The image
The water has nearly won. A man is going under, and another person reaches him, takes hold and brings him back to air. The line catches the rescue itself, the grip and the lift, and leaves out the before and after. We describe it as an image only; it is not about any real danger to anyone, and nothing on this page should be taken that way.
The image is from Elsie Wheeler's 1925 session with Marc Edmund Jones. Our table printed a line almost in Rudhyar's 1973 wording until 2026-10-10, when the line here, our own, replaced it.
Meaning
Read as a symbol, the rescue is about being overwhelmed and being reached. Deep water in images often stands for feeling, and to go under is to be swamped by more than one can manage; the picture shows the moment another hand arrives. Our keyword is "Saved from the deep", and our keynote says help arrives at the point of being overwhelmed. A placement here can be read from either side of the rescue: as a readiness to go in after someone, or as an openness to being helped when one's own strength runs out. The image honours both the rescuer's courage and the trust it takes to be pulled out.
For Lynda Hill, the degree before Scorpio 11 is its Karmic Condition and the one after it is its Quest Degree. Scorpio 10, old friends sharing an evening meal, comes before; Scorpio 12, a formal dance at an embassy, comes after. One reading of the run: a bond renewed at the table, that bond tested and kept in an emergency, and then the careful ceremony through which nations keep their ties.
The degree opposite is Taurus 11, a woman watering her flowers, our "Daily nurture". As a reading aid, the two pictures share water and care: in one it is given in small daily amounts to keep beauty alive, in the other it threatens a life and someone steps in.
In a chart
A planet or point anywhere from Scorpio 10°00′ up to, but not including, Scorpio 11°00′ takes this degree. The rule is to count the degree a position is in from one, so a Moon at Scorpio 10°28′ reads Scorpio 11, and so does one at Scorpio 10°57′. Close to either edge, a small change in the birth time or the ephemeris moves a placement into the next image: into Scorpio 12 after Scorpio 10°59′, or back into Scorpio 10 before Scorpio 10°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 Scorpio 11 carries the image, keyword and keynote above, with Scorpio 10, Scorpio 12 and Taurus 11 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
- Scorpio 10 and Scorpio 12, read beside this degree after Lynda Hill, who calls them its Karmic Condition and its Quest Degree sourced
- Degree opposite
- Taurus 11, 180° away, offered as a reading aid; it is arithmetic, not a rule of Jones's our construction
- A position at Scorpio 10°00′00″
- Our engine, Hill's rule and every calculator we checked read it as Scorpio 11; the Sabian Assembly's sunrise page reads it as Scorpio 10. 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: Help arrives at the point of being overwhelmed.
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
- Scorpio 10: Bond renewed the degree before, which Lynda Hill reads as its background
- Scorpio 12: Formal diplomacy the degree after, which Hill reads as where it is heading
- Taurus 11: Daily nurture the degree opposite, read beside it as a reading aid
- Scorpio in the natal chart the sign these thirty degrees belong to
