Treating Leo’s cards as a portrait of someone who always takes charge misses the differences within this correspondence. Strength, the Five of Wands, the Six of Wands, the Seven of Wands, and the King of Wands describe different ways of sustaining will, rather than a single personality. Read together, they let you distinguish patient control from competitive effort, public recognition from defending a position, and leadership from simply being forceful. You can ask how each approach supports or complicates the others in a spread.
The link runs through Teth: in the Golden Dawn correspondences recorded in Book T, this Hebrew letter connects Strength with Leo. The letter supplies the formal connection between sign and trump, rather than an extra personality trait. You can then use that connection to consider how Leo’s Fire operates when sustained rather than merely expressed.
Fire supplies will and drive, while a fixed sign sustains what is already underway. Strength is read as the patience needed to keep that drive usable without forcing every encounter. If you are leading a tense meeting, this might look like holding to the purpose, letting someone finish an objection, and answering firmly without trying to overpower them.
Leo is split into three parts of 10°, and each takes one of the Wands: the suit of Fire, numbered Five to Seven for a fixed sign. Each decan also has a planet, and its trump is worth reading alongside.
When several people want to steer the same project, Saturn in Leo offers a useful reading of the Five of Wands. Saturn’s limits and weight meet a fixed Fire sign’s sustained drive, so friction is read as effort pressing against constraints and competing claims. You might see this in a team arguing over limited resources: everyone keeps pushing, but nobody has yet agreed on priorities.
Planet card: The World (Saturn)
Recognition is the focus of Jupiter in Leo, the correspondence for the Six of Wands. Jupiter’s expansion and generosity work through sustained Fire as confidence that has room to include other people. When your team’s work receives praise, the card is read as a way to examine your response: do you name contributors and share the attention, or claim the achievement as yours alone?
Planet card: Wheel of Fortune (Jupiter)
Holding your ground gives Mars in Leo its particular pressure in the Seven of Wands. Mars brings heat and conflict to a sign that sustains its drive, so defending a position is read as active work rather than passive refusal. You might recognize this when colleagues repeatedly challenge a project’s scope and you keep explaining the boundary, cutting through distractions without turning every objection into a personal contest.
Planet card: The Tower (Mars)
The King of Wands includes part of Cancer in its span, so its leadership is read as a role rather than a personality reserved for Leo. That overlap keeps you from treating conviction as a Leo-only quality. In a project meeting, you might read the King through the person who sets a clear direction and takes responsibility for keeping the work aligned with it, regardless of their sign. The final third of Leo belongs to the Knight of Pentacles instead.
The last 10° of Leo (August 12–22) belong to the Knight of Pentacles, which runs on to 20° Virgo. Books that swap the Kings and Knights read this card as Sagittarius.
Born under Leo? Your decan depends on the day and, near a boundary, on the hour. Enter a date of birth to see which Leo cards are yours.
Fire signs share the suit of Wands; their trumps differ.
The court card of each sign starts in the sign before it, so neighbors share a stretch of the sky.
Strength. In the Golden Dawn system each sign takes the trump that stands on its Hebrew letter, and Leo's letter is Teth. The Sun is traditionally in Leo from July 22 – August 22.
The Five, Six and Seven of Wands. The Five of Wands is Saturn in Leo, 0° to 10° (July 22 – August 1). The Six of Wands is Jupiter in Leo, 10° to 20° (August 2–11). The Seven of Wands is Mars in Leo, 20° to 30° (August 12–22).
The King of Wands, which rules from 20° Cancer to 20° Leo (July 12 – August 11). The last ten degrees of Leo already belong to the Knight of Pentacles. Books that swap the Kings and Knights give Leo the Knight of Wands instead.
