An old owl perched high in a tree

The image

Up in the branches, half hidden among the leaves, an owl sits still. It is old, as the line insists, and it watches the ground below with wide eyes, turning its head now and then without moving its body. The picture is set at dusk or after, when the owl comes into its own. It is quiet and alert at once.

The image is from Elsie Wheeler's 1925 session with Marc Edmund Jones.

Meaning

Read as a symbol, the owl is the old emblem of watchfulness and wisdom. It speaks little, sees a great deal, and does its work when others cannot see. Our keyword is "Watchful wisdom", and our keynote says watchfulness keeps its own counsel in the dark. A placement here can be read as patience and perception, a liking for observing before acting, and a calm that comes from experience. The height of the perch matters to the image: the owl is above the bustle, not cut off from it, and misses nothing that moves below.

The opposite degree is Gemini 5, a magazine of radical opinion, our "Agitation for change". As a reading aid, the two pictures contrast two relations to the world's affairs: printed argument meant to stir people out of acceptance, and silent observation from a branch that stirs no one at all.

Lynda Hill calls the degree that precedes Sagittarius 5 its Karmic Condition and the one that follows its Quest Degree. Before this degree is Sagittarius 4, a toddler's first steps; after it is Sagittarius 6, a cricket match in progress. The run moves from youngest beginnings, to the old bird's watchful age, to a long game conducted by patient rules.

In a chart

A planet or point anywhere from Sagittarius 4°00′ up to, but not including, Sagittarius 5°00′ takes this degree. The rule is to count the degree a position is in from one, so a Moon at Sagittarius 4°16′ reads Sagittarius 5, and so does one at Sagittarius 4°57′. Close to either edge, a small change in the birth time or the ephemeris moves a placement into the next image: into Sagittarius 6 after Sagittarius 4°59′, or back into Sagittarius 4 before Sagittarius 4°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 Sagittarius 5 carries the image, keyword and keynote above, with Sagittarius 4, Sagittarius 6 and Gemini 5 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

Sagittarius 4 and Sagittarius 6, read beside this degree after Lynda Hill, who calls them its Karmic Condition and its Quest Degree sourced

Degree opposite

Gemini 5, 180° away, offered as a reading aid; it is arithmetic, not a rule of Jones's our construction

A position at Sagittarius 4°00′00″

Our engine, Hill's rule and every calculator we checked read it as Sagittarius 5; the Sabian Assembly's sunrise page reads it as Sagittarius 4. 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: Watchfulness keeps its own counsel in the dark.

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

• Sagittarius 4: First independence the degree before, which Lynda Hill reads as its background
• Sagittarius 6: Fair play the degree after, which Hill reads as where it is heading
• Gemini 5: Agitation for change the degree opposite, read beside it as a reading aid
• Sagittarius in the natal chart the sign these thirty degrees belong to