Third Decan of Capricorn (20°–30°)

The Sun's face at the top of the goat's sign

The third decan of Capricorn covers 20°–30° of the sign, the last stretch of cardinal earth. In the Chaldean order the face belongs to the Sun. In the triplicity scheme it goes to Virgo, the third earth sign counted from Capricorn, and so to Mercury.

The Sun has no classical dignity in Capricorn, a winter sign ruled by Saturn, but as face lord it brings authority and a wish to be seen at the head of things. Mercury, through Virgo, adds analysis, speech and a mind for detail. Put the two in Saturn's house and you get the administrator: someone who knows where the resources are, can explain the plan and expects to be in charge of it.

This face also holds 28° Capricorn, the traditional degree of Mars's exaltation, so the highest point of the sign's ambition sits in it. The first decan of Capricorn plans the climb and the second makes it; astrologers read this one as the summit. The work now is keeping what has been won, and the danger is gripping it so hard that nothing new can come in.

The banker's table and the Lord of Earthly Power

Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy, printed in 1533, gives this face a woman chaste in body and wise in her work, and beside her a banker gathering coins on his table. He reads it as governing with prudence, and also as a love of money that can turn into avarice. His face images come largely from the Picatrix, the Arabic manual of astral magic that reached Latin readers in the thirteenth century, where each figure was a design for a talisman.

The two figures split the face's possibilities. The wise woman shows Mercury through Virgo at its best, with discipline, skill and good judgement. The banker is the same intelligence turned toward accumulation. The Golden Dawn's Book T, from the 1890s, calls the card of this decan the Lord of Earthly Power, and the Rider-Waite artist drew a crowned figure clutching a coin. Agrippa's banker and the Golden Dawn's crowned miser are close relatives, and both images ask the face's real question: what is power for once you have it?

From Egyptian hour star to zodiac face

The decans began in Egypt as thirty-six star groups whose dawn risings marked the ten-day weeks of the year and whose risings through the night told the hours. They were counted among the gods. Each was hidden for about seventy days a year, a period the Book of Nut describes as a stay in the house of embalming before rebirth in the east. Under Hellenistic astrologers the thirty-six were fitted to the zodiac, three to a sign, and this one became the last ten degrees of Capricorn. The Egyptian lists vary between monuments, so the original star group behind this face cannot be named with confidence. The Sun crosses it roughly from 11 to 19 January, in the coldest stretch of the northern winter.

The Four of Pentacles: the Sun in Capricorn

The Golden Dawn gave the Four of Pentacles to this decan: Pentacles for earth, the Four for the last face of the cardinal earth sign, the Sun for its Chaldean ruler. In the Rider-Waite deck a crowned figure sits on a stone seat before a city. One coin rests on the crown, one is held tight against the chest, and two lie under the feet.

The Sun brings the crown, and Capricorn the stone seat and the city. The figure has power, property and position, and is plainly unwilling to let any of it go. In readings the Four of Pentacles speaks of security, saving, control and stability, and in its shadow of possessiveness and fear of loss. In the Golden Dawn's wider system it stands between The Sun, the trump of light and open warmth, and The Devil, for Capricorn, the trump of attachment to matter. The card sits at the point where security either shines or hardens into a chain. Which way it goes depends on whether the coin is used or only held.

A Sun or planets in the third decan of Capricorn

With the Sun here, born roughly between 11 and 19 January, the Sun sits in its own face, a minor dignity in a sign where it otherwise has none. You may find authority comes naturally: people look to you to organise, decide and speak for the group. You tend to be good with resources, money, time and people, and you think in terms of what will still stand in ten years.

Mercury through Virgo sharpens the mind and the tongue. You can explain a plan clearly and spot the weak point in someone else's. The risk is control: holding resources, decisions or affection too tightly, and treating change as a threat to what you have built. Command can also be lonely, and it helps to keep people around who are not your subordinates.

Several planets in this decan give a chart a strong executive and financial streak, suited to management, administration and any role of stewardship. Mercury here picks up the triplicity scheme's claim through Virgo.

Working with the third decan of Capricorn

Once a quarter, look at what you are holding, money, roles, possessions or grudges, and choose one thing to spend, delegate or let go. The Four of Pentacles loosens through practice, not through resolve. Put some of your resources to visible use: fund a project, train a successor, give away a skill.

Ask for honest feedback from someone who does not report to you. The summit can block the view of your own blind spots. Keep Mercury busy with good records and clear explanations; when people understand your decisions they trust them, which reduces the need to control. If you read the Tarot, lay out the Four of Pentacles and ask which of its four coins you could set down without losing your seat. The days in mid-January when the Sun crosses this face suit reviewing finances and structures for the year ahead.