Maybe alchemy will get you there faster? Silver is one of the "seven metals:" gold, silver, iron, mercury, tin, copper, and lead.
There are forty days and forty nights where neither the sun nor the moon showed through... (sounds like christian symbolism.)
But it might be Babylonian. Thirteen times 40 days is 520 days, which is three half-dragons. If you were going to create a calendar for the Dragon, this would be the way to do it. I am still looking for proof though--I would like to find 13 and 40 occuring together: That might settle it.
I love those three stanzas you quote.
Robert Anton Wilson is fun, but I don't feel I can trust him. He has recently started a big thing about the number 23. Well, I would love to see the number 23 turn up for real--it is not only useful in eclipse prediction--which the Mayans knew--but for calculating the Moon's drift. But I need evidence that it was actually used for that purpose.
Eclipses are certainly awesome, but there is more. If we are too modern, we shut it out, and don't get it. Birds and animals DO get it--and you can see that they do. Eclipses create an altered bit of time.
B.
Well, I didn't say they were married! :) But I think the point really is the perfection--a simple ratio of three to four, and it is the fifth most perfect (precise) harmony in the sky.
other--non-one-culture specific import
The Mayans had it. The Pawnee had it. The (pre-classical) Greeks had it. That's cross-cultural. Agreed: There are differences in religious meaning.
The thing about nine and thirteen and twenty is that they are all relatively prime. This is good. It means that when you let these cycles run concurrently, you get no repetition of lord + day-number + day-name until the 9 x 13 x 20 = 2340 th day--when Venus and Mars return to where they were when you started.
Same lord + day-number + day-name = Same positions in sky. This is how we make cycles of numbers map on to cycles of planetary positions. The Mayans were masters of this. I believe the Babylonians were too, but the proof comes harder.
C.
Speaking of Babylonians, I hope the planetary hours do not prove too hard. I admit they are intricate. But if we can show this elaborate scheme actually DOES something, then we are home.
The change in length of daylight is not my concern here. My concern is whether the phase of the Moon comes early or late. Plus or minus ten hours amounts to nearly a day--If there were a lunar eclipse, it could happen while I am on the wrong side of the Earth, in daylight, or it might come in the middle of the night and I would see it. Those ten hours of variance from average Moon could make all the difference. So I need to know. (The Babylonians needed to know, and did.)
D.
Is the Buddha idea your very own, Gaianne?
:D
Standard Buddhism, actually, except for my last remark about World harmony and Oneness. And the problem of turning off mental chatter is not unique to me. Though it is true that Buddhists do not say WHY the Eightfold Way is eightfold. They wouldn't. But my approach is, if the mythology fits, wear it! With their story about the rising of Venus, they have left themselves wide open, as you will see.
One riddle about one event, yes. Actually, it is NOT yearly.
E.
That Huntington quote is amazing. A friend of mine does straight mythology--he is looking for structural patterns--and routinely comes up with things like that. The numbers are magical, but the author seems to have no idea what it means. It just sounds cool. Sometimes I help my friend--I know what it means. Sometimes not--I don't.
I hope I am not misleading you because of the way these two things align: Three sidereal periods of the Dragon is 56 years, but so is 59 synodic periods of the Dragon. Which were the Stonehenge people paying attention to? The latter, I think, because I can see how they could have used it. The former? Not so sure. Either way, this is about the year and the Dragon.
Careful of that thirteen. Thirteen shows up in many places, including some I have not mentioned. But it does not show up EVERYWHERE. It would not be useful if it did.
Once I came across a paranoid site where he was proving how everything in the universe was based on 13. Took me a while to figure out he was not okay. Even then I would not say everything on his site was wrong. But you have to be careful.
out to see the stars; I remember thinking: Is it over yet? I was cold
Sorry about your bad experience. Enjoy the Sun!
Later. The Fates are kind.
So, back to the puzzle.
A - The Queen of Elfland is the moon. The 59 bells are the fifty nine--somethings--that make up the 59 synodic periods of the dragon (hey, you told me!) I looked up dragon and came up with the draconic month. I also read that the chinese banged pans to scare away the dragon...not sure how that fits in with it being auspicious...but I haven't had time to investigate further. So that's A.
B - The conjunction of Mars and Venus once ever nine tzolkins (I worked out that 9 x 260 = 2340, though your explanation of how they never had to repeat...that the idea is to have a single counting system with no repetition of terms...I think I understand that now.)
C - The week. 7 days running against a fourteen cycle. 14 x 7 = 98. Hmmm. I'm still stuck on that one.
D - Eight and ninety nine. I know it has something to do with Venus. Venus plus the pleiades = eight. But the moon comes in (you said the moon was the eighth planet so I'm all conked on this one.) Plus, Venus in the Pleiades this year is the beginning of spring (the age of Aquarius! Cough cough! You caught me with the precession of the equinoxes)...but beyond that....I'm still lost.
E - The fifty six stones are the sidereal as opposed to the synodic fifty nine (the Church of England synod!)...whats? I realise I'm getting confused with periods, days, cycles, and years.
I would love to solve this before I go to the pub this evening, because I will see my friend and would like to tell him the whole tale not just three quarters...but that might just be you giving me the answers...hehehheh...as if you weren't going to have to anyway...coz i nose nuffink.
;)
A supplementary question for yez.
The tzolkin counted 260 days. There were 105 left over (or so) to make an earth year. Counting in tzolkins would therefore mean there would be TWO tzolkin counts, the one that start at the relevant zenith, and the other ticking through to count out (eg?) the conjunction of Mars and Venus.
So my conclusion: something specific happens when Venus meets the moon in spring (?) every (?) period of days (or years?)....maybe a special kind of eclipse?
You comment about "an altered bit of time"....it's not about time standing still. The lunar eclipse lasts about an hour (it changes length--is that important?) Was it that specific hour that was "an altered bit of time"? Was there something ELSE they could see during that hour? I dunno, but I'm enjoying the puzzle immensely Gaianne!
Right, I must rush out under the sun again. Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
A.
There's a lesson for me! This subject is FULL of pitfalls. The Elf Queen's 59 is not the Dragon's 59. It is easy to get wrong-footed this way! That is why Stonehenge's 56 was so surprising: It is neat and clean. It has to be 56 years; there just isn't anything else in the sky.
Fifty-nine is a number that gets around a bit more. So you need more information to pin it down.
The Draconic month is a good find. From the Draconic month it is possible to calculate (there is a techy bit in there, the conversion from sidereal periods to synodic periods, that is actually standard astronomy, but it's finicking) both the synodic period of the Dragon--346.62 days for the Dragons Head to climb out of the Sun up in the morning sky toward midnight (opposition) and climb down the evening sky back toward the Sun (conjunction); and the sidereal period--18.6 years for the Dragon to move retrograde through the stars and return back to the starting constellation.
I find the synodic period (the Dragon round) of 346.62 days generally easier to use.
Indeed synodic periods are easier to observe and measure than sidereal periods, and were the natural choice in ancient reckoning. They also give simpler, cleaner harmonies in most cases.
Skipping to the Church of England--yes, just the other week a friend pointed out to me that it is the same word "synod" meaning conjunction. In this case, conjunction with the Sun.
Three Dragon rounds is 1039.86 days--VERY nearly four tzolkins. Did the Mayans know this? Yes, that is part of what the tzolkin is meant for. Did the Babylonians make use of this? Maybe. I am still looking for proof that they used cycles of two tzolkins to keep track of the Dragon.
Hey! It was right there on the same page! Don't overlook the synodic month! Could be useful.
Good.
The approach of the Alexandrian Greeks would have been: A round of Mars is 780 days; a round of Venus is 584 days (but 585 is close enough)
780:585 = 4 x 3 x 5 x 13 : 9 x 5 x 13 = 4:3
Soon.
Well, you have created a new hint by asking your supplementary question. See below.
Oops. Time to stop and regroup! A year is 365.2422 days (that's a tropical year, which follows the seasons. We're not going to worry about the other kind.) A Dragon round is 346.62 days. Fifty-six years is fifty-nine Dragon rounds:
56 x 365.2422 = 59 x 346.62 + 2.98 days
That 2.98? That's three days of error. Nothing in astronomy is perfect! But really, this is very good.
SUPP Q.
One hundred five days excess? Yes indeed, the tzolkin does not keep track of the year at all--the Mayans had another method for that. In turn, that means that the harmony of Venus and Mars does not fit the year either--at least not very well. Eventually though, Venus, Mars and the year do (sort of) come back together. Twenty rounds of Venus is fifteen rounds of Mars, and this is 45 tzolkins:
45 x 260 = 11700 days
How many years is that?
32 x 365.2422 = 11687.7504 days
It is 32 years (plus 12.25 days).
The 12 and a quarter days discrepancy means we have some imperfection here.
But despite imperfection, this might relate Venus (583.92 days) to the year. Time to check.
You comment about "an altered bit of time"....it's not about time standing still. The lunar eclipse lasts about an hour
From a physicists point of view, time continues as it always does. But inside that hour the EXPERIENCE of time can be very different. The Fates are kind.
It would make sense for me, if I were to make measurements, to measure the synodal year. The sun will come up....there!
So, just some added bits of info for me to store here:
So...the importance of the lunar eclipse was as a measuring the device. Or is that the theory? If someone were calculating the next lunar eclipse, the question "why"? would be answered if they were using it as a checking device for, say, precession (all these terms I'm learning...)
I've also found the 8/99 link.
On the other hand, in arithmetical lunisolar calendars, an integral number of synodic months is fitted into some integral number of years by a fixed rule. To construct such a calendar, the average length of the tropical year is divided by the average length of the synodic month, which gives the number of average synodic months in a year as:
12.368266... Continued fractions of this decimal value give optimal approximations for this value. So in the list below, after the number of synodic months listed in the numerator, an integer number of tropical years as listed in the denominator have been completed:
12 / 1 = 12 (error = -0.368266... synodic months/year) 25 / 2 = 12.5 (error = 0.131734... synodic months/year) 37 / 3 = 12.333333... (error = 0.034933... synodic months/year) 99 / 8 = 12.375 (error = 0.006734... synodic months/year) 136 / 11 = 12.363636... (error = -0.004630... synodic months/year) 235 / 19 = 12.368421... (error = 0.000155... synodic months/year) 4131 / 334 = 12.368263... (error = -0.000003... synodic months/year) The 8-year cycle (99 synodic months, including 3 embolismic months) was used in the ancient Athenian calendar. The 8-year cycle was also used in early third-century Easter calculations (or old Computus) in Rome and Alexandria.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunisolar_calendar
...but I don't know how this relates to Buddha's enlightenment or Venus. The eight year cycle was a form of regulating calendar (I feel I'm re-typing--only worse--migeru's diary on the subject of calendars; worse because I'm probably getting it all wrong and am in a cloud of oh-so-very unknowing....;)
So: the transit of Venus across the sun? Some other special astronomical event? I don't know how I'd work out which one it is because I don't know of many.
Another question about the tzolkin. I'd understood it to be for planting maize (among other things), so it started not when mars and venus conjoined, but at one of the sun's zeniths (I type that as if I knew what it meant.) So as the "long" tzolkin worked out, there would be a new one each year, whose start date was calculated by a synodal event?
I'm baffled now as to why anyone would want to invent the "sidereal" time period. The synodal one (it's back where it started) marks a pure cycle. The sidereal relates to the "background of stars", the zodiac, the constellations, against which we are running anti-clockwise (? to the left? I still don't have a good mental map of the earth in relation to the celestial sphere...I'm trying to find a good site to help me fix a picture, so I can get the rough layout of the major stars clear in my noggin...)
But, yes, the background "fixed" stars were used for..what, navigation? So for navigators it would be important to know if each year was slightly slowed relative to previous years, otherwise a ten year off-shoot might mean missing the island...something like that?
So the lunar eclipse was a calibration device?
And I still don't know what fifty nine bells refer to, or how the alchemical metals relate to the eight year lunisolar calendar; and I don't have it clear in my head how the sun and the moon interact--there's some shift, I suppose...we can count off cycles of the moon (new - full - gone - new etc...) and roughly twelve cycles makes a year, but not quite, so they had to "refix" the year by letting one have thirteen lunar cycles, and after eight years (and three additions) it was more or less okay, with a give or take--always forward? Always backward? One or t'other?
But this doesn't seem to get me any closer to answering the puzzle which has, no?, to do with Venus?
So...using Venus to calculate the year...Venus has a synodal cycle of 584 days. The synodal solar cycle is about 365 days? 120 days difference, or maybe it's closer to 118? (I remember that number), which is twic fifty nine...but I'm buggered if I know if that all links up in some way, and I would have the first idea how they'd be measuring this in the sky--they'd be using moon events as a tick tock and at certain points either re-set their clocks, or check where certain planets and/or stars were in the sky?
Finally (I'm still looking forward to seeing how this all ties up), I thought this was amusing.
(precession)
[...]
claims have been made that precession was known in Ancient Egypt prior to the time of Hipparchus. Some buildings in the Karnak temple complex, for instance, were allegedly oriented towards the point on the horizon where certain stars rose or set at key times of the year. A few centuries later, when precession made the orientations obsolete, the temples would be rebuilt. Note however that the observation that a stellar alignment has grown wrong does not necessarily mean that the Egyptians understood that the stars moved across the sky at the rate of about one degree per 72 years. Nonetheless, they kept accurate calendars and if they recorded the date of the temple reconstructions it would be a fairly simple matter to plot the rough precession rate. The Dendera Zodiac, a star-map from the Hathor temple at Dendera from a late (Ptolemaic) age, supposedly records precession of the equinoxes (Tompkins 1971). In any case, if the ancient Egyptians knew of precession, their knowledge is not recorded in surviving astronomical texts.
I don't know why I enjoyed the image of the egyptians knocking down their temple and rebuilding it pointing...a couple of degrees to the west (or east...I is so confused!) Maybe it was the idea that they didn't know why their buildings were off. "Bloody hell, we got it wrong again! Right! Knock it down." Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
But it can be confusing if you don't give yourself time to put it together.
You have stumbled into sidereal periods. I have been trying to avoid them--there is nothing wrong with them--just, I have been hoping to keep down complications.
I like eclipses for other reasons, but yes, until you have modern high-precision instruments, eclipses are absolutely the cleanest and most accurate way of astronomical measurement. Very useful, technically.
The passage you found on 8/99 is good: The heart of comparing the Moon against the year. A LOT of information is implicit in that passage. Of all those ratios, the only one that connects to Venus though, is 99/8.
99 months is 8 years is ____ rounds of Venus. Once you fill in the blank you are home.
So: the transit of Venus across the sun? Some other special astronomical event?
Yes, though this wasn't part of my puzzle. Very important in modern science: It was the basis for deducing planetary distances (such as that the Earth is 93 million miles--I forget how many kilometers--from the Sun) which was a major problem of the 18th century. Telescopes and filters are needed to make the observations. Not ancient.
I'm baffled now as to why anyone would want to invent the "sidereal" time
Yes. I feel that one doesn't do it until one has to. This too is modern. It takes time to explain. Fortunately for the ancients, they didn't need it.
But, yes, the background "fixed" stars were used for..what, navigation?
Yes, but this too lies outside my puzzle. It is a whole study. Maybe a semester course to become proficient. I never learned this.
Yes, in ancient times and modern. Right into the 20th century it was the only way to do many things.
That piece on the Egyptian temples was a find. I had no idea about that.
Maybe it was the idea that they didn't know why their buildings were off. "Bloody hell, we got it wrong again! Right! Knock it down."
:D It seems strange, for sure.
Meanwhile, go back and look at the synodic month: This is the month as we mean it in common usage--new Moon to new Moon. How many days?
The pieces are all nearly there.
Putting together the Babylonian planetary hours may entail more than I thought. Maybe we pause for breath first. We'll see. The Fates are kind.
So: eight years is the same as ninety nine lunar cycles is the same as five Venus cycles
Not sure about the dragon. I couldn't find any pages about it--I'll have to keep looking.
And I don't know how the seven days fit in. I asked my friend last night; he didn't know. Why seven days? And how does it fit?
So...
A - 59 B - Venus and Mars meet every 9 tzolkins, but I don't know how that relates to the year/moon C - ? D - 8/99 see above E - Something to do with lunar eclipses? But I don't know how eclipses fit in to Venus / eight year....
Am I getting warmer? Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
A - 59 Still don't know! Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
Why do this? They just wanted a whole number--no fractions.
More later. The Fates are kind.
For a while I lived on Long Island, which is essentially a suburb of New York. (It was awful, but that is not my point). Between everything, including a shopping mall, the night sky was so bright with glare that the only celestial objects were the brightest three planets, the Moon, Arcturus (in Bootes), Spica (in Virgo), Vega (in Lyra), Antares (in Scorpio, and the seven brightest stars of Orion. NOTHING else was visible.
That was my starting point for learning the sky. A little sparce! ;)
Later, I would make trips to better skies and then compare what I had seen with a star map that I had. The Fates are kind.
I'm seeing this (well, I'm a fraction of a degree to the west and south.)
http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Yourhorizon?lat=51.5000&ns=North&lon=0.000&ew=West&f ov=45.000&azimuth=270.000&z=2&elements=
It's a fascinating beast of a problem trying to capture a model which makes the realities (the various cycles) link together so that when I stare at that crescent moon...I know that it is being lit by the sun, but...I'm still stuck at the concept of the ecliptic: It is the path of the Sun against the background stars, yes. But when we look at the Sun, we don't see the stars behind it. We see the stars when we swing round and away from the Sun...where the Sun isn't. So I find the concept of the movement of the Sun against the (inivisible) stars behind it...hard to visualise...
Re: 59. So the 50 silver bells are the daily phases of the moon over two lunar cycles? (And a lunar cycle means: the moon is back in the same place in the sky? So, in 59 days, if I look out of the same window at the same time I'll see the moon in the same place and with the same size crescent of light?
Like I said, though, I need to get a...mental handle...on what I'm looking at. Really, I want to find a way to sense my movement relative to the sky. I want to get that sense of being on the panoramic deck of a huge ship, moving...(but in which direction relative to the celestial objects?)...and then, when I can sense that I am moving, really get that sense, then I think I'll be able to get how the celestial objects are also moving, relative to me and relative to each other.
But I'm still stuck in that mind set of: "Here I am, sitting here, not moving, and there are those obbjects...moving and changing...there's no dynamic, no motion...
I remember hitting that motion point once, looking down into the sky, the objects far below me...you know the sensation, when you involuntarily grab some grass to stop from slipping or falling into space.
As I also said, I can't find any references for the dragon. But I need to re-read what you wrote, coz I think you stated it in a side comment which I didn't read properly.
Anyway, Venus and the moon are at my window. I'll see if and how far they move between now and...later this evening, relative to my viewing space (they are framed...'twill be easy to see if they move more than a few of my centimetres. The moon is four fingers below the top window frame; Venus is four fingers below the moon...
...Gaianne, I have to thank yez! Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
Yes.
That's what it's for.
Really, I want to find a way to sense my movement relative to the sky.
One spring I walked every night up a local hill just after sunset. I was lucky to have a stretch of clear weather. Each night the stars sank lower into the Sun. (This was NOT on Long Island). After a month the sky had sunk one entire zodiac sign. The constellation of Gemini has a couple of bright stars (also, Procyon in Canis Minor is nearby) and their movement from roughly overhead down toward the Sun was very obvious. After a while I could begin to feel it.
Dope helps ;) The Fates are kind.
But the thing is, I realised as the moon went down...see, I'd be wondering how we could ever see Venus, as it's closer to the Sun than us, to look at it we have to look towards the sun. But then I realised that we must be looking acrossVenus, that it is moving away because I am spinning away from it. And I realised I was looking in the rear-view mirror, that the moon and Venus were moving away into the distance. I want to see the stars I'm moving towards, I'll have to check it out. My "east" looks out over the town, so there'll be a lorra light down below bleeding out a lot of stars above. I'll have to go see.
And the puzzle. I need more clues or pointing back towards the right track. Venus and the moon. I saw them this evening, a very elegant relationship, relative to my window. I thought of Islam and the crescent moon with its single star.
So, the moon. It's cycles. Then there are lunar eclipses, used to reset time systems. And there is Venus...and there was Mars in B. So Mars, too. Something about their conjunction and how it relates to lunar eclipses? ?????? I still can't get my head around the ecliptic. Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
