An Astrological Chart in Square Form

There is an independent image for this degree from 1898, decades before the Sabian set existed. Charubel's book puts it this way: an astrological chart in square form. It falls in the first decan of Aquarius (degrees 1 to 10), and is Aquarius's eighth degree. Its decan is ruled by Venus rather than Saturn, which colors the degree with something Aquarius 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. Behind every one of these 360 degrees sits the same 1925 event: Marc Edmund Jones and the clairvoyant Elsie Wheeler in Balboa Park, San Diego, drawing blank cards in random order and setting down what she saw. Jones's book came out in 1953.

What is usually quoted today, however, is Dane Rudhyar's later reworking, published in 1973 as An Astrological Mandala, a copyrighted text this page does not reproduce. As the sign that closes the social season, Aquarius fixes its attention on the collective and on what should be true for everyone. 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. Element and quality carry through every degree of Aquarius: it is a fixed air sign, and this degree inherits that basic temperament even as the decan and term add their own note.