The image
The picture is an aircraft descending steeply, nose down, from a great height toward the ground. In the early days of flying such dives were part of a pilot's skill and of air shows, a test of nerve and of the machine. The image shows the descent in progress. Jones took the picture down in San Diego in 1925 from Elsie Wheeler's description of the card for Gemini 10.
Meaning
The tradition reads the dive as boldness under control. Coming down fast from a height is dangerous only if the pilot loses command; done on purpose, it shows mastery and courage. Our keyword is Daring descent, and our keynote reads it in one sentence: control is tested by a deliberate plunge toward the ground. In a chart a placement here could be read as a place where a person commits fully to a sudden change of level, moves quickly from ideas to practice, or enjoys the test of nerve that a steep descent brings. The picture is about skill and intention; it is not a warning of anything.
Lynda Hill calls the degree before a placement its Karmic Condition and the degree after its Quest Degree. Gemini 9, before it, is arrows packed into a quiver; Gemini 11, after it, is a fresh way of meeting life as it really is. So by her rule means made ready are put to a bold use, and the plunge from the clouds leads to a new, clear-eyed realism on the ground. Opposite lies Sagittarius 10, a goddess of opportunity with golden hair; as a reading aid it sets a chance appearing from above beside a deliberate descent from above.
In a chart
A planet or point anywhere from Gemini 9°00′ up to, but not including, Gemini 10°00′ takes this degree. The rule is to count the degree a position is in from one, so a Moon at Gemini 9°21′ reads Gemini 10, and so does one at Gemini 9°58′. Close to either edge, a small change in the birth time or the ephemeris moves a placement into the next image: into Gemini 11 after Gemini 9°59′, or back into Gemini 9 before Gemini 9°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 Gemini 10 carries the image, keyword and keynote above, with Gemini 9, Gemini 11 and Sagittarius 10 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
- Gemini 9 and Gemini 11, read beside this degree after Lynda Hill, who calls them its Karmic Condition and its Quest Degree sourced
- Degree opposite
- Sagittarius 10, 180° away, offered as a reading aid; it is arithmetic, not a rule of Jones's our construction
- A position at Gemini 9°00′00″
- Our engine, Hill's rule and every calculator we checked read it as Gemini 10; the Sabian Assembly's sunrise page reads it as Gemini 9. 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: Control is tested by a deliberate plunge toward the ground.
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
- Gemini 9: Ready means the degree before, which Lynda Hill reads as its background
- Gemini 11: Realism the degree after, which Hill reads as where it is heading
- Sagittarius 10: Chance personified the degree opposite, read beside it as a reading aid
- Gemini in the natal chart the sign these thirty degrees belong to
