A Labyrinth, Situated in the Heavens, and a Fine Silver Thread

The image tradition for this degree goes back to 1925, to a session Marc Edmund Jones held with the clairvoyant Elsie Wheeler in Balboa Park, San Diego, drawing all 360 cards blind and at random. Jones's book followed in 1953, though the phrasing most commonly cited now is Dane Rudhyar's, from his 1973 An Astrological Mandala, a text this page leaves unquoted because it is still under copyright. It falls in the first decan of Gemini (degrees 1 to 10), and is Gemini's ninth degree. Its decan is ruled by Jupiter rather than Mercury, which colors the degree with something Gemini does not supply on its own.

The term ruler here is also Jupiter, so the finer division agrees with the decan rather than adding a separate voice. One further source stands apart from the Jones and Rudhyar material entirely. Charubel's 1898 degree symbols, compiled well before Balboa Park, give this degree a labyrinth, situated in the heavens, and a fine silver thread suspended from it to the earth. Gemini is the zodiac's first air sign, occupied with contact, exchange, and the quick traffic of information between people. Taken together, the position, the decan, and the old image give this degree a specific character within Gemini rather than a generic one.