Re: VMs: What do you think about Eight?

[Pamela Richards <spirlhelix@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, Nick

The divisions of a solar year into eight may seem
logical, but they are only used in the Aztec, perhaps
Chinese, and Japanese calendar systems as far as I
know to date.

Stretching a little to find a division by eight,
Saturn completes a zodiac cycle in just over thirty
years, Jupiter in around twelve, Mars in two, Sun one
of course, Venus, Mercury, and Moon in time periods of
less than a year.  But nothing comes to a division of
a solar year by eight.   

Farmers used the Moon, and still do, for agriculture.
Any activity that involves rapid change (such as
growth of plant life or gestation, in fact) is ruled
by the Moon.  In the face of generations of tried and
true lunar agriculture, the liklihood of introducing
to a European both a convincing new system of
astrological agriculture based on the sun, and
simultaneously a new division of the year into eight
solar periods devoid of cosmological signifcance seems
very low.

I was hoping to find a reference to eight in the
Egyptian calendar, since we know RII was interested in
Egyptology, but from everything I can find it seems to
 be built solidly on the system of twelve (lunar)
months; and that is probably where our own
astrological calendar originates.  It is true that the
Egyptian agricultural calendar has a keen interest in
the Sun, as it the season of the year is determined by
the heliacal rising and setting of various fixed stars
throughout the year.  Particular attention is paid to
Sirius, whose helical rising ushers in the summer
season and the flooding of the Nile.   
 
It does intrigue me, though, that the Aztecs used
divisions of their calendar by eight, and that the
author of the VMs went to the trouble of attempting to
show the corrlation between the 360 degrees divided by
12 and 8.  It seemingly has some importance to his
discourse, if we can think of it as that.

The Sun was the most improtant figure in Aztec
cosmology.  They believe that our current Sun is the
fifth and final one of the existence of the world. 
The figure in the center of their calendar was thought
to represent their Sun god.

We don't usually see suns in the center of
astrological charts in Western astrology.  Most
hand-drawn charts of this period are square; much
easier to construct by hand than is a circle.  In the
center of the square we usually find some astrological
information, like the location, date and time of the
chart.  Our traditional astrology is based on
geocentric concpets, so even if we described the VMs
sun-centered charts as cosmolgical rather than
astrological, to put the Sun in the center of the
chart would not mean the same thing to someone of that
time period as it does to us today.  It's a
nonsequitur.

The Sun is very prominent in the center of the
circular Aztec calndar, however.

Warmly,

Pam

--- Nick Pelling <nickpelling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
> 
> Dividing years into eight does seem one logical step
> further on from 
> dividing years into four seasons - yet (as you say)
> there is precious 
> little astrological practice I've found that views
> that division as either 
> useful or practical.
> 
> FWIW, my best guess would be that an eight-part year
> would most likely be 
> an agricultural calendar, and that (as David Juste
> suggested) the diagram 
> helps to convert between the two systems. What is
> also interesting about 
> f67r2 is that (following recent discussions here) it
> was probably the very 
> first folio in Quire 9. So, given that the page
> seems to be preceded by 
> plants and followed by astronomy, I would be
> unsurprised if it turns out to 
> act as a kind of conceptual bridge between these two
> sections - ie, to 
> convert between a 8-period (agricultural) year and a
> 12-month 
> (astronomical/astrological) year.
> 
> f67v2 (the next page along) also seems to have a
> combination of plants and 
> 8-period seasons - while f67v1 is misbound & should
> actually be at the end 
> of the quire.
> 
> f68r1 has 29 stars (all named), while f68r2 has 24
> named stars, 12 loose 
> stars, and 23 decorative stars (the circular outside
> row): f68r3 (the 
> "Pleiades" page, discussed fairly recently) has an
> eight-fold division, 
> though four may be just decorative), as does f68v3
> (the "spiral galaxy" 
> page, with the wolkenband around it). f68v2 looks to
> be in eight sections, 
> but (again) four may be decorative.
> 
> But here's the clincher as to what's going on (I
> think): f67r1's "moon" 
> page clearly matches f68v1's "sun" page in style,
> and (from the 
> folding/binding discussion and design) we know that
> these two should 
> actually be beside each other. But the moon diagram
> is divided into *12* 
> (or 24), while the sun diagram is divided into *16*
> (or 32)!
> 
> Putting it all together, I think that we have two
> separate kinds of 
> astronomical calendar being referred to: (1) f67r1's
> lunar-based calendar 
> (probably based on the lunar month), and (2) f68v1's
> solar-based calendar 
> (probably based on the four seasons), and where
> f67r2 shows how to convert 
> between the two.
> 
> Comments?
> 
> Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....
> 
> 
>
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=====
"I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing, than to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance."

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