A Fine Horse, with Curved Neck and Flowing Mane, Prancing

There is an independent image for this degree from 1898, decades before the Sabian set existed. Charubel's book puts it this way: a fine horse, with curved neck and flowing mane, prancing in the pride of his strength. It falls in the second decan of Virgo (degrees 11 to 20), and is Virgo's fourteenth degree. Its decan is ruled by Venus rather than Mercury, which colors the degree with something Virgo does not supply on its own. The term ruler here is also Venus, so the finer division agrees with the decan rather than adding a separate voice. Every degree in this set, including this one, comes from a single 1925 sitting: Marc Edmund Jones and the clairvoyant Elsie Wheeler, in Balboa Park, San Diego, drawing 360 blank cards in random order.

Jones's book appeared in 1953, but it is Dane Rudhyar's 1973 reinterpretation, An Astrological Mandala, that is generally quoted today, and its copyrighted wording is withheld from this page. As the sign that closes the summer, Virgo works by sorting, refining, and asking what is actually of use. What a degree reading offers here is orientation rather than forecast, a way of naming exactly where in Virgo's cycle a person or moment sits. Element and quality carry through every degree of Virgo: it is a mutable earth sign, and this degree inherits that basic temperament even as the decan and term add their own note.