Second Decan of Libra (10°–20°)

Saturn twice over in its sign of exaltation

The second decan of Libra covers 10°–20° of the sign, its central stretch. Saturn rules it in the Chaldean order, and Saturn rules it again in the triplicity order, because the second face of an air sign belongs to the next air sign, Aquarius, Saturn's own house. Modern astrologers add Uranus as Aquarius's co-ruler. Libra is also the sign of Saturn's exaltation, with the exact degree just past this face at 21°. Few decans give Saturn so much authority.

The face also holds 19° Libra, the Sun's traditional fall degree, so ego and personal will carry little weight here. What matters is the rule, the contract and the fair result. Astrologers read this decan as justice in its formal sense: law, mediation, agreements kept, and the willingness to accept loss for the sake of what is right. Air keeps the judgement mental and principled. The risk is a coldness that mistakes distance for fairness, or grief held so long it becomes a creed.

Two angry men and a judge in a chair

Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy (1533) describes this face as two furious, quarrelling men and, near them, a man in fine clothes seated in a chair. He reads it in two directions: indignation against wrongdoers, and a quiet, secure life well supplied with good things. The Picatrix, the Arabic manual of astral magic that Agrippa drew on, reads the face on its calmer side, as tranquillity, contentment and plenty.

The seated figure is the key. He is a judge or arbiter, composed while others rage, and the security he enjoys comes from having settled the quarrel. That is Saturn exalted: authority that brings order to conflict. The Golden Dawn named the matching card the Lord of Sorrow, and set beside the old images it shows the cost of a verdict. Someone loses the case, a bond is cut, a truth is spoken. The quiet life Agrippa promises comes after that, not instead of it.

Seventy days in the house of embalming

This face was once one of the thirty-six star groups whose dawn risings marked the Egyptian ten-day weeks and the hours of the night. Their lists vary from monument to monument, so no Egyptian star can be matched to 10°–20° of the tropical zodiac with confidence.

Egypt's own account of the decans has a Saturnine shape. The Book of Nut, carved in the cenotaph of Seti I at Abydos and in the tomb of Ramesses IV, says that each decan sets in the west, spends seventy days hidden in the house of embalming, is purified and is born again in the east. Death and return were the ordinary life of a star, the cycle that kept the year turning. It is a fitting frame for a face whose card is sorrow: loss treated as a passage with a known length and a far side. Hellenistic astrologers later set the star groups into the zodiac, three to each sign. More is on the Egyptian decan gods page.

The Three of Swords: Saturn in Libra

In the Golden Dawn system this decan is the Three of Swords, Saturn in Libra, which Book T calls the Lord of Sorrow. Pamela Colman Smith's Rider-Waite image is among the best known in the deck: a red heart pierced by three swords, against grey cloud and falling rain. There is no figure, only the wound and the weather.

The logic of the attribution is plain: Saturn, the planet of limits, in Libra, the sign of balance and partnership, gives sorrow. Saturn's judgement falls on the heart of a relationship, and air makes the cut clean. The two trumps behind the pip are The World for Saturn and Justice for Libra. Read together they suggest that the pain of the card is lawful, the result of something true being recognised. Readers in the tradition take it as grief, separation or a hard truth, and as a lesson that a clean wound heals better than a hidden one.

A Sun or planets in the second decan of Libra

With the Sun here, born from roughly 3 October to the 12th or 13th depending on the year, you have the Sun deep in its fall and under Saturn's double rule. You may care intensely about fairness and keep your word even when it costs you. You tend to see the structure of a situation, who owes what to whom, and you can be a steady arbiter. Personal ambition matters less to you than doing right. The growth point is letting warmth into your judgement, and letting old sorrows close once they have taught what they can.

Several planets in these degrees give a chart seriousness, principle and an interest in law, contracts or ethics. Saturn itself here is exalted and rules its face twice over, which makes it unusually dignified. Any planet in this decan learns patience and accountability, and often meets its lessons through partnership.

Working with the second decan of Libra

Write agreements down, including small ones with people you love; this face is calmer when the terms are clear. When something hurts, name the loss plainly and give it a set time to be felt, as the Book of Nut gives its stars seventy days. Review one old grievance a year and decide whether to settle or release it. If you read tarot, set the Three of Swords between The World and Justice and ask what a fair ending would look like in a situation that still hurts. Learn something about how law or mediation works, since this decan's sense of justice grows stronger with knowledge of real procedures.