A teacher who passes on what he knows within

The image

The picture is of a teacher, but the line places his subject inside him: what he passes on is what he has come to know for himself. No books are mentioned, no school and no pupils by name; the stress falls on the source of the teaching rather than its setting. It is a quiet image, a person speaking from experience to people who are ready to hear.

The degree's image goes back to the session in 1925 in which Elsie Wheeler described the pictures and Marc Edmund Jones noted them on cards; the sentence here is ours.

Meaning

Read as a symbol, the teacher stands for the moment when private understanding becomes something that can be shared. Our keyword is "Passing on inner knowledge", and our keynote says that what one has understood inwardly is handed on to others. The image can be read as an emphasis on authenticity in teaching, on speaking only of what one has tested, and on the responsibility that comes with being listened to. A placement here might be seen in someone who explains by example, or who learns most by teaching. Nothing in the image promises that the knowledge is correct; it marks only where it comes from.

Libra 5 sits, in Lynda Hill's terms, between a Karmic Condition and a Quest Degree. Before this one comes Libra 4, people gathered around a campfire, a circle bound by a shared warmth. After it comes Libra 6, our "Crystallised ideals", in which a man's aspirations become definite enough to be built. Followed in that order, a circle gathers, one voice in it teaches from within, and what was taught begins to take solid form.

The opposite degree, Aries 5, is a winged triangle, our "Uplifted mind". As a reading aid, the pair sets the abstract idea that rises on its own wings beside the person who brings understanding down into words for others.

In a chart

A planet or point anywhere from Libra 4°00′ up to, but not including, Libra 5°00′ takes this degree. The rule is to count the degree a position is in from one, so a Moon at Libra 4°16′ reads Libra 5, and so does one at Libra 4°57′. Close to either edge, a small change in the birth time or the ephemeris moves a placement into the next image: into Libra 6 after Libra 4°59′, or back into Libra 4 before Libra 4°00′. That is why the chart shows the minute beside the degree. In EsoTerrier's Sabian chart the Sun, the Moon and the Ascendant are read first, then the Midheaven and the planets; each placement in Libra 5 carries the image, keyword and keynote above, with Libra 4, Libra 6 and Aries 5 beside it.

Correspondences

Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.

Where the image comes from

Recorded by Marc Edmund Jones in Balboa Park, San Diego, in 1925, as the clairvoyant Elsie Wheeler described the picture she saw for an unseen card; one of 360 done in a single day; published by Jones in 1953 sourced

Degree before and after

Libra 4 and Libra 6, read beside this degree after Lynda Hill, who calls them its Karmic Condition and its Quest Degree sourced

Degree opposite

Aries 5, 180° away, offered as a reading aid; it is arithmetic, not a rule of Jones's our construction

A position at Libra 4°00′00″

Our engine, Hill's rule and every calculator we checked read it as Libra 5; the Sabian Assembly's sunrise page reads it as Libra 4. A computed chart practically never lands on it disputed

How the schools read it

Marc Edmund Jones (1953)

Gives the degree a symbol line, a commentary, a one-word keyword and a positive and a negative reading. We quote none of it.

Dane Rudhyar (1973)

Rewords the image and adds a keynote and a commentary of his own, numbering the degrees as Jones did. In copyright to 2068; not used, and the place he gives the degree in his own structure is not shown.

Lynda Hill (1995, 2004)

Uses the symbols as an oracle, with her own commentary, and reads each degree beside the one before and the one after. Her rule and her two names are cited here; her text is not used.

The Sabian Assembly

Jones's own study group serves the 1953 image and keyword of a degree in its oracle, without commentary, on purpose.

EsoTerrier

Our keynote: What one has understood inwardly is handed on to others.

Claims about it

• The image line on this page, or on any site, is Elsie Wheeler's own wording.

  false

  What the record shows: Her words survive only as Jones's pencilled notes of 1925. Jones reworded them in 1931 and 1953, Rudhyar in 1936 and 1973, and Hill in her books.

• Reading the degree before and the degree after is part of how the zodiac is built, or of Jones's method.

  false

  What the record shows: It is Lynda Hill's practice, and the two names are hers. We show the two degrees with her name.

• Dane Rudhyar's 1973 lines are the Sabian symbols and free to print.

  false

  What the record shows: They are his rewording, with his own keynotes and commentary, renewed in 2002 and in US copyright to the end of 2068. None of them is used here.

Elsewhere on EsoTerrier

• Libra 4: Shared inner warmth the degree before, which Lynda Hill reads as its background
• Libra 6: Crystallised ideals the degree after, which Hill reads as where it is heading
• Aries 5: Uplifted mind the degree opposite, read beside it as a reading aid
• Libra in the natal chart the sign these thirty degrees belong to