Third Decan of Leo (20°–30°)

Mars twice over at the end of the Lion

The third decan of Leo covers 20°–30° of the sign, the closing stretch of the Sun's home before the year turns toward the harvest of Virgo. Mars rules it in the Chaldean order, and Mars rules it again in the triplicity order, because the third face of a fire sign belongs to the third fire sign, which by Leo's count is Aries. A doubled Mars in fixed fire is a strong, hot combination. In the Egyptian terms Mars also owns the last six degrees of Leo, 24°–30°, so a planet late in the sign stands in Mars's territory three times over.

Astrologers read this face as the Lion defending its territory. The first decan earns the crown and the second celebrates it; the third keeps it. Mars adds nerve, heat and a readiness to fight, and Leo makes that fight personal, a matter of honour. The quality is courage, and its weak point is a sense of being besieged that outlasts the actual danger.

A young man with a whip, and a gentler reading

The old images of this face are milder than its rulers. Agrippa, in his Three Books of Occult Philosophy (1533), describes a young man holding a whip and beside him a man who is sad and ill-favoured. He reads them as love and companionship, and as giving up what is owed to you to avoid a quarrel. The Picatrix, the Arabic manual of astral magic that Agrippa drew on, gives a gloomy, unattractive man with food in his mouth and a copper jug in his hand, and reads the face as love, pleasure and the table.

The contrast is useful. Mars doubled might suggest a soldier's image, yet the old authors saw a face that knows the cost of conflict and sometimes chooses peace, company and a good meal over winning. The whip shows force in reserve. The Golden Dawn title, Lord of Valour, keeps the courage but adds the context the images imply: valour belongs to the one who fights when it matters, and only then.

A star of late summer and the shrine of the decades

This face was once one of the thirty-six star groups of the Egyptian night clock, rising at dawn for about ten days before handing over to the next. The surviving lists disagree in order and spelling, and none can be fixed to 20°–30° of the tropical zodiac with any certainty.

Egypt did leave a model for reading each decan as a power with its own effects. The Naos of the Decades, a shrine made under Nectanebo I around 380–362 BCE, lays out the year decan by decan, with each one's image and what it does in its ten days, much of it concerned with striking enemies and protecting the land. That idea, a ten-day power that defends or attacks, passed into Hellenistic astrology when the star groups were fitted to the zodiac, three to a sign. It sits comfortably beside a Mars-ruled face. The wider story of these star gods is told on the Egyptian decan gods page.

The Seven of Wands: Mars in Leo

In the Golden Dawn system this decan is the Seven of Wands, Mars in Leo, which Book T calls the Lord of Valour. Pamela Colman Smith's Rider-Waite image shows a young man on a rise, holding his staff across his body while six staves push up at him from below. He wears mismatched footwear, as if he had to rush out to meet the challenge. He is outnumbered and holds the advantage of height.

The card reads the decan closely. Mars brings the fight, Leo the pride that refuses to give ground, and the seventh card in the suit shows fire defending a position rather than taking a new one. The two trumps behind it are The Tower for Mars and Strength for Leo, a pairing of sudden force and patient courage. Read together they suggest the lesson of this face: the strongest defence is steady, and it is aimed at the real threat, not at every staff in view.

A Sun or planets in the third decan of Leo

With the Sun here, born from roughly the 12th or 13th to the 22nd of August depending on the year, you have the Sun at home in Leo and armed by Mars. You tend to stand up for people and principles, often before anyone else has spoken, and you may feel most alive when there is something to defend. Your warmth is real, and so is your temper. You recover fast after setbacks and dislike retreat even when it would be wise. The growth point is telling a real threat from a disagreement, and keeping your fire for the first.

Several planets in these degrees give a chart a fighting spirit and plenty of physical drive. Mars itself here holds its own face, its own terms in the last six degrees, and a triplicity tie through Aries, so it acts with unusual force. Any planet in this decan learns courage, and the work is aiming it.

Working with the third decan of Leo

Choose your hills. Before you defend a position, write down in one line what you are protecting; if you cannot, it may be pride and not principle. Give the doubled Mars a physical outlet, such as martial arts, climbing or a demanding sport, so the body spends heat that would otherwise go into arguments. Stand up for someone with less power at least once a month, since this face is at its best defending others. If you read tarot, set the Seven of Wands between The Tower and Strength and ask which of the two you are using in a current conflict. After a confrontation, check whether the danger has passed before keeping your guard up.