Re: VMs: What do you think about Eight?

["Jeff" <jeff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

360 / 8 = 45
http://www.seps.org/oracle/oracle.archive/Earth_Science.Astronomy/2000.12/00
0975206635.29091.html


----- Original Message -----
From: "Pamela Richards" <spirlhelix@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: 24 August 2004 20:28
Subject: Re: VMs: What do you think about Eight?


> 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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