The image
The image is a horseman of one of the Plains nations, riding with the trophies he has won in battle displayed on his person or his horse. The picture shows the rider and the signs he carries, not the fighting itself. In many Plains cultures deeds of courage were marked and shown publicly. Marc Edmund Jones wrote the picture down in San Diego in 1925, as the clairvoyant Elsie Wheeler described Taurus 24.
Meaning
The tradition reads the horseman as someone who carries the evidence of what he has been through. His trophies are not hidden; they are worn as a record, and they tell others what he has faced and survived. Our keyword is Marks of victory, and our keynote reads it in one line: a rider shows the signs of his battles openly. In a chart one way to read a placement here is as a place where a person's hard-won achievements are visible, and where they are recognised by what they have come through. We describe the picture with respect for the cultures it draws on and read it as a symbol only, not as a picture of any people.
Lynda Hill reads the degree before as the Karmic Condition and the degree after as the Quest Degree. Taurus 23, before it, is a shop that sells jewellery; Taurus 25, after it, is a big public park with a stately air. By her rule precious things set out under glass give way to honours carried openly on horseback, and the rider's display looks ahead to a shared, ordered space kept for everyone. Opposite lies Scorpio 24, crowds streaming down a mountainside to hear one man speak; as a reading aid it sets many people coming to listen beside one rider showing what he has done.
In a chart
A planet or point anywhere from Taurus 23°00′ up to, but not including, Taurus 24°00′ takes this degree. The rule is to count the degree a position is in from one, so a Moon at Taurus 23°29′ reads Taurus 24, and so does one at Taurus 23°59′. Close to either edge, a small change in the birth time or the ephemeris moves a placement into the next image: into Taurus 25 after Taurus 23°59′, or back into Taurus 23 before Taurus 23°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 Taurus 24 carries the image, keyword and keynote above, with Taurus 23, Taurus 25 and Scorpio 24 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
- Taurus 23 and Taurus 25, read beside this degree after Lynda Hill, who calls them its Karmic Condition and its Quest Degree sourced
- Degree opposite
- Scorpio 24, 180° away, offered as a reading aid; it is arithmetic, not a rule of Jones's our construction
- A position at Taurus 23°00′00″
- Our engine, Hill's rule and every calculator we checked read it as Taurus 24; the Sabian Assembly's sunrise page reads it as Taurus 23. 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 rider shows the signs of his battles openly.
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
- Taurus 23: Displayed value the degree before, which Lynda Hill reads as its background
- Taurus 25: Shared cultivation the degree after, which Hill reads as where it is heading
- Scorpio 24: Drawn to one voice the degree opposite, read beside it as a reading aid
- Taurus in the natal chart the sign these thirty degrees belong to
