A defeated general who keeps his dignity

The image

A commander, a man used to giving orders and winning, has been beaten. The picture is not of the battle but of what comes after: the general accepting the result, perhaps offering his sword or his hand, bearing himself well in the moment that tests character more than victory does.

The image is a symbol of how loss can be carried.

Meaning

Our keyword is "Grace in defeat" and our keynote: losing is met with dignity rather than bitterness.

It is easy to be gracious in success. We read this degree as the harder quality of keeping one's self-respect, and one's respect for others, when things have gone against one. A general's loss is public and large, which makes the grace more visible. One way to see the image is in people who can admit a mistake without collapsing, or who can congratulate a rival and mean it. The image can also be read as release, the relief of a struggle that is over, and the freedom to begin again from honest ground. Readers in the Sabian tradition take such pictures as descriptions to recognise.

Hill asks what a degree has come through and what it is moving toward, and she finds both in the degrees beside it. Before it comes Capricorn 21, runners passing a baton, a contest still being run; here the contest is decided. After it comes Capricorn 23, a pair of medals won for courage in battle, so the loss is followed by an image of courage honoured, a reminder that valour and victory are not the same thing.

The opposite degree, Cancer 22, a woman watching for a sailing boat to come in, can be read beside it as a reading aid. The general faces an ending that has already come; the woman waits for an arrival that has not, and between them is the difference between acceptance and expectation.

In a chart

A planet or point anywhere from Capricorn 21°00′ up to, but not including, Capricorn 22°00′ takes this degree. The rule is to count the degree a position is in from one, so a Moon at Capricorn 21°15′ reads Capricorn 22, and so does one at Capricorn 21°58′. Close to either edge, a small change in the birth time or the ephemeris moves a placement into the next image: into Capricorn 23 after Capricorn 21°59′, or back into Capricorn 21 before Capricorn 21°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 22 carries the image, keyword and keynote above, with Capricorn 21, Capricorn 23 and Cancer 22 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

Capricorn 21 and Capricorn 23, read beside this degree after Lynda Hill, who calls them its Karmic Condition and its Quest Degree sourced

Degree opposite

Cancer 22, 180° away, offered as a reading aid; it is arithmetic, not a rule of Jones's our construction

A position at Capricorn 21°00′00″

Our engine, Hill's rule and every calculator we checked read it as Capricorn 22; the Sabian Assembly's sunrise page reads it as Capricorn 21. 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: Losing is met with dignity rather than bitterness.

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

• Capricorn 21: Passing the baton the degree before, which Lynda Hill reads as its background
• Capricorn 23: Recognised courage the degree after, which Hill reads as where it is heading
• Cancer 22: Expectant waiting the degree opposite, read beside it as a reading aid
• Capricorn in the natal chart the sign these thirty degrees belong to