Sabian Symbol Calculator
Every one of the 360 zodiac degrees carries a Sabian symbol — a short, image-rich phrase from the 1925 list by Marc Edmund Jones and Dane Rudhyar. Enter your birth details to find the symbol sitting on your Sun, plus your Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Mars.
We use your city to find the timezone and coordinates, so your local birth time maps to the exact sky overhead.
What are the Sabian symbols?
The Sabian symbols are a set of 360 short, vivid phrases — one for each degree of the zodiac, from Aries 1° all the way to Pisces 30°. They were produced in a single sitting in San Diego in 1925, when the astrologer Marc Edmund Jones worked with the clairvoyant Elsie Wheeler. Jones shuffled 360 blank cards, each marked with a zodiac degree, and Wheeler described the image that rose to her mind for each one. The result is a kind of oracle laid over the wheel of the sky: a tiny poem for every degree a planet can occupy.
Decades later the philosopher-astrologer Dane Rudhyar reordered and reinterpreted the set in his book An Astrological Mandala, framing each symbol as a stage in an unfolding cycle rather than a fixed fortune. That is the spirit this tool keeps: a Sabian symbol is an image to meditate on, not a prediction. When you read “A woman rises out of water, a seal embraces her” or “A serpent coiling near a man,” the point is not to decode a verdict — it is to sit with the picture and notice what it stirs.
How a degree becomes a symbol
Each sign spans 30 degrees, so the twelve signs together hold exactly 360 — one symbol apiece. The symbols are one-indexed: a planet anywhere inside the 15th degree of a sign carries that sign’s 15th symbol. Most software reports degrees starting from zero, so a Sun shown as “Leo 14°” sits in Leo’s fifteenth degree and takes the Leo 15° symbol. That is why the degree label you see above may look one number higher than your chart software — both are describing the same slice of sky.
To find your symbols, this tool calculates where each of your inner planets — the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Mars — falls in the zodiac, then rounds to the whole degree and looks up the matching phrase in the classic Jones–Rudhyar list. Your Sun’s symbol leads because the Sun is the core of the chart: the steady image at the center of who you are. The Moon adds your emotional weather, Mercury your turn of mind, Venus how you love, and Mars how you act.
How to work with your symbol
Read your symbol slowly, the way you would a line of poetry. Picture the scene. Ask what it might be teaching, what mood it carries, what question it leaves open. Some symbols feel instantly true; others feel strange and only unlock months later. Both are normal — the Sabian tradition treats each phrase as a seed rather than an answer, something that ripens through reflection.
Resist the urge to make a symbol literal or fatalistic. “A bomb which fails to explode” is not a warning of disaster; it is an image of tension defused, of danger that quietly passed. The symbols speak in metaphor, and their gift is the way they hold many meanings at once. Keep yours somewhere you’ll see it, return to it when life shifts, and let the picture do its slow work.
Questions about Sabian symbols
What is a Sabian symbol?
A Sabian symbol is a short, image-rich phrase tied to each of the 360 degrees of the zodiac. The set was channeled in 1925 by clairvoyant Elsie Wheeler with astrologer Marc Edmund Jones, and later interpreted by Dane Rudhyar. Each symbol works like a tiny poem for the exact degree a planet sits in — a snapshot of its quality of meaning.
How do I find the Sabian symbol for my Sun?
Enter your birth date, time, and city above. We calculate where your Sun (and Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Mars) sit in the zodiac, then look up the symbol for each placement's exact degree. Your Sun's symbol is shown first as your headline image.
Why does the symbol use the next whole degree?
Sabian symbols are one-indexed by tradition. A planet anywhere inside the 15th degree of a sign — written as 14° in zero-indexed software — carries that sign's 15th symbol. So we round the degree up to its symbol number: a Sun at Leo 14°59′ and one at Leo 14°01′ share the same Leo 15° symbol.
Do I need my exact birth time?
Not for your Sun, Moon, and inner planets — those settle from your date and city. An exact time mainly sharpens the Ascendant and house placements, which this tool doesn't read symbols for. If you skip the time, you'll still get accurate Sabian symbols for your Sun and personal planets.
How should I read my Sabian symbol?
Reflectively, never as a prediction. A symbol is an image to sit with — a mood, a metaphor, a question. Notice what it stirs in you rather than treating it as a fixed verdict. The Sabian tradition treats each phrase as a meditative seed, not a forecast.
