The second decan of Taurus

The middle ten degrees of Taurus, where the sign's steadiness starts wanting to be useful.

The technical picture

Degrees: 10 to 20 degrees of Taurus
Sun here roughly: April 29 to May 10. The boundary shifts by about a day with the leap cycle, so a birthday within a day of either end needs a calculated chart.
Sign ruler: Venus, over all three decans
Traditional face ruler: Moon, from the Chaldean order
Modern triplicity ruler: Mercury, by way of Virgo
Do they agree: No. The two traditions disagree here, as they do on twenty-seven of the thirty-six decans.

The core of this decan

The middle third of Taurus goes to work. The modern scheme brings Virgo in here, and the effect is that comfort acquires a job: the garden gets weeded, the accounts get done, the pleasant life becomes a maintained one. Planets in these degrees tend to be practical in a way the first decan is not, and the practicality is quiet rather than anxious.

How it differs from the rest of the sign

The opening decan of Taurus enjoys. This one tends. The difference shows up in how a person handles a possession or a relationship they value: the first decan sits with it and the second maintains it, and over years the maintaining wins. Against the third decan, which is building toward something structural and durable, this one stays closer to the everyday. It is the decan of the thing kept in good repair instead of the thing built to outlast you.

The two rulers

The disagreement here runs in an interesting direction. The modern scheme gives these degrees to Mercury, by way of Virgo, which fits the practical, sorting quality easily. The older face system gives them to the Moon. That Moon adds something the Mercury reading leaves out. The maintaining is a form of care, and people with planets here often look after things as a way of looking after somebody.

Where the friction is

Usefulness can become the price of belonging. A planet in this decan can slide into being valued for what it keeps running, and then find it hard to be still without feeling faintly unearned. The criticism that comes with Virgo enters too, often turned inward first. There is also a tendency to handle a feeling by tidying something, which works well enough that the feeling can go years without being addressed directly.

Working with it

Let the care be visible as care instead of only as competence. Saying the thing outright, once, does more than another month of quiet maintenance. It also helps to keep one pleasure in the week that has no job attached to it, because this decan will otherwise attach one. And when you find yourself cleaning, it is worth asking what you would be feeling if you stopped.

Questions to sit with

What would you be feeling if you stopped tidying?
Where are you being valued for what you keep running rather than for being there?
Which pleasure in your week has no job attached to it?

The other decans of Taurus

The rulers involved

Start here

Find which decan your own planets fall in.

Educational and reflective. This describes tendencies, not predictions, and is not medical, legal, financial, or psychological advice.

Drafted from an expert brief, reviewed by a practising astrologer with 30 years of experience, and grounded in computed chart data.