Sabian Symbols · Virgo · Degree 11 of 30
Virgo 11°
The traditional symbol for this degree, one of the 360 Sabian symbols first recorded in 1925: “A boy grows into the shape of the hopes his mother once held for him.”
THE SYMBOL
“A boy grows into the shape of the hopes his mother once held for him.”
Virgo 11° · Sabian symbols, devised 1925 (Marc Edmund Jones, clairvoyant Elsie Wheeler)
Remember to round up: a planet or point at 9°30′ takes the 10° symbol, not the 9° one.
What this degree describes
Identity, at this degree, arrives partly pre-formed, carried by someone else's longing before the child had any say in the matter. This is not necessarily a burden in the image, though it could become one; mostly it is simply true, that we are shaped early by expectations we did not choose and only later learn to examine. Virgo, so devoted to refining the self on purpose, meets here the part of the self that was refined by someone else's devotion first.
When a planet or point falls here
A planet at this degree often shows a life meaningfully shaped by a parent's, especially a mother's, hopes, sometimes gratefully fulfilled, sometimes still being sorted out from one's own actual wishes. The Moon or Saturn here can indicate real tenderness, or real tension, around inherited expectation. It rewards taking an honest inventory of which hopes are still yours to carry, and which were only ever borrowed.
Which of your current ambitions did you choose yourself, and which one were you simply, lovingly, handed?
Find your own Sabian symbols
Your Sun, Moon, Ascendant, and every planet each sit at their own exact degree. Cast a free natal chart to find yours, or let a full reading trace what they mean together.
Cast your free chart