A Brief Synopsis of Part I:   Early Astronomers-Astrologers saw the 10 day marker stars rising in the night. They called them Decans; later re-defining them as the Zodiac, the place where the wandering planets traveled across the sky. They were named after deities, and given their sacred attributes. Glyphs were developed to represent them, and diagram them graphically in the horoscope, a Greek word meaning "to look, or spy upon the hour".

Our familiar Sun, Moon, and local horizon are fragments of an intricate Cosmic Clock-works. They are set separately, yet synchronously. Many other clocks coexist in the overall scheme, and more than a few are recorded in the horoscope.

The triumvirate of influence in any horoscope is the Sun, the Moon and the Ascendant. The seasonal and phasic movements of the Sun and Moon are in evidence, so that their modifying influences may be known. The cyclic movement of the Sun's daily rising over the Horizon and across the sky is directly and actively reflected by the location of these elements in the horoscope. Hemisphere emphasis in the individual chart is the result of not only planetary placement, but also the Sun's daily jaunt across the heavens, and his nightly disappearance "under the earth".

Clockwise movement around the wheel of the horoscope represents the Sun's (and the other planets') daily trek through the sky. He'll travel all the way around that circle during the course of one 24 hour day.

The area below the horizon, the lower half-circle, is always under the earth, and hence invisible from the surface. Whether cast for events occuring in the day or night, the bottom half of the chart always represents what's going on behind the scenes.

The top half of of the horoscope, above the horizontal line, is the daytime portion of the chart. Night or day, whatever's going on up there is public, open for all to see, and is on display as if "in the full light of day".

At sunrise each morning, the sign and degree of the zodiac that's resting on the horizon is exactly the same as the Sun's. However, once he's risen several degrees above the horizon, a new sign will either be on the Horizon, or approaching it. A couple of hours later, the process will progress, and another sign will be rising. It's as if the Sun, moving through the sky on his daily journey through the heavens, is acting like a massive locomotive, dragging the entire zodiac along with him, in a single gigantic train!

Although the Sun remains in the same sign of the zodiac throughout the entire day, he slowly creeps forward through it, as well. Tomorrow at this same time, he will be about a degree further along in his sign. Yesterday, he was sitting about a degree earlier. It will take the Sun a whole month to inch along, degree by degree, all the way through a sign. Eventually, during the course of a year, he'll visit all the signs.

The Moon, much faster than the Sun, requires only a month for passing through the entire zodiac. She speeds along, traveling through one sign in only two and a half days. The Horizon, however, is faster still, and will see all of the signs cross over it in a single day! About 12 hours after rising, a given sign will slide down over the western edge, and slip out of view again, just like the Sun. It'll be gone for about 12 hours; varying by latitude and season, also like the Sun.

The dial-like face of the horoscope also records all the planetary movement through the signs. The length of the cycles vary widely by planet. Some, like the Moon, are high-speed travelers, while others just plod along. Occasionally, they'll appear as if moving backwards, for a time, a modification known as being "retrograde", and usually symbolizing some form of introspection, a time of review, of going back over things, and, sometimes, of slow progress. All planets spend time going retrograde except the lights:   the Sun and Moon. However, they all normally travel through the signs in a counterclockwise direction, just as the Sun does.

Like the signs rising over the Horizon, the planets all move through the zodiac in order:   Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer... it never varies. Even with periods of retrogradation, their overall motion through the zodiac is contra-clockwise. Yet, their advancement through the hours of the day is always clockwise. The planets are actually moving in both directions at once!

The Ascendant and the Horizon are one and the same. They're both represented by the horizontal line dividing the chart into upper and lower hemispheres. The region surrounding that line, particularly its eastern end, is an area of prominence and power.

The Ascendant, itself, is always an important point in any chart. Its sign and degree, their rulers and the conditions under which they appear, will reveal colorations of the nature of the individual or event for which the horoscope is drawn. The ruler of the Ascendant is considered the overall ruler of the chart.

Any planets found in that area will contribute their vitality and whims to the bubbling cauldron of life! Anticipate that the flavors will blend together, much as in ordinary cooking. Sometimes they match up succulently, and sometimes they miss the mark; but we can't really cover up their presence! Because of the rapid movements of the signs over the Ascendant, there is much individualization developing there.

The three-dimensional horizon extends all around us, north, south, east, and west. Planets, however, only touch the eastern and western edges. In the horoscope, the horizon is an axis; and like the axle on a car or a child's wagon, it holds something securely on each end. The axles hold wheels, making vehicles mobile and useful. The axis of the horizon also holds something significant at each end. The area of the horizon opposite the Ascendant, is called the Descendant. It, too, is an important point in the chart, though less emphasized than the Ascendant. The Ascendant, or Rising Sign is personal and individualized. The Descendant is oriented towards others, relationships, and their impact in our lives.

So, then, each day, as a direct result of the Earth's rotation upon its own axis, every degree of the entire zodiac appears, somewhat briefly, to be rising on the eastern horizon, a major axis of the horoscope. It moves along with the Sun, across the sky, ticking off the hours of the day, and then the night. There are 12 signs and 24 hours, meaning each sign is on the Horizon for about 2 hours.

In actual practice, the exact amount of elapsed time spent by a specific sign at the Ascendant, depends on the season of the year. It also depends upon where on the Earth the observer is located. Extreme northern or southern latitudes will most radically influence it, sometimes altering it by many degrees.

Surprisingly, the ancients were well aware of the three major Astrological clocks, and several others as well. The primary and secondary ones, of course, are the Sun and the Moon. The spin of the Ascendant's tertiary Cosmic Clock, timed by the Earth's axial rotation, and expressed in the rising of her Sun, Moon and other planets, is actually reflected in modern "analog" wall-clocks, pocket watches and wristwatches.

On a modern analog clock, the hours of the day are marked off by tiny hands gliding around the dial. They steadily advance, minute by minute, from dawn to dusk. For every 4 of those minutes that tick off, one degree of the Zodiac passes over the Horizon.

The average analog clock has actually been enlarged to show detail. It requires two revolutions to complete each day, while the Sun makes only one. Yet, look again at it as the hands quietly sweep around the dial:  the hands move in the same direction as the sun through the sky each day!

Next time you stand facing the Sun in the way that star charts are drawn, facing south, with the east to your left and the west to your right, look down at your watch....

Surely our own
inner biological clocks
are somehow a part
of this greater Cosmic System!

Star charts, such as the horoscope, are unusual in yet another way. While they are little sky-maps, they are oriented much differently than most maps, which are devised for traveling about on land. Once again, returning to the experiential sky is helpful....

Sun's motion depicted from dawn to dusk,
moving clockwise through the sky;
endlessly rising, culminating and setting...

When observing the Sun at midday, while facing south, he ascends as far overhead as he is able to travel. From there on, his arc of travel will only draw him downwards, toward his evening rendezvous with the western horizon. At that brief high point, near the noon mark in the middle of the heavens, he reaches his "culmination", and it is always a significant point in the chart, for any planet.

For example, say we are outdoors observing him at that moment. Because we're facing south and looking up, all areas to the north are behind us. We may be planning to depict his position in a drawing, and as we prepare to translate our viewpoint onto a notebook page, we glance over our shoulder at the sky to the north. The vista includes only a clear blue sky arcing high overhead. The ground below our feet blocks the view of whatever is below us and "behind the earth".

Turning back around and looking upwards again, we see that the southern portion of the sky-dome is the one suspending the flaming Solar orb. So, we sketch him in, appropriately, at the top of our page, since he's climbed so high in the sky. We can jot down the positions of his close traveling companions, Venus and Mercury, and any other planets in the vicinity, even though his brightness conceals their presence.

The zodiac, where the planets reside, exists as a narrow pathway, or belt around the Earth. That belt is a circular plane, and it actually represents the Earth's annual orbit around the Sun. All the planets' orbits lie within a few degrees of the plane of Earth's orbit. That's why, from here on Earth, they appear to travel over only one arcing sector of the southern sky.

As viewed from "Mother" Earth, all planets, including the Sun, appear to orbit her. That's why they're drawn that way in the horoscope. Scientifically speaking, of course, only the Moon orbits the Earth. From our perspective as observers, whose sky-watching is usually localized on the globe, the zodiac sits in about the same place from day to day. It tilts somewhat, seasonally, but it is a gradual effect.

When day blends into night, the incline of the zodiac is virtually unchanged. It slopes at the same angle when Earth's rotation has placed orbiting planets "behind the earth" as it does when they are in front of her, out where we can see them. That incline of the zodiac is why planets behind the Earth are not only below us, but behind us as well. Earlier, when starting our sky-map sketch, we turned and looked behind us, which was to the north. We couldn't see anything down there below the Earth, because she blocked our view.

Though hidden from terrestial dwellers,
Sun's night-time motion still slides clockwise;
his bright rays shadowed by the Earth, from dusk till dawn...

Brilliant at his high noon peak, his culmination, the Sun descends below her western edge after a few hours. He circles below the horizon at a similarly canted angle after dark, his hidden circuit, during the night, taking place in that northern area, behind and below us. The night half, the lower hemisphere, or bottom of the chart is the northerly portion, no matter what time of day we're looking at it. Oddly enough, in the horoscope, south is at the top and north is at the bottom!

This is quite unlike the land-maps which we're more used to seeing! Having the east on the left and west on the right is one thing. But, putting the south at the top and north at the bottom requires some serious readjustment of our expectations!

Eventually, realization dawns, and we can see that land-maps and sky-maps are framed as mirror images. The sky is like a close-fitting cap for the Earth, or a well made box with a snug, secure lid. We're living our lives from a place located in between those two. For the one we look up, and for the other, we look down. Although they seemingly express different topographies, working with Astrology speeds the understanding that the two are closely linked. And yet, how befitting it is! The natural world reveals many expressions of the metaphysical concept:

Articles on Using Astrology's Starlit Path:

[Table of Contents]  [Decans]  [Duads]  [Eclipse]  [Declination]
 [Horoscope]  [Ascendant]  [the Angles]  [Combust!]  [Zodiac]
 [Page Designing in Solar Fire^®]  [News'n Views]

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