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Leo 12: The Ship in Full Dress

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Leo 12: The Ship in Full Dress

An older companion picture belongs to this degree. Charubel, the working name of the Welsh minister John Thomas, published a symbol for every zodiac degree in 1898, and for Leo 12 he described a sailing ship on a calm sea, sails all unreefed, the masts decorated with a profusion of bunting. The atlas's transcription notes that one word of the original image is not fully legible, a small honesty worth preserving. The scene is Leo in maritime dress: a vessel showing everything it has, canvas spread and flags flying, on water calm enough to make the display safe. Nothing in the picture is working hard, and that is its meaning, confidence exhibited in fair weather, magnificence that has not yet been tested by wind.

The habit of degree meanings is ancient. Vettius Valens gave each sign three ten degree faces under planetary rulers in the second century, and Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos preserved the unequal Egyptian bounds; neither pictured a degree, and the first complete picture set survives in Johannes Angelus's Astrolabium Planum of 1494. By this degree Leo has passed into its second decan under Jupiter's face, with Saturn holding the Egyptian term from twelve to eighteen, expansion above and ballast below, which reads aptly against a ship carrying all the sail it owns. Astrologers use such images where a natal placement or progression falls, treating them as a tone for the degree, and the fair weather warning writes itself.

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