The image
Chanticleer is the name the old European beast fables gave to the cock of the farmyard, a handsome bird with a splendid voice and a high opinion of both. The picture needs no setting: one imagines him on a fence or a dung heap at daybreak, chest out, crowing as if the sun rose because he called it. The line is simply his name and what he is.
Elsie Wheeler named this image in her 1925 session with Marc Edmund Jones; our earlier line paraphrased other wordings, and the present one, our own, replaced it on 2026-10-10.
Meaning
Read as a symbol, Chanticleer is self-expression at full volume. His crowing is real, and it does greet the morning, but he is also pleased with himself in a way the fables liked to puncture. Our keyword is "Proud crowing", and our keynote describes him as pleased with the sound of his own voice. A placement here can be read as confidence and a gift for announcing things, for being heard, for waking others up. It can also be read as a gentle warning against vanity: the bird who mistakes his song for the cause of the sunrise. Both readings belong to the picture, and its humour keeps them light.
By Lynda Hill's rule, Libra 23 has a Karmic Condition in the degree behind it and a Quest Degree in the degree ahead. Libra 22, the child who lets the birds drink at the fountain, comes before; Libra 24, a butterfly that has sprouted an extra wing on the left, comes after. One way through the three: modest kindness, then a bird proud of his voice, then a creature with an extra gift that throws it off balance.
The degree opposite is Aries 23, which shows a veiled woman, dressed in soft pale colours, carrying a heavy and precious load, our "Hidden burden". As a reading aid, the pair sets loud display against quiet keeping: what is crowed to the whole yard, and what is carried gracefully and kept from view.
In a chart
A planet or point anywhere from Libra 22°00′ up to, but not including, Libra 23°00′ takes this degree. The rule is to count the degree a position is in from one, so a Moon at Libra 22°22′ reads Libra 23, and so does one at Libra 22°57′. Close to either edge, a small change in the birth time or the ephemeris moves a placement into the next image: into Libra 24 after Libra 22°59′, or back into Libra 22 before Libra 22°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 23 carries the image, keyword and keynote above, with Libra 22, Libra 24 and Aries 23 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 22 and Libra 24, read beside this degree after Lynda Hill, who calls them its Karmic Condition and its Quest Degree sourced
- Degree opposite
- Aries 23, 180° away, offered as a reading aid; it is arithmetic, not a rule of Jones's our construction
- A position at Libra 22°00′00″
- Our engine, Hill's rule and every calculator we checked read it as Libra 23; the Sabian Assembly's sunrise page reads it as Libra 22. 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: The cock of the old fables, pleased with the sound of his own voice.
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 22: Simple kindness the degree before, which Lynda Hill reads as its background
- Libra 24: Unusual endowment the degree after, which Hill reads as where it is heading
- Aries 23: Hidden burden the degree opposite, read beside it as a reading aid
- Libra in the natal chart the sign these thirty degrees belong to
