A Very Long Ladder, Such as Is Used by Fire Brigades

There is an independent image for this degree from 1898, decades before the Sabian set existed. Charubel's book puts it this way: a very long ladder, such as is used by fire brigades. Counting from Pisces's start, this is the second degree, placing it in the sign's first decan. Its decan is ruled by Saturn rather than Jupiter, which colors the degree with something Pisces does not supply on its own. The narrower term division belongs to Venus, a still finer layer of rulership laid across the sign and decan.

The degree symbols themselves date to 1925, when Marc Edmund Jones and the clairvoyant Elsie Wheeler sat in Balboa Park, San Diego, and drew all 360 blank cards in random sequence so that no degree's image could be planned in advance. Jones published his findings in 1953, yet the reading in general circulation since is Dane Rudhyar's 1973 restatement, not Jones's own words, and Rudhyar's text is still in copyright and is not quoted on this page. As the final sign, Pisces gathers what came before it and lets the edges between things blur. What a degree reading offers here is orientation rather than forecast, a way of naming exactly where in Pisces's cycle a person or moment sits.