Two Acute-Angled Isosceles Triangles, the Bases of Which Are

Counting from Taurus's start, this is the sixteenth degree, placing it in the sign's second decan. Its decan is ruled by Mercury rather than Venus, which colors the degree with something Taurus does not supply on its own. The narrower term division belongs to Jupiter, a still finer layer of rulership laid across the sign and decan. As a fixed earth sign, Taurus values what endures over what merely begins, and prizes steadiness above speed.

Charubel, the pen name of the Welsh astrologer John Thomas, catalogued an image for every degree in 1898. His entry for this one describes two acute-angled isosceles triangles, the bases of which are attached to an upright, the triangles pointing to the left. This degree belongs to the symbol set assembled by Marc Edmund Jones after a 1925 sitting with the clairvoyant Elsie Wheeler in Balboa Park, San Diego, where all 360 degrees were drawn blind from a shuffled deck of cards. Jones's own book followed in 1953, but the interpretation most people encounter today was written afterward, by Dane Rudhyar in his 1973 An Astrological Mandala, and Rudhyar's exact phrasing is withheld here because it remains his estate's copyrighted property. None of this is meant as prophecy; it is a way of describing where, precisely, this degree sits inside Taurus's larger pattern.