The image
It is the end of winter. A groundhog pokes its head out of its hole, blinks at the light, and looks about. In the North American custom behind the picture, whether the animal sees its shadow is taken as a sign of how much winter is left. The image is homely and humorous, a small creature asked a large question. It is a picture of a custom.
Meaning
Read as a symbol, the groundhog is about consulting nature. People have long looked to animals, skies and seasons for hints of what is coming, and the custom keeps that habit alive in a playful form. Our keyword is "Reading the signs", and our keynote says nature is consulted about the season ahead. A placement here can be read as an attentiveness to small cues, a feel for timing and for the turn of seasons in any sense, and a readiness to wait a little longer if the signs say so. The image is gently comic, and part of its meaning is not taking the oracle too seriously.
In Lynda Hill's practice Sagittarius 15 is read between two neighbours, the Karmic Condition behind it and the Quest Degree ahead. Behind it lies Sagittarius 14, the Sphinx by the Pyramids, and ahead of it Sagittarius 16, gulls keeping watch on a passing ship. From a vast and silent riddle, the pictures turn to a small animal asked about the weather, and then to birds watching for what might come their way.
Opposite is Gemini 15, where two children from Holland talk together, our "Simple exchange". As a reading aid, the pair sets one plain conversation between equals beside a conversation with nature, where the answer is read from a shadow on the snow.
In a chart
A planet or point anywhere from Sagittarius 14°00′ up to, but not including, Sagittarius 15°00′ takes this degree. The rule is to count the degree a position is in from one, so a Moon at Sagittarius 14°26′ reads Sagittarius 15, and so does one at Sagittarius 14°59′. Close to either edge, a small change in the birth time or the ephemeris moves a placement into the next image: into Sagittarius 16 after Sagittarius 14°59′, or back into Sagittarius 14 before Sagittarius 14°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 15 carries the image, keyword and keynote above, with Sagittarius 14, Sagittarius 16 and Gemini 15 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 14 and Sagittarius 16, read beside this degree after Lynda Hill, who calls them its Karmic Condition and its Quest Degree sourced
- Degree opposite
- Gemini 15, 180° away, offered as a reading aid; it is arithmetic, not a rule of Jones's our construction
- A position at Sagittarius 14°00′00″
- Our engine, Hill's rule and every calculator we checked read it as Sagittarius 15; the Sabian Assembly's sunrise page reads it as Sagittarius 14. 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: Nature is consulted about the season ahead.
Claims about it
-
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.
-
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.
-
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
- Sagittarius 14: Monumental endurance the degree before, which Lynda Hill reads as its background
- Sagittarius 16: Opportunistic following the degree after, which Hill reads as where it is heading
- Gemini 15: Simple exchange the degree opposite, read beside it as a reading aid
- Sagittarius in the natal chart the sign these thirty degrees belong to
