Second Decan of Capricorn (10°–20°)

Mars's face in the sign of its exaltation

The second decan of Capricorn covers 10°–20° of the sign, the centre of cardinal earth. In the Chaldean order the face belongs to Mars. In the triplicity scheme it passes to Taurus, the next earth sign, and so to Venus.

Few decans are as well matched to their lord. Capricorn is the sign of Mars's exaltation, and in this face Mars also holds its own face dignity, so a Mars placed here is doubly at home in the classical sense. The sign's patience and the planet's force combine: effort becomes steady and targeted, the opposite of a Mars that burns out. Venus, through Taurus, adds an eye for form and material, and a wish for the result to look good as well as stand.

The same ten degrees also hold 15° Capricorn, the traditional degree of Jupiter's fall, which suits a face that values work over luck. Astrologers read it as the climb itself, after the planning of the first decan: hands on the rock, steady pace, skill tested by altitude.

The bird overhead and the Lord of Material Works

Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy, printed in 1533, gives this face two women and a man watching a bird fly overhead. He reads it as wanting what cannot be done and seeking what cannot be known. His face images descend mostly from the Picatrix, the Arabic handbook of astral magic translated into Latin in the thirteenth century, where each figure guided the making of a talisman.

The image seems an odd fit for earthy Capricorn until you read it beside the card. The Golden Dawn's Book T, from the 1890s, calls this decan's card the Lord of Material Works, and the Rider-Waite artist set it inside a cathedral, a building made to reach the sky. The figures looking up at the bird and the mason carving stone under a vault want the same thing, height. Agrippa warns that the reach can exceed the grasp. The Golden Dawn answers that skill, applied stone by stone, closes much of the gap. Mars as face lord supplies the effort, Venus the sense of proportion.

A star of the Egyptian year

Long before the zodiac, the decans were thirty-six star groups of the Egyptian sky whose dawn risings marked ten-day weeks and whose risings through the night counted the hours. Each was a god, and each went unseen for about seventy days a year, which the Book of Nut describes as a time in the house of embalming before rebirth on the eastern horizon. Hellenistic astrologers fitted the thirty-six to the twelve signs, and this decan became the middle of Capricorn. The Egyptian lists differ from monument to monument, so no particular star group can be assigned to it with confidence. The ten-day unit survived the move. The Sun crosses this face roughly from 1 to 10 January, the opening days of the calendar year in much of the world.

The Three of Pentacles: Mars in Capricorn

The Golden Dawn gave the Three of Pentacles to this decan: Pentacles for earth, the Three for the middle face of the cardinal earth sign, Mars for its Chaldean ruler. In the Rider-Waite deck a craftsman stands on a bench in a church, working on an arch carved with three pentacles. A monk and a figure holding plans stand below and consult with him.

Mars exalted in Capricorn is force in its most useful form, and the card puts that force in a workshop. The craftsman is skilled and the patrons need him, and the plan is shared between them. In readings the Three of Pentacles speaks of competence recognised, teamwork, apprenticeship and work that meets a standard. In the Golden Dawn's wider system it stands between The Tower, for Mars, and The Devil, for Capricorn. Both trumps can be destructive; here the striking power of the Tower is aimed at stone and the Devil's bond to matter becomes the bond of a builder to his work.

A Sun or planets in the second decan of Capricorn

With the Sun here, born roughly between 1 and 10 January, you tend to work hard and well, and to take quiet pride in skill. You often prefer to be judged by results, and you have the stamina to produce them. Ambition is part of you, but it attaches to craft: you want the thing you build to work well and to look finished.

Mars as face lord gives drive and the ability to work under pressure; Venus through Taurus gives taste and patience with materials. Many people with planets here do well in fields where strength meets form, from engineering and surgery to building, design or skilled trades. The risk is turning work into the only measure of worth, or reaching for a goal so high that nothing achieved feels like enough.

Several planets in this decan give a chart unusual capacity for sustained effort. Mars placed here holds its exaltation sign and its own face together, one of its strongest positions, and Venus here picks up the triplicity scheme's claim through Taurus.

Working with the second decan of Capricorn

Pick one skill and practise it deliberately for a season, with a teacher or a standard to measure against. This decan grows through craft more than through talk. Work with others on something bigger than you could build alone, and notice what each person brings, as the three figures on the card do.

When a goal starts to feel like Agrippa's bird, always just out of reach, break it into stages you can finish and celebrate each one. Give the body real work as a counterweight to desk effort: lifting, climbing, building, gardening. Venus here asks for beauty in the result, so give finish and presentation some of the time you give to function. If you read the Tarot, lay out the Three of Pentacles and ask who your patron, your planner and your fellow worker are in the current project. The first days of January, when the Sun crosses this face, suit setting a working plan for the year.