The image
A farmyard, a woman, a handful of feed thrown wide, and the hens running to it. Above them, unseen by the birds but not by her, hawks wait. The picture holds both actions in one figure: the open hand that gives and the watchful eye that defends. It is ordinary rural work, the sort done every morning, and the image keeps it plain.
Meaning
The image can be read as a full account of looking after something. Feeding alone is not enough, and guarding alone is not care; the woman does both, and the picture suggests they belong together. Our keyword is "Nurture and guard", and our keynote says that care for the dependent includes defence against what preys on them. A placement here can be read as an instinct for both sides of responsibility: providing what others need and noticing the dangers they cannot see. The image is not anxious. The hawks are part of the yard's life, and the woman's watchfulness is part of her ordinary work.
Lynda Hill would read Libra 7 with its Karmic Condition, the degree before, and its Quest Degree, the degree after. On one side is Libra 6, ideals crystallised into something that can be built; on the other, Libra 8, a fire still burning in the hearth of an empty house. One way to follow the three: an ideal is given form, the form is lived out as daily care, and the care leaves a warmth that outlasts the people it was for.
The degree opposite is Aries 7, a man who speaks for himself in two worlds at the same time, our "Dual competence". As a reading aid the pair shows two kinds of doubled attention: one person holding inner and outer life together, and one person holding giving and guarding together.
In a chart
A planet or point anywhere from Libra 6°00′ up to, but not including, Libra 7°00′ takes this degree. The rule is to count the degree a position is in from one, so a Moon at Libra 6°30′ reads Libra 7, and so does one at Libra 6°58′. Close to either edge, a small change in the birth time or the ephemeris moves a placement into the next image: into Libra 8 after Libra 6°59′, or back into Libra 6 before Libra 6°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 7 carries the image, keyword and keynote above, with Libra 6, Libra 8 and Aries 7 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 6 and Libra 8, read beside this degree after Lynda Hill, who calls them its Karmic Condition and its Quest Degree sourced
- Degree opposite
- Aries 7, 180° away, offered as a reading aid; it is arithmetic, not a rule of Jones's our construction
- A position at Libra 6°00′00″
- Our engine, Hill's rule and every calculator we checked read it as Libra 7; the Sabian Assembly's sunrise page reads it as Libra 6. 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: Care for the dependent includes defence against what preys on them.
Claims about it
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The image line on this page, or on any site, is Elsie Wheeler's own wording.
falseWhat 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.
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Reading the degree before and the degree after is part of how the zodiac is built, or of Jones's method.
falseWhat the record shows: It is Lynda Hill's practice, and the two names are hers. We show the two degrees with her name.
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Dane Rudhyar's 1973 lines are the Sabian symbols and free to print.
falseWhat 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 6: Crystallised ideals the degree before, which Lynda Hill reads as its background
- Libra 8: Warmth kept for no one the degree after, which Hill reads as where it is heading
- Aries 7: Dual competence the degree opposite, read beside it as a reading aid
- Libra in the natal chart the sign these thirty degrees belong to
