, and so to Mars again, with Pluto as the modern co-ruler.

This double Mars is the result of simple arithmetic. The Chaldean order runs through seven planets across thirty-six faces, starting with Mars at Aries I. Five full rounds use thirty-five faces, and the thirty-sixth falls to Mars once more. The planet that opens the wheel at the spring equinox also closes it. Both the first and the last face of the zodiac are doubly Mars's, and the old books saw Mars standing guard at both ends of the year.

Mars has no rulership or exaltation in Pisces, but it rules the water signs by night in the classical triplicity tables, and here it adds face and the triplicity scheme's claim. The face also holds 27° Pisces, Venus's exaltation degree. Astrologers read it as feeling with a spine: the ocean of Pisces given Scorpio's resolve, strong enough to finish things.

The lovers at rest and the Lord of Perfected Success

Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy, printed in 1533, gives this face a naked man, or a youth, with a beautiful girl beside him wearing flowers in her hair. He reads it as rest, leisure, pleasure and lovers' tenderness. His face images descend largely from the Picatrix, the Arabic manual of astral magic that reached Latin readers in the thirteenth century, where each face's figure was a pattern for a talisman.

After the hard work of the zodiac, the image is a pause in a garden, and it carries Venus's exaltation degree. Mars, the face lord, is unarmed here, a lover rather than a soldier, which is the classical picture of Mars and Venus together. The Golden Dawn's Book T, from the 1890s, calls the card of this decan the Lord of Perfected Success. Read together, the images describe fulfilment reached and enjoyed. The warning in Agrippa's list is idleness, a rest that never ends. Mars is there to make sure the cycle is completed, and then to begin the next one.

The last decan before the equinox

The decans began as Egypt's star clock: thirty-six star groups whose dawn risings marked the ten-day weeks of the year and whose risings through the night told the hours. Each was a god, and each hid for about seventy days a year, which the Book of Nut describes as a stay in the house of embalming before rebirth in the east. Death and return were the normal life of a decan. When Hellenistic astrologers fitted the thirty-six to the zodiac, this one became the last ten degrees of Pisces. The Egyptian lists vary between monuments, so the original star group behind it cannot be named with confidence. Its place in the cycle is clear. The Sun crosses it roughly from 11 to 20 March and leaves it at the spring equinox, when Aries I begins.

The Ten of Cups: Mars in Pisces

The Golden Dawn gave the Ten of Cups to this decan: Cups for water, the Ten for the last face of the mutable water sign, Mars for its Chaldean ruler. In the Rider-Waite deck a couple stand with arms raised toward a rainbow of ten cups, two children dance beside them, and a house sits among green hills.

It is a gentle card for a double Mars face. The Golden Dawn read the combination as success completed, the water cycle filled to the brim, and Mars as the energy that drives it to completion. The tens of each suit close a cycle, and this is the last ten of the last sign. In readings the Ten of Cups speaks of family happiness, emotional fulfilment and a home that holds. The cards mirror each other across the wheel: Mars opens with the Two of Wands, the Lord of Dominion looking out over the world, and closes with the Ten of Cups looking home. In the Golden Dawn's wider system the card stands between The Tower, for Mars, and The Moon, for Pisces.

A Sun or planets in the third decan of Pisces

With the Sun here, born roughly between 11 and 20 March, you tend to have more force than people expect. On the surface you may be gentle, imaginative and kind; underneath there is resolve, and you can fight hard for the people and ideals you love. You often know when something has run its course and can end it cleanly.

Mars's double rule gives courage and tenacity, sometimes with anger that stays hidden until it erupts. The Venus exaltation degree adds warmth, pleasure and a talent for love and art. The risk swings between two poles: escaping into pleasure, rest or fantasy, as Agrippa's image warns, or forcing endings before they are due. Family matters a great deal, and so can an ideal of family that real people cannot match.

Several planets in this decan give a chart unusual emotional strength. Mars placed here holds its own face, the triplicity scheme's claim through Scorpio and its night rulership of water together, far stronger than the usual reading of Mars in Pisces suggests.

Working with the third decan of Pisces

Finish something before you start the next thing: a project, a conversation, a chapter of life. This decan exists to close cycles, and it feels best when an ending is honoured. Write down what the last year or the last stage taught you before you move on.

Give Mars a safe outlet in a water sign: swimming, rowing, dance, or any physical practice that combines effort and flow. Notice when anger goes underground and name it while it is still small. Let yourself rest after a completion, as Agrippa's lovers do, and set a date when the rest ends. If you read the Tarot, lay the Ten of Cups beside the Two of Wands and ask what this ending makes possible. The days before the spring equinox, when the Sun crosses this face, suit clearing, forgiving and celebrating what has been finished.