A few years back, I became interested in ancient astronomy, both within specific cultures, and across cultures. My starting point was theoretical: What COULD the ancients have known? That gets balanced against the evidence for what they actually did know (and when and where).
Not to stray off on a tangent, one unexpected thing I have learned in this study is that as much as modern science is concerned with CREATING (discovering) knowledge, it is equally involved in DESTROYING knowledge.
Yes, that is right: There are things that were known (well-known and known correctly)--knowledge--that modern science has destroyed. That is, they are no longer known (except for the few people who do this kind of research.)
I could say more on this particular topic, but the relevant point here is that progress--including progress in science--is not quite what we think it is.
Let us consider a case from modern history: The Luddites. You will forgive me if I rehash what I was taught officially: That the Luddites were ignoramuses who hated progress, illegally smashed machines which were part of the new and better industrial way, but who were finally proven wrong.
The happy narrative of progress.
A closer look shows that in fact the Luddites were craftspeople who understood that shoddy but cheap industrial manufactures would destroy their livelihoods, their way of life, and their communities; and who were sufficiently incensed that the government would side with the industialists in violation of traditional law and rights to take matters into their own hands. As it happens, they were proven right--not wrong: Their communities were indeed destroyed, while they were in fact driven into destitution or killed.
They were right in another sense: By almost any measure the lives of the Luddites were preferable to the lives of the industrial wage slaves who replaced them. So how are we to understand that this was progress? Historical succession, yes, but progress?
The hierarchies you refer to in your second paragraph seem to have come in with centralized agriculture. The sustainable peoples of the world who still exist are much LESS hierarchically organized than either early agriculturalists or modern industrial civilization. Presumably that was true in the past as well. A village headman functions very differently than the governor or administrator of a modern state--whether dictatorial or democratic.
The concept of equality you mention in your sixth paragraph is the return of a concept from prehistory--that is, a concept many (but not all) prehistoric peoples had (and lived)--returned and re-cast in a modern form. Not that it cannot be traced through a number of historical places and times, because of course, it can.
While it is a truism that humans are evolving, HOW we are evolving is vexed in the extreme. A careful look into the past does not suggest we are evolving toward things like intelligence or reality-based-ness in any direct way. Maybe it is a trend across hundreds of millenia, but it does not show up in even a few thousand years. Perhaps it should not: Evolution is generally quite slow.
I suspect the Age of Science is nearing its end. Consider: How much of science depends upon cheap oil? The other day I was looking at a picture of the atmosphere of Titan against the backdrop of Saturn. Exciting! Truly I love this stuff! But the US has already abandoned this kind of astronomy: It is being wound down. Other countries will fill in the gap--for a while, until real resource pressures kick in. Without a functioning industrial civilization, this kind of endeavor will become impossible.
Oil is the geological kick in the head, but there are others. Science started as a revolutionary endeavor, and this was half (but only half) deliberate. When it started, funding was not a problem. (Anyone with enough leisure to do science certainly had enough money.) Now science is almost totally dependent upon outside money, and, as it sets about to do the bidding of the wealthy, has rapidly become corrupt. The entire field of genetic engineering is my case in point, and it will only get worse: The sciences we are spawning in the 21st century are actively malign.
Is there any hope? Yes, the whole infrastructure of money, which is tied to oil and cheap resources, is slated to collapse, and malign science will collapse with them.
What science will be left?
I have been wondering about this.
But let me take up your last two paragraphs: Does science have any connection to improvements in human ethics? Clearly not.
In North America it was a scientifically advanced but spiritually devolved people who displaced a people who already knew that science was not the basis of spiritual understanding, nor the measure of the quality of their relationships in the world.
For a while. The Fates are kind.
I was all ready for being educated re: astronomical facts the ancients knew that have become esoteric knowledge (and are being actively attacked by scientists.) But then you veered into the noble luddites, who--I think--have had their case supported, upheld, and justified by the science that created wikipedia, central libraries, etc... I don't see that science destroyed the knowledge of the luddites; rich humans may have destroyed the knowledge, and if the luddites didn't have other means than oral/single-human contact means of transmission of said knowledge, then with the last luddite died the last of luddite knowledge....except we do know about them, so I'd blame the...hmmmm....my point being, was there something in astronomy you discovered where science was destroying previous knowledge?
To the list:
First up, "This is a pretty short list for two thousand years of recorded history"...
As far as I understand matters (not much), recorded history takes us more or less back to the last ice age (10,5000 BC?), before which we have little or no information; after which we have ever accumulating information.
The library of Alexandria was an immense storehouse of knowledge. As the story has been told to me, the famous greeks all went and studied in Egypt: the myth of the greeks inventing this stuff "jussa like that!" is a myth. There is continuity all the way back (to the beginning of communities along the nile.)
I have read that the first great leap in thought occured sometime around 600BC (?) Concurrently there were Buddha, Lao Tse (?), someone else, another person, and another one, I cannae remember who, but this seems a decisive time when human thought developed from one mode to another--at least for some. I think the idea of "all people being equal" and, indeed, the ideas of "a lack of distinction--ontologically--between the self and the other" (all elements are inter-related)...these all date back to somewhere between 600-300 BC, as far as I understand matters.
Scientifically, I have also heard the following:
It was certainly not my intention to summarize 10 000 years of human history in a single comment thread, still less to give the impression I was trying to do so.
With respect to astronomy, see my comment below. The Fates are kind.
A.
First an example from "shortly" before the changeover to modern science. The song describes her:
Her shirt was o' the grass-green silk, Her mantle o' the velvet fine, At ilka tett her horse's mane Hang fifty siller bells and nine.
For the audience of this ballad, the above is a description, not a riddle. When she declares herself two stanzas later, it is a confirmation of what is already understood.
Q: Who is she?
B.
The Sacred Year--the tzolkin--of the Mayans of Central America is a period of 260 days created by letting twenty day-names and 13 day-numbers run concurrently and endlessly--much like our days of the week. (Incidently, the tzolkin is still in use.)
Q: What is the meaning of the tzolkin? What is it good for?
That was an unfair question, because the Mayans do not belong to our cultural stream. Also, it has several answers. So we need to narrow it down a bit: In addition to the tzolkin, there were also nine Lords of Night.
Q: Why are there NINE Lords of Night?
This prepares us for a question about Greek mythology that IS fair.
Q: Why are Aphrodite and Ares lovers?
C.
In an essay called "Moon over Babylon" Isaac Asimov describes the system of planetary hours. This is an aspect of Babylonian astology that is familiar to many astologers today. It worked like this: Each of the twenty-four hours of the day is assigned a planet, in natural (descending) order--Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, the Moon, and back to Saturn again, endlessly. The first hour of Saturday belongs to Saturn, and if you count through (a bit over three times) the first hour of Sunday turns out to belong to the Sun, and so on through the days of the week. This is a fine, elaborate scheme, yielding up the order of the days of the week--in aid of precisely nothing, right? So it would seem, and Asimov himself, in "The Week Excuse" argues that the week has no reason to exist. (But he is a science writer, not a scientist;) We need a hint, and to find one, let's drop over to the ancient Greeks. Although the astronomy of the classical Greeks seems rather poor, they had myths that came through from an earlier time. One of these is the story of Niobe, who ran afoul of Leto, the mother of Artemis the Moon.
Q: Niobe had seven sons and seven daughters. Why? Who were they?
So now we return to Babylon:
Q: What is the meaning of the week? What is it good for?
Incidently, it may be thought that the week was brought to Europe by the Christians, who of course had it from the Jews. But if so, why are the days named after deities? The Jews most certainly did NOT do that, and the Christians had no reason to either. Hmm.
Q: Now do you know who is the Queen of Elfland?
D.
To Inanna, the ancient Sumerian Goddess of Heaven and Earth, belongs a particular flower (often depicted) with eight petals.
Q: Why does it have eight petals?
Islam did not completely destroy, but rather overlayed, the cultures that it possessed, much as Christianity dominated but did not wholly replace the cultures of Europe. In particular, it is said that mosques contain within inscriptions of the ninety-nine names of God.
Q: Why should God have ninety-nine names?
E.
Stonehenge is a circle of stones in England dating from the Neolithic which is well-known for certain astronomical alignments, such as that with the summer solstice sunrise. Among its many features is a circle of fifty-six stones, each bearing a cup-like hollow that might have been used to hold a marker.
Q: Why fifty-six? What did these stones signify?
IN SUM
From these examples, drawn over a wide span of history, it would clearly be unreasonable to assert that the destruction of knowledge is unique to modern science. Rather destruction is a property of the succession of systems of knowledge, a property of which modern science partakes. The Fates are kind.
I'll never guess the answers, but I do have another question.
Can you answer the questions?
;)
No! That wasn't my question. Here it is:
Although I can understand that there were changes to how we counted our way through the various cycles (earth, moon, sun, planets, stars), are you saying that something specific was lost? Well, you say so in the first paragraph, so yes....
Well...I'd like to stick it in my brain, let it soak through my synapses and into the rest of me--and then tell a friend, see if he knew about it (he's the guy who told me about Ibn Al Haytham...and how the greeks all went over in their boats to Egypt to study..etc..etc..)...he'll probably look at me strangely and say, "What? This is news to you?" "Yep," I'll say. "You know I'm a slow learner, but I still enjoy getting there."
So...links...clues...
(I'm thinking that they had other ways of counting through, but not that something was lost when the counting system changed--maybe cultural habits were lost, but...but...I don't know enough to know what you're hinting at....one person's essentially simple is another person's (that would be moi) ach ach! Complicated!
Anyone else got any ideas? Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
:D
are you saying that something specific was lost? Well, you say so in the first paragraph, so yes....
Yes, the audience of the ballad knew who she was--and why--as most of us would not. The information is sitting right there in those four lines, but we don't recognize it.
Also, it is less a different way of counting, and more a different way of UNDERSTANDING how we DO count. When we talk about
various cycles (earth, moon, sun, planets, stars)
we are reviving a concept that was dropped from our thinking toward the end of the Renaissance. Theories based on forces, acceleration, motion, and space-time curvature (Gallileo, Newton, Einstien) do not concern themselves with cycles at all.
The problem is not with the science as science, but with how science supports a particular philosophical/economic/political agenda. When the goal of harmony is replaced by the goal of progress, the sustainable is explicitly abandoned in favor of exploitation.
MEANWHILE HINTS:
The green of her silk shirt prepares you for her announcement two stanzas later that she is the Queen of Elfland. But who IS the Queen of Elfland? It is her horse's mane that provides two sure clues, one alchemical and one astronomical. The 13th century English audience recognizes them instantly. We don't. That is part of what I mean by lost.
I detoured to the Mayans because they made it into historical times, and some of their knowledge survived the Spanish conquest and the Catholic Church. They built their knowledge of cycles directly into their arithmetic. They provide an important clue for our understanding of ancient peoples whose methods have been lost.
One of the few codices that survives (out of tens of thousands that were destroyed by the Spanish) concerns itself with the phases of the synodic period of Venus (584 days--or more precisely 583.92) Richard Feyman once wrote an essay debunking a supposed new codex discovery; at the end he pointed out the unlikelihood of discovering another VENUS codex in any case, and recommended that forgers put themselves to a different topic, such as Mars. Mars might be a good choice, as it lies at the heart of the Mayan calendar: The synodic period of Mars (779.94 days) is just three tzolkins.
(And so we close in on the Nine Lords of Night.)
The classical Greeks were not so good at calendar-keeping. Thucydides describes how the failure to predict a lunar eclipse was the proximate cause of the Athenian disaster at Syracuse. (It was a case of turning simple defeat and retreat into outright annihilation.) Yet their ancestors--from many hints--seem to have been better. So the myth of Ares and Aphrodite can be interpretted with confidence, once we know--from elsewhere--the astronomy behind it.
Hint: What has a period of 2340 days?
Without the example of the Mayans I doubt I ever would have decoded the Babylonian planetary hours. It is absolutely amazing that our days of the week should cycle so . . . relentlessly. Nothing else in our calendar does: Everything is leap years and dog-legs. Our calendar is put together from Frankensteinian scraps.
I sometimes ask people how long a month is to see if they will answer "twenty-eight days." I was taught that--after all, the week must be good for something, right? But it is totally wrong and useless--you COULD NOT do astronomy that way. So what IS the week good for?
The clue from the Mayans is: The whole point of the week is that it runs AGAINST something. What? Necessarily, another endless, repeating cycle, that when combined with the days of the week gives . . . what? Niobe is our clue here: Seven sons and seven daughters (alternating?) for a total of fourteen. That is what we are supposed to obtain, somehow. What is the other cycle, that will give it to us? We need the Queen of Elfland for this.
It is about the Moon, for it is Leto, the mother of Artemis (the Moon, or more properly, the Moon's charioteer) who has them killed. An interesting myth, simultaneously holding the information and describing its destruction at the hands of a new theology--and by classical times the knowledge evidently HAS been lost.
(The knowledge needed to understand the myth of Niobe was re-introduced from Babylonia by the Alexandrian Greeks.)
It is fascinating to me that in the 13th century the pieces needed to understand the whole system were common knowledge.
A while back an astronomy magazine published a letter from an amateur astronomer who had set his planetarium software running on his computer, while he stared at the monitor screen in a (drug induced, I fondly assume) daze. Suddenly, there was Venus, re-appearing AGAIN in the Pleiades (as it is again doing this spring). Well, WHO KNEW!?
The Muslim symbol of the star and crescent is considered by some Muslims to be a pagan symbol. Considering that the Sumerian Goddess Inanna presided over--among other things--the Moon and Venus, I am not inclined to argue with that.
We should not neglect that Gautama the Buddha attained enlightenment while sitting under a bodhi tree watching Venus rise in the morning twilight. What was that about the Eightfold Way?
Hint: How many months between re-appearances in the Pleiades? How many years is that? And for you fans of the DaVinci Code, what does that have to do with the Lady of the Rose?
One cannot expect to decode an astronomical structure from just a single number. But while there are at least two possible meanings for the number fifty-six, only one is reasonable.
At high latitudes--such as the British Isles--the full Moon can get quite low in the summer sky--noticebly lower than the winter Sun. (At 61 & 1/2 degrees, it can disappear). This does not always happen. SOMETIMES it happens. When?
These stones will not predict eclipses for you--by themselves. For that you need finer-tuned information. But they will tell you when an eclipse is possible or impossible.
Hint: What returns, after fify-six years, for the third time.
CODA
The ancient idea of the harmony of spheres is not just a metaphor: It is also real. If you could smoke enough dope to drop your attention down about thirty octaves, you would find that Mars vibrates (cycles) in the sky on the note of C, while Venus holds the note of F above and Mercury the A two octaves higher. The Moon is an A, bent slightly flat, two octaves above that. Jupiter and Saturn cluster near C--though scrunchingly off; they might also be perceived against the stars as a deep G-flat, and a deeper D. Where are the seasons?
The planetary harmonies were put off-limits as a problem, as modern science had no way to assess if they had functional REASON to exist. To answer this question satisfactorally would entail running planetary calculations for spans of millions, or perhaps billions, of years to see which configurations of planets and orbits are stable and which are not. Modern computers might make this possible, were anyone willing to dedicate the computer time. It is a guess, but only a guess, that the harmonies we see are the necessary by-products of stability. The Fates are kind.
Okay my very brief recap
A - A great poem about celestial events...the green dress the field he's lying in; the velvet mantel the sky; The Queen of Elfland...something mystical in the sky that comes and goes...here she is...she leads him away for seven years...
B - The tzolkin. Twenty repetitions of a thirteen day cycle. The mayans discovered that the centre of our glaxay was a black hole in the middle of the Milky Way, a centre which pulses on thirteen...everything on thirteen at all speeds, from nanoseconds to aeons...and tzolkins accurately measure planetary conjunctions. 2340 is nine tzolkins...the time between the conjunction of Venus and Mars...and in the myth the ram is shorn and his golden fleece...is the rising sun, not as myth but as myth--story--overlaying an astronomical truth. A story told while pointing to the stars. (I was reading this evening about animism, how anthropomorphism is in fact a very useful tool...it is a way of getting closer to the nature of something....so giving animals human characteristics makes it easier to know, for example, that the rabbits will come out and look around for danger, while the fox is on the lookout for food...)
The nine lords of the night. Nine important...planets? Stars? I couldn't get nine.
Also, the tzoltin is place specific. It works for Mexico and regions close by.
C - Seven Days. I thought: one quarter of a lunar cycle. There's something to do with the moon, and again a story to describe the movement of the celestial bodies....the stories telling the same interwoven stories...and stories as warnings...stories that were clear--for children! But became...somehow...esoteric...as cultural habits changed and the stories lost their astronomical roots (but remain--esoterically, decadently--in astrology)...why the loss of the knowledge? I can only think of "light pollution" of some kind. Fires, people gathering in lighted venues rather than outside in front of and underneath and surrounded by the story book...look! There's Leto and, no! Artemis is killing niobe's children, and so she runs...and falls...upon that mountain....(finger following the line across the sky...)
But I know so little about astronomy--I can't name what I see when I see the sky--except for the milky way, the plough...so a storybook I can't read...
...and so the fourteen and the seven...I don't know enough...
D - The Pleiades and Venus! The Pleiades, seven stars. Plus Venus. The unexpectedly frequent appearance of Venus with the Pleiades. This tells us something important--seven plus one. Bing! Enlightenment. But what? My guess: that we're not travelling in the direction we think we are, some great curve in our path. But modern astronomers can tell us our path around the sun, around the black hole and the centre of our galaxy...in which direction we are headed relative to the stars we can see...and how they are moving relative to each other. So what might be special about Venus's unexpectedly frequent reappearance that modern astronomers haven't spotted...or have they? Or did I get it all wrong? Heh heh heh! Gaianne! I had such a great time hunting it all up--great images you've given me, great models of other cultures in other times. How the night sky was cental, not distant or hidden...a picture palace. The world...OUT THERE! Where we live! And at the centre, a black hole pulsing in thirteen....
So, cough cough cough!
And I realise suddenly that I keep forgetting the moon! Pulling the sea up, yet somehow I'm imagining a sky without the moon...
E - 56.
[...]
Hawkins also sets up a complex fifty-six year lunar eclipse cycle in which the Aubrey Holes are postulated as holding posts for movable counters to mark a passage of the moon toward that event.
http://www.astronomy.pomona.edu/archeo/britain/stonehenge/inter.htm
...hmmm...
A new word!
The word 'syzygy' is often loosely used to describe interesting configurations of planets in general. For example, one such case occurred on March 21, 1884 at around 23:00 UTC, when Mercury transited the Sun as seen from Venus, and Mercury and Venus both simultaneously transited the Sun as seen from Saturn. It is also used to describe situations when all the planets are on the same side of the Sun although they are not necessarily found along a straight line, such as on March 10, 1982.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syzygy
Well, new for me.
So there is, perhaps, a conjunction of the lunar eclipse with another celestial body, or more than one, that occurs and has some importance to humans on the planet, not something terrible, it all sounds different...the Buddha reaches enlightenment when he realises...
How am I doing?
Okay, my guess. We have lost a knowledge of how the various cycles--the notes--relate
a) to the underlying beat--which for the Mayans beats in 13. They had a subdivision as well, with eight being auspicious and ten being inauspicious. ONE two three, ONE two three four ONE ONE two ONE two three....well, are there variations or are there specific divisions? And I'm presuming that there is hidden...in the puzzle...the idea that this beat impacts directly on human life, in crop cycles, or planetary temperature changes, or eclipses which kill food or...or something huge...I don't know. Something huge that modern science can't see because it can't or won't or has forgotten how to scientifically (via observation and measurement etc...) analyse the comings and goings of these events and how they relate to our environment--and us ?
b) to each other (the harmony)...how do the various conjunctions play against each other? And are the answers simple narratives to keep us entertained while we look at the sky, or are there historic events (I don't mean cultural, I mean physical impacts--in the flesh--of astronomical conjoinings and separations, as the chords change and so
c) the various melodies...harmonising in b) but also playing the one note as they vibrate in thirteen...
Okay. What a great post, Gaianne! I'm hoping now you'll give me some more clues, tell me where I went wrong, which parts I'm missing. I'll need to get a star map but right now I still couldn't read it--I need a 3D model of it all, somehow, which I'd get if I could stand outside, maybe lie down, stare up...t'would be great to have you there to explain what I was looking at...to turn the stars into individuals and groups...that sudden sense of being on...a green and blue space ball....flying crazy! Into space as all those objects out there dance around, some fixed and unchanging, some steady, but all relating, and as the cycles...cycle...various conjunctions and, from what I've read, these conjunctions had significance for our ancestors beyond just knowing when to plant crops.
Are there "longest cycles of interest"? The Venus Mars nine tzoltin is about seven years. Why would this relationship hold an interest? Was it just pure fascination with how everything cycled round everything else?
Because, I suppose if I could find some of this out from here, at this computer, then the information is moving forward, and someone can programme his or her computer to play the celestial tunes, or map the cycles....I imagine they have done these...that's how they discovered how much our ancestors knew...
...so what's been lost? I mean, most of us don't know about these things, but the knowledge is there, in a different form...no...I'm missing something.
Fascinating, though. Thanks! Did I say I'm hoping you'll give me some more clues, push me in the right direction? Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
I am glad you dug up that part about the seven years. There is a lot about this poem that I DON'T know. Seven years was a standard unit of human life in Mideval times, seven years of childhood, seven years of apprenticeship, and so on. In the US we have adulthood coming at 21 years, and you have to be of 35 years to qualify for president. The Mideval analogy compared a human life to the twelve months of the year, from winter through spring and summer to autumn and then back to winter. Each month was worth seven human years. What month are you in now?
So the seven years Thomas spends with the Elf Queen is one whole phase of his life. But I sense there is also a deeper meaning, though I have not caught it.
But you are veering away from her horse, which is a key clue--specifically, the fifty-nine silver bells.
2340 is nine tzolkins...the time between the conjunction of Venus and Mars
Yes. You have it.
Every nine tzolkins--2340 days--Mars and Venus return to their places in the sky (with respect to the Sun). This is three rounds of Mars and four rounds of Venus. 3:4--This is something like the fifth best (most precise) harmony in the sky. It is good to within half a day.
And that is why Ares (Mars) and Aphrodite (Venus) are lovers.
The nine lords of the night. . . . I couldn't get nine.
The Lords of Night do not belong to our culture, and I am far from getting their spiritual meaning. Their numerical function is to make the calendar work--to combine with the tzolkin to mark the harmony of Mars and Venus.
For the Americas, Mars and Venus have quite a different mythological import than for Europe and west Asia. But they lie at the center of several religious and astronomical systems, not just that of the Mayans. In fact it was a description of the Pawnee of the North American plains that made me realize what the Mayans were doing.
I was reading this evening about animism, how anthropomorphism is in fact a very useful tool...it is a way of getting closer to the nature of something....so giving animals human characteristics
When we anthropomorphize, we are giving a thing our full attention. When we anthropomorphize correctly, we are giving our best attention.
So generally, I count animism a good thing.
(Even engineers do it. Watch them talk about bugs and gremlins!)
the tzoltin is place specific. It works for Mexico and regions close by.
In practice, yes, but you could use it anywhere, just as our Gregorian Calendar is used all over the world.
I thought: one quarter of a lunar cycle
A red herring. The 28-day month is wrong. This is a perfect example of what happens when knowledge is lost: People make up something plausible to stick in. An average lunar quarter is indeed 7 & 3/8 days. But because of the Babylonians' planetary hours I KNOW that is NOT why we have a seven-day week.
The Elf Queen's horse is the next step here: What are those bells?
I can only think of "light pollution" of some kind
Too true: Not lot long ago there was a power blackout in Los Angeles, and some people were in a panic--seeing stars in the night sky for the first time in their lives!
This is a hard point. I was both surprised and very happy to find the myth of Niobe. Surprised because a myth is not an esoteric technical mannual, and yet the information pointed to is now known only to astronomers--amateur or professional--and not even all of them!
Happy, because clues about ancient knowledge are very hard to come by, and each time, it is a delight.
In modern terms, the Moon's orbit is eccentric, and this means that the length of the month can vary several hours from its average value. Worse, the phases of new- and full- Moon vary up to + or - 10 hours from their average time, and the phases of first- and last- quarter vary up to + or - 15 hours. You have to care about this if you are going to predict eclipses correctly--as many ancient people did. Fortunately, these variations in the Moon form a regular pattern--which is (part of) what the myth of Niobe is about.
The unexpectedly frequent appearance of Venus with the Pleiades.
The reappearance is certainly unexpectedly frequent the first time it happens--it is stunning! And I say that PERSONALLY! ;D But it turns out that it is completely regular, and for the ancients, part of the World's harmony.
great models of other cultures in other times.
You describe what I am (have been) trying to do: Starting from my own upbringing and perspective--which is modern and Western--try to understand the mind of other cultures, including those which may be sustainable. In studying the ancient perspective of cycles, I begin to enter a mind that has a very different FEEL than the mind that travels along a path. The mind that looks for a beginning, a middle, and an end is very different from the mind that dances to an ongoing rhythm and harmony.
I have gradually been building this into my life. Each time I celebrate the turn of season, it overlays and joins with all of the other years I have celebrated the same turning. Each time Venus returns in the spring in the evening--as it is doing this year--it overlays and joins with the other years when this has happened. This is Oneness.
Buddhism can be very austere (especially zen). Emptying the mind of chatter is hard work--and the harder we try, the harder it seems! But with the story of the bodhi tree, and Venus at sunrise, we have the enlightenment being connected in a delightful way to the harmony of the World. It is natural, and mythology can help, rather than hinder.
For those who are arithmetically inclined (I am) numbers are part of that mythology. Or, to return to the riddle: What is that eight? What is ninety-nine? (Both numbers are part of the same thing).
Also encircling Stonehenge itself is a ring of fifty-six pits known as the Aubrey Holes, named after their discoverer, James Aubrey.
Aubrey Holes! Thank you!
Hawkins also sets up a complex fifty-six year lunar eclipse cycle in which the Aubrey Holes are postulated as holding posts for movable counters
Last I looked, there was no fifty-six year eclipse cycle: You have to watch archaeologists like a HAWK; sometimes their astronomy is just no good. (Sorry about that.) After I post this, I will have to look into what Hawkins is doing.
I asked: What returns for the third time, after fifty-six years?
If you know, and if you have answered D, then it should look like this makes an eclipse cycle. But you do have to worry about drift as well--one of those esoteric issues that muddies the neatness of ancient astronomy--and after fifty-six years the Moon has drifted some ten days out of position. Have to come back after I see what Hawkins is up to.
You are on the threshold: That is exactly what is out there. I think it is subtle more than it is huge, but even so, important. We are trying to learn how to enter it.
A friend of mine once spent some time in Haiti. He had the very strange experience that everyone seemed to move to a rhythm--a rhythm they all shared but that he was outside of completely. Yet he could see it and feel it.
Are there "longest cycles of interest"? The Venus Mars nine tzoltin is about seven years. Why would this relationship hold an interest?
Longest cycles? A good question! I deduce that the Babylonians knew of the eclipse cycle of 54 years--they would have had to discover it before they could have found the 18-year cycle. (It's really 18 years and 10 & 1/3 days). And there were longer cycles than that that were of esoteric interest.
The longest cycle the ancients might have known about is the precession of the equinoxes. I am still looking for evidence of this 25 800 year cycle. By late Roman times the precession was certainly noticed (the Mithraic Cult). This is definitely proving hard to track down. I expect the Mayans knew it, but again, no proof yet.
The Venus/Mars harmony is a fully 3/5 of a year shorter than seven years. So seven years is something else. Among other things, it is 22 rounds of Mercury. Is that its import? I don't know.
Then again if you use a 365-day year (obvious right?), then each year starts on a different day of the week in an endless cycle of seven. But that means letting the year "drift"--the solstices and equinoxes move. So I still don't know about this.
The interest of the Venus/Mars cycle is not so strange if the sky is available to you. (That darn light pollution, again). Both are very bright, and once you realize it is a recurring pattern . . .
By the way, it is 79 months--almost perfectly! A triple harmony. That means the Moon returns too.
so what's been lost?
Well, we are like archaeologists, digging up fragments, and doing reconstruction. But restoration is risky--how do we know we are restoring correctly? We do it anyway.
Thanks.
More later. The Fates are kind.
So the psychological premise of Asimov's Nightfall is actually correct... "It's the statue, man, The Statue."
A - I've had no joy searching for "59". I'm assuming they're stars relating to a constellation, but which constellation the horse might be and which 59 stars might hang from the horse's mane...I don't know.
That's a great short poem, btw. I also read an allegory to liberty caps in there...the wee folk...the fairies, the elves... (That may just be me ;)
There are forty days and forty nights where neither the sun nor the moon showed through... (sounds like christian symbolism.)
And he is told to take the hard road, not the smooth meadow, which looks so inviting (lovely agriculture?)
"And see not ye that braid braid road, That lies across yon lillie leven 5? 50 That is the path of wickedness, Tho some call it the road to heaven.
"And see not ye that bonnie road, Which winds about the fernie brae? That is the road to fair Elfland, 55 Whe[re] you and I this night maun gae.
I'm just reading in, though. Fixing maps randomly. There's also a christian ref with the bread and the wine rather than the fruits of "this countrie"...
...and once things turn too esoteric (The Knights Templar!), well, Robert Anton Wilson...Illuminatus (I couldn't get more than twenty or so pages into that book...I don't have that strong a fascination for counter-theories, unless there's something less esoteric to back it up--something like the tzolkin--esoteric to us, but in fact an accurate calculator...?)
How little I know and why do I hear Marek grinding his teeth? Or...no no! Noises in ma heed. Were (I ask, leaping ahead) eclipses of agricultural/plant importance, or were they of religious/mystic significance? I mean, they had clever systems for judging when conjunctions of various kinds would occur, but we too have (different) systems for anticipating the same (kinds of events.) We don't have a sense of awe, which may be a cultural failing, and maybe it affects mental health negatively not to have such a sense, but...but...in terms of information...were they tracking something we aren't?
So, no, 59 I cannae get.
B - (Putting on my sober hat--my hat, yes, is sober!) I don't get why Mars and Venus are lovers if they meet so rarely...why not enemies who occasionally fight? Or old friends--maybe a sister and a brother who have been exiled and meet once every nine tzolkins to discuss matters of great import...I mean, I can invent a story around a once-in-a-while-yet-regular conjunction, but beyond cultural myths...(I'm also thinking of the long-time-length [relative to the day] and how this meant they could keep track of larger periods of time--a life span might be ninety tzolkins etc...] is there any other--non-one-culture specific import to this?
Oh, my bad phrasing!
The nine lords of the night...was a nine day cycle? Not being good with numbers, I don't see the connection to thirteen or twenty...
C - Well, PhD knowledge required! Or detailed astronomical knowledge...so the 59 are not stars...the horse is the moon...no, it cannae be...not that I'd know ;) Apart from a religious significance, I don't see why eclipses were important unless they had an effect on, say, crop cycles, but wouldn't something like "When you see a hundred bees, it's time to plant potatoes" be as effective, as the bees are also responding to the sun etc... as well as temperature, so if what is needed is a system to know when to plant...ach...do we know what they used their astronomy for? I see the two reasons:
D - Any links for why the reappearance of Venus is unexpected (what would we expect it to do and why?) and yet simply explicable (we know why Venus does what she does)?
Nothing about 99 here...I don't see how it connects to eight. Is the Buddha idea your very own, Gaianne? Eight could be so many things (eight alone, seven plus one, six plus two, and etc...) It ties to Venus. Is it an annual recurrence--something people would have known about because they saw it each year (an ancient version of, say, New Year's Day, which we know about because it happens every year and every year people celebrate, even if we don't know the whys of the whats...we know a year has passed again...sommat like that.)
And to return to the riddle: this is a riddle about ONE event, have I got that right? All the different tales pointing to one specific astronomic phenomenon? Which happens...yearly?
E -
;) There be the number, but I don't think that's your ref.
And...hmmm....something that comes back for the third time after 56 years...and resets its cycle clock? Because it must also have come back a first time after X (<56) years and a second time after Y (> X < 56) years.
So...a small astronomical event linked to the irregular orbit of the moon, but which is relevant because various different cultures knew of it (the clues), though maybe it has no great relevance to current culture (because we solve our problems in different ways and also have different problems? "Hydroponics" suddenly pops into my head...)
And...this ties in to the thirteen? No. Or yes? At any rate, pulses that are longer than one day/night, shorter than 260 days (growing season/gestation period) or 365 and a bit days (one trip round the sun), but also...hmmm...something that is erratic and reoccurs over long time periods, counted out against the moons erratic orbit around the earth as the earth moves around the sun...and those three linking to mars and venus (our nearest planets, so I suppose that's why they were of greater importance historically--they were brighter and their orbits were more specifically related to our own--and each others...)
Well, you blew off the top of my head, have introduced me to astronomy--though there's too much light pollution here, and 'tis cold on the hills of an evening (perfect for DoDo but too chilly for me--I remember my dad taking me out to see the stars; I remember thinking: Is it over yet? I was cold.)
Well, I must off out into the sunshine.
I'm looking forward to your "more later". Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
Maybe alchemy will get you there faster? Silver is one of the "seven metals:" gold, silver, iron, mercury, tin, copper, and lead.
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.
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.
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.)
Is the Buddha idea your very own, Gaianne?
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.
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.
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.
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.
I remember back when I was a student his book Stonehenge Decoded being discussed, but I never read it myself. Now I wish I had a copy. The Fates are kind.
Isn't it possible to model the positions of the planets relative to each other on a computer? Surely 'tis. And then run the model backwards and simply count and see if there is a 56 year eclipse cycle? I say "simply", though it would be impossible for me. Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
But: I now know I definitely do not believe him.
There is a 112-year eclipse cycle, that was known in Arabia about the time of Mohammed. (The dating is a bit vague. The archaeological artifact is a brass bowl and it might date from centuries earlier.) This is 118 Dragon rounds. In some ways it is not particularly good--but never mind that. It took me a while to remember this cycle (which I had read about several years ago and checked out myself).
The problem is that you cannot cut the cycle in half. You can cut 112 years to 56 years, and 118 Dragon rounds to 59 Dragon rounds, no problem, but it turns out this means cutting 1385 months to 692.5 months. That half of a month means you are swapping solar eclipses (new Moon) for lunar ones (full Moon) which is okay (if a bit weird) for the modern astronomer but not okay at all for the neolithic astronomer who is burdened with serious problems of observation. (Solar eclipses are complicated. Latitude, longitude, time of day, EVERYTHING matters. For a lunar eclipse--if it is nighttime, you're good.) It really doesn't work.
Oh yes. The Dragon. There's your eighth planet. Or eighth and ninth, if you are Hindu. The Head of the Dragon is known to modern astronomers as the Ascending Lunar Node; the Tail of the Dragon is the Descending Lunar Node. The Head and Tail are the places where the Moon's path against the sky crosses the ecliptic (the Sun's path against the sky), so the position of the Dragon and the phase of the Moon are the key elements in eclipse prediction--everything else is secondary or else irrelevant. Between the Head and the Tail the Moon is above the ecliptic; between the Tail and the Head the Moon is below.
Throughout Britain there are neolithic stone tables which some archaeologists have argued mark (from a proper vantage point) the lowest position of the Moon in the sky. If one accepts this, then one accepts that knowledge of the Moon's position above and below the ecliptic was a matter of interest, for the Moon is lowest when it is near the winter solstice point AND is midway between the Dragon's Tail and Head. The concurrence of these two conditions depends upon the interaction of the season (year) and the Dragon. This interaction repeats every 56 years--which is very precisely 59 Dragon rounds.
Incidently, the first condition is satisfied for the full Moon at the height of summer, for last quarter at the spring equinox, for new Moon in the depth of winter, and for first quarter at the fall equinox.
Historically, the Dragon is one of the oldest and most important deities. Several creation myths start with the Dragon, and many religions describe how their deities overcame the Dragon. But their is a cultural dividing line running through Eurasia--on the western side the Dragon has been supplanted and is generally feared; on the eastern side the Dragon continues to be viewed positively. Tibet is on the eastern side of the line, India on the west. In Tibet eclipses are auspicious ("good deeds on the day of an eclipse are multiplied a hundredfold"); in India inauspicious barely begins to describe it--people literally hide under their beds.
About this last, I am not kidding. When I was there I spent a week killing conversations before I learned better. When I would answer queries by explaining I was in India to see the eclipse (the path of totality was going to pass nearby) people abruptly staggered away in stunned silence. There was no way to comprehend my words, nor imagine a response.
The Dragon is the guardian of doorways, and the bringer of sudden change. The Fates are kind.
