Early on I had come to some personal terms with the topic of the relationship between the Tropical and Sidereal wheels. In my experience I found that when I knew which system the chart was cast in, my mind automatically, intuitively, shifted to a different, seemingly more appropriate framework. This being purely my own intuitive process, I can only explain my personal experience and thoughts. When reading a Sidereal chart I felt a sense of cosmic intentions embodied in the immediate incarnation of the native and was also drawn to a sense of previous incarnations. The Sidereal chart made me feel steeped in the cosmic, as if it were revealing the ancient mysteries of Capricorn, expressed dynamically and with current purpose through the individual, Aries. When reading a Tropical chart I felt the native as based more on an Earthly integrated, social and interactive purpose, more like a child of Earth, part of the mass of sentient life born from Cancer and expressed through society's terms, Libra. Although either type of reading could be considered in either chart, there seemed to me to be more of a definite inclination which was more appropriate for each system. In order to be in tune with this, if I opened my mind using a bit of an ability learned from meditation, my gears sorta shifted and the emphasis within the sign meanings adjusted. Contrary to my attempt to be intuitively open, I think that most people can be somewhat literal and single focused. The resulting linear black and white type thinking can make verifying both wheels as being equally valid, more difficult. I think it can help if one considers at least for a short time, an idea which is more and more prevailing in astrologers' minds today, that the signs might not be the constellations.
It is my experience that much can be gained regarding understand the difference between the wheels by simply comparing the wheels as relative to each other and then seeking why and how can they both exist and both work. In the end, what one thinks about the Sidereal and Tropical wheels, depends entirely on perspective, and their ability to read accurately from either or both, which comes directly from their personal attunement. Personally, I suggest that the association of signs to constellations was a birth moment, albeit a major one, but nonetheless, a type of birth chart. From what I've been able to ascertain from history, this occurred when the precession of the equinox, something I think we would interpret more accurately if we understand it as a retrograde progression, was mathematically confirmed by Hipparchus (more on this later). Please do not think that I am minimizing the Sidereal Wheel. I find the Sidereal Wheel amazingly momentous, since it tracks us through where we come from and offers us knowledge of the basis for our place and purpose in incarnation within the grand scheme. It is the heavenly backdrop for the Tropical wheel and many people are attuned to reading it. It tracks the Sun's Nodes both North and South, in relationship to the cosmos. This being explained, my willingness to see the Sidereal wheel as a birth chart is totally consistent with my consideration as to where/what the signs are. Many astrologers consider the Tropical wheel as merely a projection of the Sidereal wheel through some kind of transcendental association, which requires no explanation on their part. Nevertheless, neither wheel is rooted in something you can point at as tangible beyond intuitive acceptance. All attempts at pinning down an astrological wheel as somehow justified in classical know physics evaporates under careful scrutiny of the motions involved. One can only surmise, never prove. The ancient phrase which many of you might be familiar with "Grand Illusion" takes perspective and relativity into account. My entire perspective rests on deciding what and where the signs are, by way of proving at least to my own thinking, what and where they are not. Unfortunately this article would be tangentially way off subject if I venture into setting up scenarios which others propose and then attempt to show where they fail. So my work on that will have to be in a different article. I would however like to make this one point, no matter what the scenario, it always ends up resting on an intangible intuition regarding transcendental processes. This being the case, I've abandoned all tangible processes other than trying to example how nothing tangible creates a sign or the beginning of a wheel, but instead what is tangible and prominent in a system, reveals the prominence of a specific wheel/path amongst what might be understood as infinite wheels, ever-present, everywhere.
The way I see it, there was a discovery, a momentous birth at the time, which drew us to the stars in general as a backdrop, based on their relatively fixed nature. The birth of the Sidereal wheel might have taken place during the work of Hipparchus (
http://www2.stetson.edu/~efriedma/periodictable/html/Hs.html) around 150 BCE, who was the first astronomer of old, documented as doing momentous work with trigonometry. It is said that he was the first astronomer to completely mark the sky with the constellation names, and that he did this in order to mark his trigonometric theories (it's important to remember that discoveries are not always made by intention, but are extremely often, bi-products). Please note that I am not intending to make an absolute statement as to when Sidereal zero Aries started. The birth of the signs in their final place did not have to be based on the signs their selves or by their making an appearance, but could just as easily have been affixed by certain stars bringing about the birth as some astrologers do theorize. I would expect that both stars and planets and signs, all played a part, as they do with any birth. Whether we can ascertain that birth chart is entirely another consideration. As you know, there are numerous ideas as to when the Sidereal zero Aries started, but considering that Hipparchus's work resulted in the established proof and complete confirmation of the precession of the equinox, it would seem that marking this moment with the fixed birth of the Sidereal wheel, would be a reasonable consideration. After all, as astrologers we are used to the ideas of the difference between inceptions and births.
Maybe at first, the Sidereal birth chart was more related to the establishing of trigonometry, which by its nature opened the doors to both heavenly and earthly positional relationships, invention and exploration, more than to astrological meanings. When one understands the nature and value of trigonometry, they may see that the Sidereal chart just might herald a birth of our potential to better chart and better understand our relationship with our past and futures and they may see that as the great foundational addition of the completed Sidereal wheel. Meanings always start being intuited by the few and then over time these intuitions spread out. Maybe this birth had no overwhelming, immediate publicly claimed astrological interpretations, especially since astrology was more of an initiate subject in those days. But look at where we are 2000 years later, possibly actually on the cusp of the Aquarian Age, as many do think.
With as momentous as the birth of the Sidereal zero Aries is in the course of time, I think allowing latitude of hundreds of years of evolution towards this point, is not unreasonable. As astrologers, we are used to how the flood of intuition commences and the personal effect of cosmic influences seems to accelerate after an acceptable completion of birthing is established as easily exampled when Uranus, then Neptune, and then Pluto, were revealed from behind their veils. With the constant discoveries today, it may be harder to get a consensus on direct effects, but those previous three were quite universally obvious.
Regarding the constellations as signs, at least to me, they do not look like their drawn symbols. To me, the symbols seem to be purely impressions for use as general character interpretations. After removing the tether of the astrological symbols from the constellations, it is easier to envision also removing the signs from the constellations. However, in order to rationally break the signs entirely away from the constellations, we need to find some other footing for their ability to literally appear in space. Note that the theory of breaking the signs away from the constellation, does not imply that the bodies which make up the constellations, cease to have their individual influence.
So where are all these signs if not marked by the constellations? Insight can be had when we stop to think that there are more than one wheel to begin with, the Tropical and the Sidereal. Later I'll talk about a momentous 3rd wheel, the galactic. It seems today that most astrologers tend to take the Tropical signs for granted. Some give credence to the idea that the Sun itself mimics the constellations as a microcosm of the macrocosm, however an in depth thought of how and where it might reside tends to begin and end in an unqualified transcendent reality. Actually, I think it is these astrologers who accept a transcendental explanation, who are closest to getting it right. To preface this, I would first say that signs are only absolute in their own system. A system is the path marked by one body around another. Within that path all phases of a time loop exist, relative to the beginning and end of the cycle. This is the manifest counterpart, to the unmanifest laws of inherent potential. I say inherent because you can see in the physical universe, that patterns are everywhere repeated. This means these patterns are not only intrinsic in evolution, but also intrinsic to the 4 dimensional universe we experience, before it is manifested into the differentiations we experience. The only difference between these two states is the manifestation of time. Considering that to an astrologer, the wheel we use is also known as the wheel of time, and we also know that the signs are intrinsic to all substance, giving form and shape to energy, it should be obvious that astrology is not only signs we contemplate objectively, but is the substance of time itself. Simply put, time is known by change in substance, in essence change (energy vibration and impact) is both time and how time is marked. There is no time without change and no substance without time. From a basic perspective, after removing tangented stumbling blocks, all there is, is time in different forms. The astrological wheel embodies this universal law.
My conception is that what we call the signs work like a "Worm Hole", linking the unmanifest (potential before time), to the manifest, in and through time itself. The signs, also known as the "Wheel of Time", manifests the implicit to the explicit. Before time as we know it, the wheel is not a wheel, it is singular and holistic. When time manifests, the wheels of time appear intrinsically systemic, seemingly expressed as circles/wheels around us (the circle being the form which expresses the infinity of time and ultimately shapes all matter), continually being marked by moments of prominence related to predominant cosmic bodies, ie. our Sun. These points of prominence mark everything from valued points to birth charts, major and minor. Each prominence sets up a time based scenario and symbolically embodies its own relative wheel of time, within its own relative scenario. Thinking in terms of consciousness and considering that space is an entity, not emptiness, it makes it easier to perceive that divisions in space into apparent relative astrological wheels of time, is quite within reason. The significator or the prominent or apex point of a wheel is relevant based on its effect on all other positions and bodies related intrinsically to that Apex point's place in the scheme. The significator, itself having been birthed through the wormhole like function, has synthesis and identity with all and it is this real time manifest force which describes and embodies its transcendental wheel and relates it to all signs and bodies in varying degrees of synthesis. Since all astrological wheels share the same basic laws, inter-relation and overlap is major, in fact, absolute. The complexity is therefore relatively infinite. In considering whether you think the above is valid, consider nodes, which their selves in general merely point at an otherwise unoccupied position in space. Think about how and where your natal chart is fixed/recorded in time and space. Lastly consider that at the base of the signs, there is an otherwise indivisible continuum we know as Cardinal, Fixed, and Mutable. By saying they are an indivisible continuum I am referring to the fact that absolute movement, absolute stability, nor absolute pliability, can exist independently. All things we experience exhibit all 3 attributes, in varying degrees, simultaneously. Much more can be said on these issues, but of course thread theme and space dictate limits.
Moving on and thinking thusly, it is my thought that the "Sidereal Wheel" is not only relative to the Tropical Wheel, but is a majorly significant birth chart also marked by the galactic black hole which on its own describes a galactic wheel, overseeing the Sidereal and the Tropical wheels, both Sun based. This is the wheel we need to recognize in order to better understand that we are being dragged backwards by the precession through the Sidereal signs and to start opening our minds to our forward motion through the tropical signs.
Consider this, how would you have viewed the last 2000 years of history differently if in addition to knowing that we have been dragged backwards through the Age of Pisces, that we were also moving forward through The Galactic Age of Sagittarius (there are numerous literal indications, organized religions driving the world is just one, the major advances in philosophy another). This is literally the case when realizing the GBH is moving forward through Tropical Sagittarius simultaneously with the Sun's N Node going backwards through Pisces, while the Sun's S Node is going backwards through Virgo. Relating to this, have you ever considered the effect the wheel has on you daily, as the planets rise and set visually backwards, while the planets inch forwards? Here in effect, we see a microcosm of the macrocosm. We can see how hard it is for us to externalize our will in the most universally ideal ways possible, while we are continually suffering retrograde motions. Visibly we see ourselves retrograding and astrologers who ascribe to the theory of ages, blankly accept this retrograde, without realizing they are not only suffering it, but also most are idealizing it as a forward societal progression. Just as with all discoveries which suggest they are universal to humankind's development, the realization that the cosmos is actually going forward in the Tropical system, should generate expanded thought and just might be considered to be one of the benefits of the 2012 ideas that we have greater opportunity and an expanded spiritual awakening, immanent for those attuned to this time period. Please take nothing for granted regarding my possible ideas regarding 2012, I have no fixed ideas, but as the idea is so prominent in society, there has to be some astrological phenomena behind it. The Sun arriving at it lowest point in the Tropic of Capricorn in what is at least within a very close alignment with the GBH, can have great significance now, especially when other conditions are supportive.
It makes sense Esoterically, that the black hole itself, describes its own wheel (a third astrological wheel now revealed to us*) based on zero Capricorn. We use zero Capricorn because the mid heaven in the radical astrology chart is zero Capricorn. The mysteries of creation and the governing laws of the cosmos, even father time himself, are deeply connected to Capricorn. We look up to the heavens and are mystified and wonder at the night sky revealed (even though technically that is a 4th house view which still does not escape an Esoteric interpretation for the polarity). We come from the cosmos and manifest through Cancer into the flesh. With the grand galactic cross astronomically fixed at the GBH, Capricorn would impart a perspective to the Tropical wheel relative to where the GBH's point is marked on the Tropical wheel. As most people know, the GBH is now about the 27th degree of Sagittarius. This means that galactic zero Capricorn is now working through 27-28 Sagittarius.
As an aside, note that a rising sign is generally accepted to change degree by relative latitude, something I've never heard considered when regarding the beginning point of the Sidereal wheel. Contrary to this, the mid heaven is stable at all latitudes. An overall look points to the Sidereal wheel being fixed by the rising sign, with the GBH being fixed by the mid heaven, and all movements are measured by the Sun's Nodes relative to the Earth. The Tropical is considered to move backwards through the Sidereal and the Galactic moves forward through the Tropical. To me this all sounds more complete now. I would recommend that from now on, when considering Ages, we note both the Sidereal and the Galactic, understanding each, based on the respective roles they play. Always remember that you are dealing with a grand illusion of perspective, both physical, as well as awareness-wise. In actuality we can say that the Sidereal moves forward through the Tropical, but this awareness has been veiled from us because of our beliefs and perspective. So instead the Sidereal has taken precedence, for now, and we've charted our Sun's nodes backwards motion as predominant. Esoterically this might be explained by the fact that on the whole, our society is still too self-oriented and involved in material pursuits for self aggrandizement. Hopefully now this veil can begin to lift at a more accelerated pace. At this same time we can review the precession, understanding what its retrograde has meant to us, while we view the GBH carrying zero Capricorn forward. Note that I know many astrologers will not identify with the values I imply about Capricorn, but Esoterically considered, it holds great keys to our needed understanding and it literally is the mid heaven cusp, the goal of Sagittarius.
It is taught, esoterically, that we understand the signs not by what they are, but by how we respond to them and that this is based on our point in evolution (the scheme above would reference the whole of humankind and not shift for the individual). Following this we see the Sun marking its journey around the wheel while it also journeys north and south in declination through the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Capricorn is latitudinally south, and radically, longitudinally at the top of your wheel, the cosmos incarnating on Earth through Cancer, is in the north, yet at the bottom of your wheel. Esoterically, this would be considered a paradox which would value one to contemplate. Each are abstract ideas tied to phenomena. This paradox is highlighted in our consciousness with the 2012 phenomena. It might be what is driving literalists to believe the poles will swap. Although much more can be said about all the contents of this article, there is not the room here. I can only say this gives me a perspective. The human mind's capacity to intuit is amazing.
It does not seem to matter how truth is triggered when reading a chart or how few or how many simple or complex systems one uses. Look at the basics. Why are the signs in the order of time and did they just fall there in that sequence? If you do not see them all as pieces of time, a little research and contemplation will probably clarify why that is said. Starting from the beginning, we have cardinal fire, the spark of life, the impulse to be. I don't think the stars just landed in such a way, I think the laws which are the signs, are everywhere equal and intrinsic and we merely mark our scenarios by our own punctuations within any cycle. These are the births, each relative to the others. We manifest the differentiations.
*I think maybe the GBH and the Galactic wheel is being brought into our focus by way of 12/21/2012 being at least a closely approximated marking point of an aligned Earth, Sun, and GBH, at the southernmost point of the Earth's Tropic of Capricorn. Is there any wonder that the Mayan calendar indicates a cyclic end where we can pause before the next northern journey? Is it any wonder that society would have so many people prone to fear of such an astrological indicator? Djwhal Khul spoke of how that soon we would, on the whole, tip our involving into matter, to instead more consciously aware evolving. Surely there has to be some element of related truth here.
*Not directly considered in this article, nor part of the consideration in coming to suggested conclusions in this article, if the ideas regarding Hpparchus are correct, it would follow that we just have or immediately will, enter into the Sidereal Aquarian Age.
I will be blogging in depth on most points mentioned in this article, as well as many others, with the result being a few planned books. If you are interested in more information in these areas, feel free to be in contact with me.