Second Decan of Pisces (10°–20°)

Jupiter's face in Jupiter's own sign

The second decan of Pisces covers 10°–20° of the sign, the centre of mutable water. In the Chaldean order the face belongs to Jupiter. In the triplicity scheme it passes to Cancer, the next water sign, and so to the Moon.

Pisces is Jupiter's night domicile, so here Jupiter is both lord of the sign and lord of the face, two dignities at once. The decan is among the most benefic stretches of the zodiac in the classical sense. The triplicity link adds to it: Cancer is the sign of Jupiter's exaltation as well as the Moon's home, so the Moon brings care, nurture and a sense of belonging into a face already full of Jupiter's generosity.

The same ten degrees hold 15° Pisces, the traditional degree of Mercury's fall. Sympathy, faith and imagination lead in this face, and precise analysis comes a long way second. Astrologers read it as the sea in fair weather: the welcome given to strangers, the table set for more than the household, plenty that wants to be shared.

The gracious woman and the Lord of Material Happiness

Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy, printed in 1533, gives this face a woman with a fine face, richly adorned. He reads it as a wish to rise and to take on high matters and great undertakings. His face images come mostly from the Picatrix, the Arabic handbook of astral magic that reached Latin readers in the thirteenth century, where each face's figure guided the making of a talisman.

The adornment is Jupiter's plenty, the gracious face the Moon's warmth. The ambition is a surprise in gentle Pisces, but Jupiter at home thinks big, and its large plans are usually generous ones. The Golden Dawn's Book T, from the 1890s, calls the card of this decan the Lord of Material Happiness. Read together, the images describe someone who has enough and wants to do something large with it. The risk the face carries is the other side of the same coin: content enough to stop, and pleased enough with the table to forget the people still outside the door.

A star god of the Egyptian year

Before the zodiac existed, Egypt's decans were thirty-six star groups whose dawn risings marked the ten-day weeks of the year, while their risings through the night told the hours. Each was honoured as a god. Each went unseen 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. Hellenistic astrologers fitted the thirty-six to the twelve signs, and this decan became the middle of Pisces. The Egyptian monuments give differing lists, so no particular star group can be named for this face with confidence. The ten-day reign survived. The Sun crosses this face roughly from 1 to 10 March.

The Nine of Cups: Jupiter in Pisces

The Golden Dawn gave the Nine of Cups to this decan: Cups for water, the Nine for the middle face of the mutable water sign, Jupiter for its Chaldean ruler. In the Rider-Waite deck a well-fed man sits on a bench with his arms folded and a satisfied smile. Behind him nine cups stand in an arc on a draped table.

Jupiter in its own water sign is abundance in feeling and in kind, and the card shows contentment without strain. Readers often call it the wish card. In readings the Nine of Cups speaks of satisfaction, pleasure, hospitality and a wish fulfilled. The folded arms hint at the shadow: a host so comfortable that the cups stay on the table and nobody else is offered one. In the Golden Dawn's wider system the card stands between Wheel of Fortune, for Jupiter, and The Moon, for Pisces. Good fortune is real here, and so is the dreaminess that can mistake comfort for completion.

A Sun or planets in the second decan of Pisces

With the Sun here, born roughly between 1 and 10 March, you tend to be warm, generous and imaginative. People often find you easy company, and you may be the one who feeds the guests, remembers birthdays and believes in others when they doubt themselves. You may also have larger plans than people expect, often aimed at helping, healing or creating something beautiful.

Jupiter's double dignity gives faith and a sense that life will provide. The Moon through Cancer adds nurture and a strong attachment to home and family. The risk is complacency, or keeping the peace at any price: avoiding hard facts, saying yes to too much, letting comfort replace growth. Mercury's fall in this face also means details can slip.

Several planets in this decan give a chart a strongly benefic, caring character, suited to hospitality, the arts, healing and charitable work. Jupiter placed here holds its domicile and its own face at once, one of its strongest positions, and the Moon here picks up the triplicity scheme's claim through Cancer.

Working with the second decan of Pisces

Share something you have plenty of this week: time, food, a skill or money. Jupiter here grows by giving. Keep one practical habit that checks the details, a calendar, a budget, a second reading of contracts, since Mercury's fall can let things slip in a face this easy-going.

When life is good, set one goal that stretches you, so that contentment becomes a base rather than a stopping point. Practise saying no to one request that you would only accept to keep the peace. If you read the Tarot, lay out the Nine of Cups and ask who else should be sitting at your table. The early March days when the Sun crosses this face suit hosting, charitable work and gratitude practices.