Does the Sun Revolve Around the Earth???

Let’s get some basic astronomical and physical concepts ironed out.

First of all motion is relative. If Car A is going 50kph and Car B is going 45kph. Than Car B is moving backwards at 5kph relative to someone looking at it from Car A. And someone sitting in Car A experiences the car itself as standing still. Even though to anyone outside the car, it’s not standing still at all.

That is a basic concept of physics. Now let’s apply it to astronomy. If you are standing on the Sun (with your super-duper heat shield, of course) – the Sun is standing still for you, and everything else is moving around it. That like being in Car A; it makes Car A stand still and Car B and the rest of the world move. If you are instead standing on the Earth, its the Earth that stands still and everything else moves around it, similar to being in Car B. If you stand somewhere else, somewhere in outer space, you see that everything is moving. It’s like standing on the road and seeing both Car A and Car B moving. The Earth is moving around the Sun and the Sun is moving around some other stars and the whole thing is circling around the galaxy, and the whole galaxy is… “etc.”

It’s not that geocentric astronomy is “wrong” it’s just geocentric, centered on the Earth. Heliocentric astronomy is not “right” it’s just heliocentric, centered on the Sun. And non-centric astronomy is probably only a philosophical concept, since it’s not possible not to be somewhere within the universe you observe. It’s not wrong for the person in Car A to feel like his steering wheel is not flying around at 50kph. It’s correct, relatively speaking.

All motion is relative.

Now, in astrology we are concerned with life on earth. Therefore it is geocentric. The astrological symbolism of the Sun very strongly suggests that ancient astrologers / astronomers knew that the Sun was, from one perspective, a truer “center” of the planets. But that is not very important because we don’t live on the Sun! We live on Earth. The math of astrology is practical astronomy. It is astronomy in its practical relevance to an observer on Earth. It is intentionally geocentric because it is meant to examine how celestial time proceeds from an earth-based vantage point.

In geocentric astronomy / classical astrology there are three principles to consider: space, planets, and the earth.

Space is the area  through which the planets move. There are two types of space: sidereal and tropical – stellar space or earthbound space. So many cultures had two measurement systems, one for the stars (for example ancient India measured space by 27 stars segments), another for the “signs” (12 of them) of earthly space.

Planets are the visible points in the sky that move through space.

The Earth is the thing we are standing on. It has two important poles: above/below and east/west. Based on the four extremes of those poles there are four quadrants of the “sky” (the earth’s local space). Reflecting the two poles into each of the four sections, each section acquires three distinct divisions (one for the pure quadrant and two for the quadrant mixed with each pole). Thus altogether the Earth’s sky possesses 12 sections. We call these houses.

Now, as to how they are moving… we are standing on the Earth – so we cease to perceive that it is spinning on an axis and rotating around the Sun, just like a person inside a moving car does not perceive the dashboard and chairs to be moving. Instead of seeing the Earth moving around the Sun, we see the Sun as another “planet” that moves through space. Instead seeing the Earth spinning on it’s axis we see space itself (containing in it the moving planets including the Sun) spinning around the Earth.

In classical astrological geocentric astronomy, the Earth is the fixed reference point. And all of space revolves around us, moving through the twelve divisions of our sky, as the planets additionally move within space.

- Vic DiCara

www.vicdicara.com

The Ptolemaic geocentric model of the Universe according to the Portuguese cosmographer and cartographer Bartolomeu Velho (Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What you can learn from just words

What do these words have in common?

• Soulful
• Lunatic
• Mercantile
• Venereal
• Martial
• Jovial
• Stern

They are adjectives formed from the proper Latin-based names of the seven main astrological planets: Sol, Luna, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn!

The Sun’s proper name is Sol. It represents the Soul, the singular center of all things, the core of our identity or “ego.” So the it is soulful. The word “sole” could also apply because the Sun / soul is of singlular importance and centrality.

The Moon’s proper name is Luna. And from this we get the words lunacy, lunatic, looney and all that. The Moon represents the subjective mind, the repository of all our emotions and opinions… the stuff that makes us crazy.

The Moon also has many interesting adjectives from it’s title, “Moon.” My favorite is mood. The mind controls our moods and moodiness.

Mercury is the planet of intellect. Intellect is the mother of communication, and communication enables exchange. Therefore we have the word mercantile indicating trade, exchange, barter, etc.

Venus is the planet of senses. When you hear the word venereal you immediately think of VD (unless you are from the new generation where they renamed the stuff STD for some weird reason, maybe Venus protested?). VD, venereal disease, is a “disease of the sense organs.” Especially the reproductive ones. And the implication is that it results from overuse of sensuality.

Martial is among the more familiar of this group of adjectives, sadly. Mars is the planet of energy, which means ambition, which leads to competition, which becomes war. So anything competitive or warlike we call martial.

Jupiter’s older name is Jove, source of the word jovial. Jupiter makes things positive and happy… but why? Well Jupiter is actually the planet of wisdom. Wisdom leads to morality (doing what is best for everyone). Morality creates lasting happiness and joviality more fully than anything else.

Saturn gives us “st” adjectives – all with meaning matching the hard, cold sound of those letters: stoic and stern especially come to mind. Saturn is the planet of reality, which buldozes through our masquerades with hard and fast limitations, and restrictions that we fools tend to perceive as “misery.” Saturn is stern and when you don’t run away from Saturn you become more stoic.

The Sanskrit name for Saturn, shuni also seems to have had an effect on the English word “shun.” We all try to shun Saturn, and Saturn represents the shunned. And if we become very serious and stoic like Saturn, the shallow people of the world may start to shun us a bit.

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Vic DiCara

www.vicdicara.com

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Looney! =)

 

Much Simpler and More Reliable Than “Cancellation of Debilitation”

I calculate a planet’s dignity not by sign alone, but by six or more subdivisions of the sign (varga-vimshopaka). This is how the sages instruct us to evaluate dignity. The sign a planet occupies in the main birth chart is one of several signs it occupies when you take subdivisions into account. Therefore often a planet that looks “debilitated” can have pretty good dignity, and visa versa.

Considering this is infinitely simpler and more useful and reliable than going off on the wild-goose tangent of “Cancellation of Debilitation” (neech-bhanga)

- Vic DiCara

www.vicdicara.com

Alignments that make Spiritualists

Here is a quick thought.

There is something called parivrajak-yoga which is an astrological alignment defined as having four or more planets in a single sign. The effect of the yoga is classically defined as “renunciation” and sanyassa. The actual effect is that we lose interest in enjoying the world and prefer to / need to look for deeper relevance and meaning in life. Therefore we wind up giving away or abandoning what most people would want in search for that deeper thing that we truly want.

Why is it that 4 planets in a sign has this effect?

Some people think it’s because it makes you unstable and crazy, to have that many parts of life  (planets) put in the same environment (sign).

Here is what I think:

There are sankhya-yogas and really this parivrajak-yoga is a derivation of those. Sankhya means “count.” The sankhya yogas count how many signs the planet occupy. Now you can see why I say parivrajak-yoga is a derivation of sankhya yogas: because it counts how many planets are in a sign.

There are only seven planets you can deal with (Rahu and Ketu don’t factor in to sankhya-yogas, and classical astrology doesn’t count the multitude of new planets and quasi-planets). So if you have four planets in one sign it means that at most you can only have your planets in a total of four signs (if the other three planets are each in separate signs). So if you have a yoga for renunciation (parivrajak-yoga) you cannot have a sankhya yoga higher than four houses. The higher count yogas produce people who enjoy life and are materially productive. The lower count yogas produce people who struggle to attain something more significant.

The fifth yoga is particularly important to this discussion. When the planets occupy five signs it is called harsha - the effect of which is that we see the world as something fit to enjoy. We are more delighted with life, and see everything as something enjoyable (this is putting it in a bright perspective, it also makes hedonists). If you have four planets in one sign you cannot have this harsha. That means you cannot get excited about exploiting people and objects for your personal enjoyment and pleasure.

If you have four planets in one house you must have either a four, three, two or one count yoga. And these are all yogas which make us dissatisfied with the external world and seek something better.

I think this is the logic behind parivrajak-yoga.