A tribal chief who asks that his standing be recognised

The image

A chief stands before others and asks that his rank be recognised. Nothing in the picture says how they answer; the weight of the image is in the asking, in a leader who does not leave his position to be guessed at.

The image is one of the 360 that the clairvoyant Elsie Wheeler described to Marc Edmund Jones in San Diego in 1925, as Jones told the story.

Meaning

Our keyword for this degree is "Asking to be seen", and our keynote reads: a leader insists that his standing be acknowledged.

Read as a symbol, the chief is authority that needs a witness. A rank no one recognises is only a claim, so he steps forward and names it. One way to see this is as the moment when responsibility is taken up openly: the person stops waiting to be chosen and says plainly what they are prepared to carry. The image can also be read for its shadow, a need for recognition that grows louder the less secure it feels. Readers in the tradition hold both sides of a picture like this and let the rest of the chart say which is nearer.

In Lynda Hill's practice the degree just behind a placement is the ground it grew from, and the degree just ahead is the way it is going. By her rule this degree follows Sagittarius 30, the head of a great church, so spiritual rank gives way to a worldly chief who must claim his own. It leads on to Capricorn 2, three stained-glass windows, one of them damaged, where what is built to stand is tested.

The opposite degree, Cancer 1, a ship with one flag furled and one flying, can be read beside this one as a reading aid: the chief declares where he stands, while the ship signals that its course is about to turn.

In a chart

A planet or point anywhere from Capricorn 0°00′ up to, but not including, Capricorn 1°00′ takes this degree. The rule is to count the degree a position is in from one, so a Moon at Capricorn 0°18′ reads Capricorn 1, and so does one at Capricorn 0°58′. Close to either edge, a small change in the birth time or the ephemeris moves a placement into the next image: into Capricorn 2 after Capricorn 0°59′, or back into Sagittarius 30 before Capricorn 0°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 Capricorn 1 carries the image, keyword and keynote above, with Sagittarius 30, Capricorn 2 and Cancer 1 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 30 and Capricorn 2, read beside this degree after Lynda Hill, who calls them its Karmic Condition and its Quest Degree sourced

Degree opposite

Cancer 1, 180° away, offered as a reading aid; it is arithmetic, not a rule of Jones's our construction

A position at Capricorn 0°00′00″

Our engine, Hill's rule and every calculator we checked read it as Capricorn 1; the Sabian Assembly's sunrise page reads it as Sagittarius 30. 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: A leader insists that his standing be acknowledged.

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 30: Spiritual authority the degree before, which Lynda Hill reads as its background
• Capricorn 2: Faith wounded, faith standing the degree after, which Hill reads as where it is heading
• Cancer 1: Signals of change the degree opposite, read beside it as a reading aid
• Capricorn in the natal chart the sign these thirty degrees belong to