The image
A big bear sits on its haunches, and all four of its paws are in the air, waving. The pose is comic and slightly absurd, the kind of thing a bear might do when playing or begging for food, and it turns a powerful animal into an entertainer for a moment.
Elsie Wheeler described the image and Marc Edmund Jones recorded it, by his account, on a single day in San Diego.
Meaning
Our keyword is "Clumsy play", and our keynote: great strength shows itself in good-natured foolishness. Both are ours.
A bear could do real damage, and here it is waving its paws like a toddler. We read the degree as the charm of power that does not take itself seriously: the strong person who can be silly, the large presence that puts people at ease by clowning. One way to see it is in someone who disarms others with humour, or who has learned that showing a playful side makes their strength easier to trust. The image can also be read for its awkwardness, strength out of its element and unsure how to behave. The Sabian tradition reads the picture as descriptive and leaves its tone to the person.
Lynda Hill frames each image with its neighbours: what it follows on from, and what it hands on to. Before it comes Aquarius 22, children given a rug to play on, play among small people; here the player is huge. After it comes Aquarius 24, a man who has left his passions behind and teaches from what life has shown him, where clumsy play gives way to the composure of experience.
As a reading aid, the opposite degree is Leo 23, a rider on a horse with no saddle. Both are pictures of an animal's strength and a balance struck with it; the rider holds steady on a moving horse without help, while the bear tips its strength into play.
In a chart
A planet or point anywhere from Aquarius 22°00′ up to, but not including, Aquarius 23°00′ takes this degree. The rule is to count the degree a position is in from one, so a Moon at Aquarius 22°22′ reads Aquarius 23, and so does one at Aquarius 22°57′. Close to either edge, a small change in the birth time or the ephemeris moves a placement into the next image: into Aquarius 24 after Aquarius 22°59′, or back into Aquarius 22 before Aquarius 22°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 Aquarius 23 carries the image, keyword and keynote above, with Aquarius 22, Aquarius 24 and Leo 23 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
- Aquarius 22 and Aquarius 24, read beside this degree after Lynda Hill, who calls them its Karmic Condition and its Quest Degree sourced
- Degree opposite
- Leo 23, 180° away, offered as a reading aid; it is arithmetic, not a rule of Jones's our construction
- A position at Aquarius 22°00′00″
- Our engine, Hill's rule and every calculator we checked read it as Aquarius 23; the Sabian Assembly's sunrise page reads it as Aquarius 22. 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: Great strength shows itself in good-natured foolishness.
Claims about it
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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.
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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.
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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
- Aquarius 22: A place to play the degree before, which Lynda Hill reads as its background
- Aquarius 24: Teaching from experience the degree after, which Hill reads as where it is heading
- Leo 23: Balance without a saddle the degree opposite, read beside it as a reading aid
- Aquarius in the natal chart the sign these thirty degrees belong to
