Symbols in Astrology - Meaning on the Degrees of Your Chart

When you were born the Sun was in a particular Sign of the Zodiac, at the time you were born it was in a particular House, and at the date of your birth it was in that Sign at a particular degree.  All the energy points reside at a particular degree at the time of your birth.  I have my Sun in Aries at 23d14m and it resides in my 5th House using the Placidus system and in the 6th House using the Whole Sign system.  The degree placement is very important and many books have been written about the meaning of each degree, beginning with The Degrees of the Zodiac Symbolized by Charubel and Sepharial first published in 1898 and most famously The Sabian Symbols in Astrology: A Symbol Explained for Each Degree of the Zodiac by Marc Edmund Jones published in 1953.

These books provide an easy access into your astrology chart as a novice or beginner student.  If you can read the basic information on each energy point and then look up the degree meaning in one of these books, you can gain immediate access into useful knowledge about your chart without having to fuse together a lot of discrete information (energy point in sign, house, and with aspects to and from other energy points).  Another excellent resource is The Zodiac Image Handbook: The Cardinal Signs - Aries - Cancer - Libra - Capricorn (v. 3) - Paperback (Nov. 1991) by Helen Koppejan and Willem Koppejan (the other two volumes are for the fixed and mutable signs).  These books and the degree meanings rely on vivid imagery in short description to capture the deeper meaning of the degrees.  Below you will find my Sun interpreted through The Sabian Symbols and The Zodiac Image Handbook.  When researching your degree, always use the degree following your existing placement, so for 23d14m Aries, I look up 24d Aries.  In both of these books there is a lower and higher vibration expression of the energy.

The Sabina Symbols: Marc Edmund Jones

An open window and a net curtain blowing into a cornucopia.  The keyword is MUNIFICENCE.  When positive, the degree is an irrepressible genius for capturing the richer rewards of life and providing a wider distribution for the higher realities and when negative, a petty and smug self-importance in dispensing favors to others. (172)

The Zodiac Image Handbook: The Cardinal Signs

First Image, Outer Symbol: A young man lazily stretched out on a carpet, with his right arm supporting his head, plays with glittering balls, or beads, of different colors.  Standing behind him on the carpet, an almost nude woman wearing only a belt beset with precious stones, is watching him with an air of dominance and disdain.

Janduz calls this the degree of "no value". (89).  On the low level this person is lazy and mediocre.  On the high spiritual level "there is complete control over the senses and a return to the highest purity through morality, so that past mistakes and sinful experiences will not be repeated". (90).

Second Image, Inner Symbol: A window curtain blown inwards, shaped as a cornucopia.

Here is the archetypal symbol of life itself.  Rigidly one repeats one's feelings until suddenly awakened by the entering storm wind, the passion of the gale.

Low and high, negative/shadow and positive, the weak form or the strong form ... all energy has levels of expression along a continuum from very base to highly spiritual.  The weakness of this degree is arrogance and laziness and its highest expression is generosity, sharing, and awareness.  With my Sun on this degree, my life path will run along the continuum of accomplishments.  The degree gives the energy to accomplish but does not ensure that it will be done well or valued.  To dispense favors with smug self-importance suggests attaining a position of power, but treating it poorly.  Storms in life open the rigid mind of this degree, and I've had a few of those storms and hope I am more awakened because of them.

You can easily track down various books that work with each degree and you do not need to know the challenging art of integration to pull the energy point into sign/house/aspect to come up with the proper interpretation of the energy point.  You merely need to know the degrees of each energy point and have book to give you the interpretations of the degree and you are off and running.  This process is a good, simple inroad into astrology.