The Trunk of a Large Tree Covered with Moss, and Hollow

Charubel, the pen name of the Welsh astrologer John Thomas, catalogued an image for every degree in 1898. His entry for this one describes the trunk of a large tree covered with moss, and hollow. Counting from Aquarius's start, this is the second degree, placing it in the sign's first decan. Its decan is ruled by Venus rather than Saturn, which colors the degree with something Aquarius does not supply on its own. The narrower term division belongs to Mercury, 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. Aquarius is fixed air, a stubborn commitment to an idea or a group rather than to a single feeling. What a degree reading offers here is orientation rather than forecast, a way of naming exactly where in Aquarius's cycle a person or moment sits.