The image
The picture is of a moment, almost of a movement: a girl's face changing as a smile begins and spreads. We do not see what caused it, a word, a sight, a memory. We see only the warmth arriving, from the corners of the mouth to the eyes. It is one of the simplest images in the set and one of the most human.
The picture is Elsie Wheeler's, from the San Diego session of 1925. A line very like Rudhyar's 1973 version sat here in our table until 2026-10-10.
Meaning
Read as a symbol, the spreading smile is spontaneity. It cannot quite be decided in advance, and it carries the inner state outward faster than any explanation. Our keyword is "Spontaneous warmth", and our keynote says feeling shows itself before it can be hidden. A placement here can be read as openness of heart, a face that shows what it feels, and a gift for lightening a room. It can also be read as a vulnerability, since what shows itself so quickly cannot be guarded. The image does not judge either way; it simply enjoys the smile.
Opposite stands Taurus 16, where an elderly man tries and fails to make the Mysteries plain, our "Wisdom without listeners". As a reading aid, the pair contrasts communication that fails despite long effort with communication that succeeds without any effort at all, in one smile.
Lynda Hill sets Scorpio 16 between its Karmic Condition, one degree back, and its Quest Degree, one degree on. Before Scorpio 16 are the children of Scorpio 15, at play with five heaps of sand; after it is Scorpio 17, a mother who is also her child's father. The pictures move from playful making, to unguarded feeling, to a single person who provides the whole of what a child needs from both parents.
In a chart
A planet or point anywhere from Scorpio 15°00′ up to, but not including, Scorpio 16°00′ takes this degree. The rule is to count the degree a position is in from one, so a Moon at Scorpio 15°33′ reads Scorpio 16, and so does one at Scorpio 15°58′. Close to either edge, a small change in the birth time or the ephemeris moves a placement into the next image: into Scorpio 17 after Scorpio 15°59′, or back into Scorpio 15 before Scorpio 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 Scorpio 16 carries the image, keyword and keynote above, with Scorpio 15, Scorpio 17 and Taurus 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
- Scorpio 15 and Scorpio 17, read beside this degree after Lynda Hill, who calls them its Karmic Condition and its Quest Degree sourced
- Degree opposite
- Taurus 16, 180° away, offered as a reading aid; it is arithmetic, not a rule of Jones's our construction
- A position at Scorpio 15°00′00″
- Our engine, Hill's rule and every calculator we checked read it as Scorpio 16; the Sabian Assembly's sunrise page reads it as Scorpio 15. 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: Feeling shows itself before it can be hidden.
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 15: Playing with form the degree before, which Lynda Hill reads as its background
- Scorpio 17: Self-sufficiency the degree after, which Hill reads as where it is heading
- Taurus 16: Wisdom without listeners the degree opposite, read beside it as a reading aid
- Scorpio in the natal chart the sign these thirty degrees belong to
