One parent filling the place of two

The image

The line is short and leaves much unsaid: a mother who is her child's father as well. We read it in the plainest way, as a woman who raises a child alone and gives the care, protection and guidance that are usually shared between two parents. The picture is described as a symbol only. Of the 360 pictures Elsie Wheeler described in 1925 as Marc Edmund Jones wrote them down, this is Scorpio 17.

Meaning

Read as a symbol, the figure holds two roles in one person. Whatever divides those roles in a culture, tenderness and firmness, home and the world, the image shows them carried together. Our keyword is "Self-sufficiency", and our keynote says one person supplies what usually takes two. A placement here can be read as resourcefulness and strength, the ability to cover more than one's share, and an independence learned from necessity. The image also leaves room for its weight: to be both is demanding, and the reading can include the wish to share the load.

Read the way Lynda Hill reads a chart, Scorpio 17 looks back to a Karmic Condition and forward to a Quest Degree. Scorpio 16, a smile spreading over a girl's face, comes before; Scorpio 18, trees in their full autumn colour, comes after. Followed in order, the images go from a young feeling showing itself, to a grown person carrying two roles, to the bright maturity of the year before the leaves let go.

The degree opposite is Taurus 17, swords fighting against torches, our "Force versus light". As a reading aid, the pair sets two powers in open conflict beside two roles that one person holds together without a fight.

In a chart

A planet or point anywhere from Scorpio 16°00′ up to, but not including, Scorpio 17°00′ takes this degree. The rule is to count the degree a position is in from one, so a Moon at Scorpio 16°10′ reads Scorpio 17, and so does one at Scorpio 16°57′. Close to either edge, a small change in the birth time or the ephemeris moves a placement into the next image: into Scorpio 18 after Scorpio 16°59′, or back into Scorpio 16 before Scorpio 16°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 17 carries the image, keyword and keynote above, with Scorpio 16, Scorpio 18 and Taurus 17 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 16 and Scorpio 18, read beside this degree after Lynda Hill, who calls them its Karmic Condition and its Quest Degree sourced

Degree opposite

Taurus 17, 180° away, offered as a reading aid; it is arithmetic, not a rule of Jones's our construction

A position at Scorpio 16°00′00″

Our engine, Hill's rule and every calculator we checked read it as Scorpio 17; the Sabian Assembly's sunrise page reads it as Scorpio 16. 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: One person supplies what usually takes two.

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.

Elsewhere on EsoTerrier

• Scorpio 16: Spontaneous warmth the degree before, which Lynda Hill reads as its background
• Scorpio 18: Ripened splendour the degree after, which Hill reads as where it is heading
• Taurus 17: Force versus light the degree opposite, read beside it as a reading aid
• Scorpio in the natal chart the sign these thirty degrees belong to