← Going Deeper: Intermediate Astrology · lesson 1/38
Here's a lovely bit of detail once you know the twelve signs. Each sign isn't a single flat block — it's quietly divided into three ten-degree slices called decans (sometimes the older word faces is used). They're a way of saying that a person born early in a sign has a slightly different flavour from one born late in it — even though both are "the same sign."
A sign is 30 degrees wide. Split that into three equal parts and you get three decans of 10° each:
So if you're a Leo born right at the start, you're a first-decan Leo; a Leo born near the end is a third-decan Leo. Same lion, slightly different stripe.
The common modern method flavours each decan with another sign of the same element, in order. Take fire, for example — the fire signs are Aries, Leo and Sagittarius, so:
So a third-decan Aries gets a dash of Sagittarius — a little more adventurous and philosophical than a "typical" Aries. It's the same trick for all four elements: each decan borrows colour from its elemental cousins.
(An older tradition instead gives each decan a planetary sub-ruler, and calls them the faces — but the by-element version above is the one most beginners meet first.)
Decans are a fine-tuning tool. They help explain why two people of the same Sun sign can feel noticeably different, and they add a layer of nuance once the basics are in place. You don't need them to read a chart — but they're a satisfying next level of resolution, like turning up the detail on a map.
I like the decans because they're astrology refusing to be lazy. It would be easy to say "all Leos are the same" — but the tradition insists on looking closer, and finding three shades inside every sign. It's a small reminder of the whole spirit of a chart: the closer you look, the more particular — and the more human — a person turns out to be.