A jetty carried away by the water

The image

Where boats used to tie up and people used to step aboard, there is now only water and perhaps a few broken posts. The jetty has been taken by the tide or the flood, and the shore is bare. The picture is described as an image of a structure lost to water.

Our old table gave this degree a line about waking after a night of rest, which is not the Sabian image of any degree; it was one of twelve such lines found against the Sabian Assembly's list and was replaced on 2026-10-10 with the degree's own image.

Meaning

One way to read the lost jetty is as the loss of a point of departure rather than of somewhere to arrive. The boats are still there and the sea is still open; what has gone is the place from which one used to set out. Our keyword is "Rebuilding", and our keynote says that what served as a point of departure is lost and must be remade. A placement here can be read as a call to reconstruct a base: a routine, a home ground, a way of beginning. The image does not dwell on the damage. It looks toward the work of putting new posts into the water.

Libra 16 sits, in Lynda Hill's terms, between a Karmic Condition and a Quest Degree. Before this degree, Libra 15 shows paths that go round and return; after it, Libra 17 shows a sea captain who has given up the sea. The three pictures can be followed as circling, a lost landing, and finally a sailor at rest on land, as if the way out to sea had changed its meaning.

Across the wheel lies Aries 16, small brownies dancing as the sun goes down, our "Evening merriment". As a reading aid, the pair sets the end of a structure against the end of a day: something gone that has to be rebuilt, and something closing that the little spirits of dusk greet with dancing.

In a chart

A planet or point anywhere from Libra 15°00′ up to, but not including, Libra 16°00′ takes this degree. The rule is to count the degree a position is in from one, so a Moon at Libra 15°03′ reads Libra 16, and so does one at Libra 15°58′. Close to either edge, a small change in the birth time or the ephemeris moves a placement into the next image: into Libra 17 after Libra 15°59′, or back into Libra 15 before Libra 15°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 16 carries the image, keyword and keynote above, with Libra 15, Libra 17 and Aries 16 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 15 and Libra 17, read beside this degree after Lynda Hill, who calls them its Karmic Condition and its Quest Degree sourced

Degree opposite

Aries 16, 180° away, offered as a reading aid; it is arithmetic, not a rule of Jones's our construction

A position at Libra 15°00′00″

Our engine, Hill's rule and every calculator we checked read it as Libra 16; the Sabian Assembly's sunrise page reads it as Libra 15. A computed chart practically never lands on it disputed

Our table before 10 October 2026

Carried "A man regains full consciousness after a night of rest.", which is not the Sabian image of any degree; corrected on 10 October 2026 sourced

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 served as a point of departure is lost and must be remade.

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.

• Our table before 10 October 2026 gave this degree its own image.

  false

  What the record shows: Carried "A man regains full consciousness after a night of rest.", which is not the Sabian image of any degree. Found against the Sabian Assembly's list and fixed on 10 October 2026.

Elsewhere on EsoTerrier

• Libra 15: Recurrence the degree before, which Lynda Hill reads as its background
• Libra 17: Experience at rest the degree after, which Hill reads as where it is heading
• Aries 16: Evening merriment the degree opposite, read beside it as a reading aid
• Libra in the natal chart the sign these thirty degrees belong to