A Man Rushing Along on Horseback, Sword in Hand, to Meet

In 1925, working with the clairvoyant Elsie Wheeler in Balboa Park, San Diego, Marc Edmund Jones drew all 360 of these degree cards blind and recorded her impressions on the spot. His book appeared in 1953. What most readers now quote, however, is Dane Rudhyar's 1973 reinterpretation from An Astrological Mandala, a text still protected by copyright and therefore not reproduced on this page. Counting from Aries's start, this is the third degree, placing it in the sign's first decan. Its decan is ruled by Mars, Aries's own planet, reinforcing rather than complicating the sign's usual character.

The narrower term division belongs to Jupiter, a still finer layer of rulership laid across the sign and decan. This degree also carries an image from a different and earlier tradition. Charubel, writing in 1898, described a man rushing along on horseback, sword in hand, to meet a company of armed men. As the first fire sign, Aries favors the direct move over the considered one, a readiness to act that has not yet learned patience. Taken together, the position, the decan, and the old image give this degree a specific character within Aries rather than a generic one. Element and quality carry through every degree of Aries: it is a cardinal fire sign, and this degree inherits that basic temperament even as the decan and term add their own note.