Leo 23° (22° to 23°)
Sabian Symbol: In a circus the bareback rider displays her dangerous skill
Symbol wording: Dane Rudhyar, An Astrological Mandala (1973)
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The Essence
- Audacity differs from recklessness by the presence of training behind the risk being taken.
- Mastery this complete does not suppress raw power. It stands directly on top of it and directs it.
- What looks effortless in a display of skill rests on an enormous, mostly invisible history of practice.
- Excellence is expressed through specific, excellently performed acts rather than possessed as abstract capacity.
- Waiting for a certainty that will never come is its own quiet failure, different from recklessness but related.
- Courage does not deny that something could go wrong. It remains present anyway, without contracting.
- A skill becomes hollow the moment its only remaining purpose is applause rather than the act itself.
- Public display of mastery expands what witnesses believe is possible for a human being.
- The specific horse a life has trained someone to ride is rarely the horse anyone else is riding.
- Standing up, after the training is done, is a different act entirely from standing up before it.
The Image
In a circus the bareback rider displays her dangerous skill. A broad, calm horse canters around the ring at an even pace, and on its back, with no saddle and nothing to hold, a woman rises from kneeling to standing. Her arms open. The horse keeps its rhythm, the sawdust flies, and for a few circuits she rides upright on half a tonne of moving muscle while the audience forgets to breathe. If you have ever sat in those wooden seats as a child, you will remember the smell of the horses and the way the whole tent went quiet.
The modern circus grew out of exactly this act. In 1768 the former cavalryman Philip Astley began showing trick riding in London, and the ring he used, about thirteen metres across, is still the standard size today. The circle is not decoration. A horse cantering on a curve leans inward, and a rider standing on its back can lean with it and let the turn help hold her in place. The geometry of the whole art form was built around the problem this woman is solving in front of us, and once you know that, you watch the act differently.
Look at what each part of the scene contributes. The horse supplies the power, and it is not tamed into stillness; it is moving at speed, and it would throw her if she stiffened or lost the beat. The rider supplies direction and balance, but she does not supply force. The audience supplies witness, and with it the pressure of being seen. Take away any one of the three and the act changes into something else: a woman standing on a statue, a horse running loose, or a private practice session in an empty barn.
We have all seen a quieter version of this. Think of the head chef on a Saturday night, standing at the pass while forty orders come in at once. The heat, the noise and the speed of the kitchen are not under anyone's control, and she does not try to stop them. She stands on top of them, calling tickets, tasting sauces, keeping the whole roaring thing moving in one direction. From your table in the dining room it looks easy, and that ease is built from years of burnt hands and ruined services that nobody out front ever saw.
Jones gave this degree the keyword audacity, and the image makes us read the word with care. Audacity here is not bravado. It is daring that has paid its dues, a risk taken by someone who has fallen off many times in private and knows exactly what she is doing in public.
Leo 23° is stage 3 of the 29th five-fold sequence, phase 143 of the cycle, and it marks the point where trained energy steps out into full view.
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The Archetype
The archetype is the performer of real danger: the acrobat, the high-wire walker, the rider, and in a wider sense anyone whose skill only means something when it is exercised with something at stake. Leo is the sign of display, and it is also the sign of the heart. The word courage comes, through Old French, from the Latin for heart, and this degree joins the two meanings. We show our hearts by showing what we dare.
The archetype has a hidden half that the audience never sees. Every performer of this kind has a long history of failure behind the act: the bruises, the falls, the mornings of practice when the horse would not settle and nothing worked. What looks like a gift on the night is mostly accumulated repetition. Most of us know this about other people and forget it about ourselves, so we compare our private rehearsals with somebody else's finished show and decide we are not ready. You may be doing this right now with a colleague, a sibling or a stranger whose work you admire online.
That is the first trap the archetype exposes. The second is the opposite one. Some of us rehearse for so long that the rehearsal becomes the life, and you can lose a decade this way without noticing. We wait for a certainty that never arrives, collecting one more course, one more qualification, one more year of preparation, and the horse goes round and round the ring without anyone standing up on it. That waiting is not recklessness, but it is a failure of its own kind, quieter and much easier to excuse.
The third trap belongs to Leo in particular. A rider who performs only for the applause starts to ride differently. She takes bigger risks than the act requires, or she plays safe and adds sparkle, and either way the attention has moved from the horse to the crowd. The skill goes hollow. We feel it when we watch a performer like that, and you can usually sense it even when you cannot say why.
Lived well, the degree describes someone who has done the work, who knows their own horse, and who is willing to stand up in front of others when the time comes. Lived badly, it turns into stunts for attention, or into endless rehearsal behind a closed barn door.
The Taoist Current
Chapter 10 of the Dao De Jing asks a string of questions that read like coaching notes for a rider. Can you hold body and spirit together as one and not let them separate? Can you gather your breath until you are as supple as a newborn child? The chapter ends by describing a virtue that gives life without possessing, acts without claiming credit and leads without controlling. A rider who grips the horse falls off it, and you will know the same thing from any moment when you tried too hard and lost your footing. We stay on by staying soft in the knees and hips, by breathing, and by letting the animal's motion pass through us rather than fighting it.
Chapter 15 describes the masters of old as subtle and hard to fathom. They were cautious, it says, like someone crossing a river in winter, watchful like someone wary of the neighbours, yielding like ice beginning to melt. Then come two questions: who can make muddy water clear by keeping still, and who can bring stillness slowly to life by moving? The chapter closes by saying that those who hold to the Dao do not seek to be full.
Here is the paradox at the centre of this degree. The bareback rider looks like pure motion, but the steadiness inside her is closer to the stillness of Chapter 15 than to any bold gesture. Her caution, built over years, is what makes the daring possible. Without it, we would be watching a fall waiting to happen. With it, we are watching someone who has learned to be still while everything under her moves.
The Yi Jing Resonance
Hexagram 34, Da Zhuang (The Power of the Great) shows thunder above heaven: enormous force moving upward. The Judgement says only that perseverance furthers, and the Image counsels the superior person not to tread paths that go against proper order. One of the lines describes a ram butting a hedge until its horns are caught. Power on its own, in other words, gets stuck, as you may know from any argument you won by force and then had to live with. Great strength becomes great only when it is governed, in horses and in us, which is what the rider does with the horse. She does not shrink its strength; she gives it a lane.
Hexagram 20, Guan (Contemplation, The View) places wind over the earth, moving across everything and seen from everywhere. The Judgement describes the moment in a ceremony after the hands have been washed and before the offering is made, when those watching look up full of trust. Guan is about seeing and being seen. The one who stands high becomes an example simply by being visible, and so carries a responsibility to the people watching. When you are seen doing something well, you change what the people around you think is open to them.
Together the two hexagrams describe the whole act. Da Zhuang is the horse, the raw force and the discipline needed to ride it. Guan is the ring and the crowd, the fact that what we do in public shapes what others believe they might do too.
The Philosophical Content
Aristotle used the word arete for excellence, the quality that makes a thing good at being what it is. A good knife cuts well; a good horse runs well; a good person lives well. In the Nicomachean Ethics he argues that the human excellences of character are not given by nature but formed by habit. We become builders by building and lyre players by playing the lyre, he says, and in the same way we become just by doing just acts and brave by doing brave ones. Excellence, for Aristotle, is a settled state in us, but it is built from repeated action and shown only in action.
Two further points from Aristotle fit this degree closely. First, he treats courage as a mean between two failures: cowardice on one side and rashness on the other. The rash person does not fear what deserves fear; the coward fears too much. The bareback rider stands in that middle place, aware of the danger and trained enough to act anyway. Second, early in the Ethics he compares the good life to the Olympic games, where the crown goes not to the finest or strongest people in the stands but to those who compete. Excellence that never enters the arena is, in his terms, not yet excellence at all. That is essence point 4 in a single image.
John Keats was a poet who had trained in medicine first, studying at Guy's Hospital in London and qualifying as an apothecary before he turned to poetry full time. In a letter to his brothers in December 1817 he described a quality he called negative capability: the ability to remain in uncertainty, mystery and doubt without irritably grasping after fact and reason. He thought Shakespeare had this quality in great measure.
Keats was writing about poets, but the idea applies to anyone who performs under risk. The rider cannot know whether the horse will stumble on the next circuit. If she demanded certainty before standing up, she would never stand, and the same holds for you whenever you wait to feel completely sure before you act. Negative capability is the ability to keep your attention open and your body responsive while not knowing, without collapsing into fear or covering the gap with false confidence.
Put Aristotle and Keats together and we have the two halves of this degree. Aristotle gives us the training that makes the risk reasonable. Keats gives us the willingness to stay present when the training still cannot guarantee the outcome.
The Evolutionary Astrology Lens
Read evolutionarily, a planet at Leo 23° points to a soul learning how to take risks well. Evolutionary astrology asks what patterns we bring in from the past and what the soul intends to develop now, and this degree places the question squarely on courage, skill and the use of being seen.
Pluto describes the deepest intention. With emphasis here, you may carry an old charge around danger and display: perhaps memories of being punished for standing out, or of having thrown yourself into risks without the preparation to survive them. Pluto's polarity point, opposite natal Pluto by sign and house, shows the quality that lets that charge become trained strength rather than fear or bravado.
The South Node shows the familiar groove, and here it tends to run one of two ways. One is the reckless rider, hooked on adrenaline and attention, standing up before the training is done and falling repeatedly in public. The other is the eternal student, who has practised in the empty barn for years and still finds reasons not to enter the ring. Both feel like the natural way to live, which is why they are so hard to see from inside, and why you may need a friend to point out which one you are in.
The North Node asks for audacity in Jones's sense: daring that has done its homework. It asks you to identify the horse your life has trained you to ride, which will rarely look like anyone else's, and to stand up on it in front of other people when the time comes. That might mean opening the practice you have prepared for, publishing the work, taking the role you have been quietly qualified for for longer than your doubts will admit. The point is not to be admired. The point is that your skill, used in the open, shows others what a person can do, and that showing is part of what the soul came here to give.
The Buddhist Dimension
In Buddhist teaching virya is energy, effort or diligence, one of the six perfections of the bodhisattva path and one of the five spiritual faculties. It is not effort in the sense of strain. The early texts tell of the monk Sona, a former musician, who practised walking meditation so hard that his feet bled and he began to think of giving up. The Buddha asked him whether a lute plays well when its strings are too tight or too slack, and Sona said neither. Effort, the Buddha told him, should be tuned the same way. Virya is the tuned string, the energy of a rider who is neither gripping nor slack, and who can keep riding for many circuits because she is not wasting herself.
The second term is abhaya, fearlessness. In Buddhist art the abhaya mudra is the gesture of the raised right hand, palm facing outward, which tells the viewer there is nothing to fear. The tradition also speaks of the gift of fearlessness, offering others safety and the freedom from fear, as one of the highest forms of giving. Fearlessness here does not mean being unaware of danger. It means that fear no longer runs your body, even when you can feel it moving there.
Put the two together and you have a picture of the rider's inner state. Virya keeps her effort steady and tuned over the long years of practice. Abhaya lets her open her arms in the ring, and in doing so she offers something to those watching. When we see another human being stand calmly on top of danger, something in us relaxes and widens. That is the gift of fearlessness in a circus tent, and we carry it home with us long after the music stops.
The Soul's Work
The work here begins with an honest look at your own horse. Every life trains us on something particular: a temperament, a body, a set of circumstances, a peculiar mix of skills that nobody else has in quite the same proportions. Write down what you have been riding for years, in private, without much recognition. It may be a way of calming frightened people, a knack with numbers under pressure, a talent for holding a room together when it starts to come apart.
Then ask which of the two South Node grooves you tend to fall into. If you stand up too early, slow down and give the training its due. If you never stand up at all, pick one act you have trained for and keep postponing, and set a date in the next month to do it in front of other people. Make it modest enough that you will follow through: a talk to ten colleagues, a first paid session, a piece of work shown to someone whose opinion matters to you.
Before you do it, check your motive with one plain question: would I still want to do this if nobody clapped? If the answer is yes, go ahead. If the answer is no, the act may have drifted toward display, and it is worth finding the part of it that you love for its own sake.
Leo governs the heart and the spine, and this degree lives in both. A simple daily practice helps. Stand on one leg while you brush your teeth in the morning, knees soft, spine long, breath slow, and notice how much balance comes from relaxing rather than gripping. We learn steadiness in the body before we can trust it in the ring.
The training is long, the standing up is brief, and both belong to the same act of courage.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Sabian Symbol for Leo 23°?
The Sabian Symbol for Leo 23° is In a circus the bareback rider displays her dangerous skill, in the wording Dane Rudhyar gave it in An Astrological Mandala (1973). The image itself was channelled by Elsie Wheeler in 1925 and first recorded by Marc Edmund Jones. It is phase 143 of the 360-degree cycle, the third stage of the 29th five-fold sequence. Jones's keyword is audacity.
What does Leo 23° mean in a natal chart?
A planet here describes a person meant to take visible, well-trained risks. You may have strong gifts that need to be exercised in front of others rather than kept private. The planet shows the kind of skill involved, and its house shows the ring where it is most likely to be tested. Growth comes from pairing courage with preparation and letting your mastery be seen for the sake of the act itself.
What is the keyword for Leo 23°?
The keyword Marc Edmund Jones assigned is AUDACITY. In its positive form it shows as daring grounded in long preparation, a willingness to perform real skill under real risk and to inspire others by doing so. In its negative form it becomes showing off, chasing danger for attention, or taking chances without the training that would make them sensible, and paying for it in falls.
What does the horse symbolise in this degree?
The horse is raw power: instinct, vitality, momentum, all the energy that a life brings and that no one fully controls. The rider does not tame it into stillness or suppress it. She stands on top of it and directs it through balance and timing. For you, the horse may be your temperament, your body, or a particular force your circumstances have trained you to handle over many years.
What is the shadow side of Leo 23°?
The shadow takes two main forms. One is recklessness, risk taken before the training is done, often for applause or adrenaline. The other is endless preparation, where fear of falling keeps someone in rehearsal for years. A third, quieter shadow is the skill that has gone hollow because its only remaining purpose is to impress the crowd rather than to do the act well.
How does Aristotle's concept of arete relate to this degree?
For Aristotle, arete or excellence is built through repeated action and shown only in action. We become brave by doing brave things, and the crown goes to those who compete, not to those with untested potential. He also treats courage as a mean between cowardice and rashness. The bareback rider embodies all of this: excellence formed by practice and expressed in a specific, finely performed act.
How does Keats's negative capability apply here?
John Keats described negative capability as the ability to remain in uncertainty and doubt without grasping for fact and reason. The rider cannot know whether the horse will stumble on the next circuit, and if she waited for certainty she would never stand up. Negative capability lets you stay present and responsive in risk, without freezing in fear or covering the unknown with false confidence.
How does this degree connect to Leo 21° and Leo 22°?
Leo 21° shows chickens intoxicated, energy loose and without direction. Leo 22° shows a carrier pigeon completing its flight, energy trained toward a destination. Leo 23° goes one step further: trained energy now performs in public, standing on top of raw power and directing it with skill. The three degrees trace how scattered force becomes purpose and then becomes visible mastery that others can witness.
This interpretation draws on the 360 symbolic images channelled by Elsie Wheeler in 1925, as recorded and organised by Marc Edmund Jones and later developed by Dane Rudhyar in Astrological Mandala (1973), read here through the lens of depth psychology, Eastern philosophy, and evolutionary astrology.
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