Taurus II
Moon Decan · 10°–20° · Lord of Material Success
"The second face of Taurus. In it rises a man of bright complexion, holding keys, clothed in fine linen. This is a face of wealth, generosity, and the gifts that flow when the heart is open and the earth is ready to receive."Picatrix — Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm, Book II (c. 1000 CE)
The Fifth Face
The 6 of Pentacles — Lord of Material Success
The sixth Pentacles card falls in Taurus II: the Moon ruling the middle decan of Taurus — and doing so from her position of greatest dignity, for the Moon is exalted in Taurus, with her exact degree of exaltation traditionally placed at 3° Taurus. By the time the Moon rules these 10°–20° degrees, she has fully claimed her throne in this sign. The result is the Moon at her most nourishing, most generous, most capable of sustaining.
The number 6 corresponds to Tiphareth — the heart of the Tree of Life, the sephirah of beauty, harmony, and the Sun's radiant giving. Tiphareth in the earthly suit produces exactly the 6 of Pentacles' essential quality: the circulation of material wealth from a place of abundance, not scarcity. The Waite-Smith image shows a merchant distributing coins to two kneeling figures while holding scales — the image of right giving, balanced generosity, the heart that gives because it has received.
The Moon exalted in Taurus synthesizes lunar nourishment with Venusian earth. This is the decan of material fertility: crops growing in good soil under a full moon, sustenance flowing naturally to where it is needed. The Lord of Material Success does not describe mere accumulation — it describes the natural circulation of material goods that occurs when nourishment and receptivity are both at their peak.
The Moon Exalted — Maximum Dignity in Fixed Earth
The Moon's exaltation in Taurus is one of the most significant dignities in traditional astrology. Where Mars is strongest in Aries (his domicile), where the Sun reaches his height in Aries (his exaltation at 19° Aries), the Moon finds her deepest expression in Taurus. The exaltation is not merely a "strong placement" — it represents the sign in which the planet most fully realizes its essential nature.
The Moon's essential nature is nourishment, receptivity, cyclical renewal, and the tending of what grows. Taurus — fixed earth, the sign of the fertile ground, of Venus's patient material beauty — is the soil in which the Moon's gifts take root and hold. Where the Moon in Aries (cardinal fire) is expressed as emotional urgency and restless instinct, the Moon in Taurus is expressed as patient nurturing, steady comfort, and the deep satisfaction of needs that have been well and truly met.
This decan governs approximately April 30 through May 10 — the threshold of Beltane in the Celtic calendar, the season when the earth reaches its greatest fertility before summer's heat begins to dry the ground. The exalted Moon presiding over this period is entirely fitting: this is the moment when nourishment becomes abundance, when the planted seed becomes visible growth, when the promise of Taurus I's labor begins to yield.
Egyptian Origins — Hathor and the Fertile Middle
The second face of Taurus corresponds to the midpoint of the bull-sign — the zone of fullest earthly expression. In Egypt, this period aligned with early spring planting and the rising of the Pleiades, which Egyptian farmers used to time their agricultural cycles. The presiding deity of this face is most naturally understood as Hathor — the cow-goddess of love, beauty, music, fertility, and material abundance.
Hathor is the lunar-Venusian principle at its most generous: she who feeds, beautifies, and delights. Her sacred animal, the cow, expresses the same quality as the Moon's exaltation in Taurus — patient nourishment, the unconditional giving of sustenance, the warmth that asks nothing in return except to continue giving. Hathor's golden crown often included the solar disk between her horns — the celestial light held within the material, exactly as Tiphareth is held within Pentacles in the 6 of Pentacles.
The decan-star presiding over this face rose at a time associated with the flooding of the Nile's preparation — not the flood itself (which comes later) but the seasonal readiness for it, the earth poised to receive what heaven sends. This is the essential posture of the Moon exalted in Taurus: the perfect receptivity that makes abundance possible.
Picatrix — The Talismanic Image
"The second face of Taurus. In it rises a man of fair complexion, with a white garment, holding keys in his hand. This is a face of wealth, of acquisition, of the keys to material plenty, and of generosity flowing from those who have been given authority over resources."Picatrix, Book II, Chapter 11 — trans. John Michael Greer & Christopher Warnock
The Moon in Her Throne — Nourishment Made Permanent
When the Moon rules a decan in her sign of exaltation, the usual fluctuation of lunar energy is stilled. The Moon, which normally moves through a sign in two and a half days, shifts her quality through each decan even faster — she is the most rapidly moving of the classical planets. Yet in Taurus, something of Taurus's fixed quality arrests the Moon's natural restlessness.
The Moon exalted in Taurus is not a Moon that rushes or turns. It is a Moon that sits — deeply, stably, fully — in the most comfortable position available to her in the whole zodiac. Traditional astrology saw this placement as indicating reliability of provision: people with natal Moon in Taurus were said to be well-nourished in childhood, to have a secure relationship with the material world, to possess the capacity to create lasting comfort for others. The stability of earth tempers the Moon's transience.
In Kabbalistic terms, the Moon governs Yesod — the ninth sephirah, the Foundation, the sphere of the astral plane, of dream and reflection. When Yesod's Moon rules the decan of Tiphareth-in-Earth (the 6 of Pentacles), the result is the astral nourishment made tangible: dreams that manifest, visions that build themselves into the world, the invisible sustaining the visible. The man with keys in the Picatrix image holds the keys not just to wealth but to the gates between worlds — between the nourishing invisible and the nourished material.