A Winter's Night ~ 9.45 pm ~ London

London sky on a winter night

These incredible photos were taken after I let my dog in from the back garden. I was gobsmacked at the sky. A dreamy colour of muted salmon greeted me. At 9.45pm in winter, it's normally so dark that I was transfixed by this sight of what looked like the sun hiding behind a hazy beautifully coloured cloud-encased sky. No mist, no moon, just a softness of the whole sky everywhere I looked. It was seamless with no normal breaks as you would normally see with clouds or even a sunset image, yet it was too late to be that. It was like an image of magical photography taken from a misty dream - yet no mist or fog existed beyond the clouded veil up high. It was so breathtaking I even called my sons down from upstairs to come and take a look. They marvelled at it, too. 

My camera didn't capture the peachy colour well, here it looks more of a dirty orange/brown.

The sky should be dark; a midnight blue, almost black, with stars at this hour, but instead it appears as neither day or night, suspended in-between. 

This time of year and hour it should look something like this ~

But this is more like it ~

The colour was more like the centre of this photo.

In reality, the colour was an ageing salmon, kissed by the sun from behind, which it obviously wasn't, being night. Everything was so clear in front and around me, this dreamy essence remained in the canopy above. I searched the net for pictures that resembled the actual image I saw to give a true 'feel' to colour and essence. Below are the closest I could find in my excitement before the memory faded. 

 Dreamy Sky ~ A seamless cloud

(Blurry dusky peach with light shining through)

A smoky peach whisper kissed by light 

(Perfect colour of what I saw)

Smoky peach cloud - seamless with no gradient of colour

I checked out the sun position etc for today ~

Current Time: 9 Feb 2017, 23:15:43

Sun Direction: ↑ 336.92° NNW

Sun Altitude: -51.01°

Sun Distance: 147.616 million km

Sunrise was at 07:25 ↑ (113°) and 

Sunset was at 17:05 ↑ (247°)

Link HERE

With the sunset being so much earlier, during early evening at 5.05 pm, the light could've only come from the moon. An odd colour, so bright reminding me of  a foggy sunset, strangely beautiful and ethereal.

My back garden at night ~ 9.45pm on Feb' 9th 2017

From the kitchen, stepping out into Narnia ☝👇

Sadly, the camera on my phone didn't pick up the true luminosity and splendour of the sky ~ it was certainly an enchanting image, and one I've never seen before. The best way to explain it? Reminded me of a soft, flannelette sheet, tinted, covering the whole sky but with a soft light shining in from behind ~ blocking anything beyond that completely out. Thick, opaque, same all over in colour and consistency apart from the source of light, in which direction was difficult to determine. If you were to pull at one edge of the sheet or poke it with a stick, the normal sky would once again reveal itself.  

Front garden view about half hour later. The sky appears brownish here, but in fact, was a smoky peach. Not as dreamy as the back garden view with all the houses and streetlight, but still a fantastic, bright, seamless sky. Surreal. If it wasn't so cold, I would sit out in the garden and admire it for longer. Brrr!

The few things other wonderful experiences:

1. A short time ago I saw Venus under the moon when travelling back from a market in the car. The sky was a beautiful blend of pastel pink and lilac. Sadly, I had no camera. A clear sky meant the planet, nicknamed the ‘Evening Star’, was easily visible to the naked eye. Stargazers also spotted the planet Mars which - despite being up to 100 times less bright than Venus - could also be glimpsed to the upper left of the moon. Link HERE

2. A double rainbow - huge. Seen twice. Link HERE

3. Super moon viewed from the garden of a friends house in Devon. If I remember correctly, it was a Hunter's moon, the first full moon after the Harvest Moon. It was around the time of Lammas, between 1 August and 1 September. The first harvest festival of the year (Pagan festival).   Link HERE

4. Blood moon lunar eclipse with a super-moon event 2015 watched from my old garden. Link HERE

5. Rainbow when watering the garden ~ Although nothing to do wth the sky, my partner created a rainbow in the garden. An arch created from using water hose and sun. It was amazing to see a mini rainbow you could reach out and touch. I remember asking my partner if digging at the end of the rainbow would still count if created ourselves. ;o) 

The water drop is acting like a prism - some of the light bounces off the back of the water droplets and back out - the rainbow you see is a combination of millions of these light beams coming back to you.

Love and light,

Trace

xoxo

Of the stars...

Obsolete constellations

Non-astronomers are often puzzled by the concept of a disused constellation – surely, a constellation is either there or it isn’t. However, the patterns we see in the stars are purely a product of human imagination, so humans are free to amend the patterns as they choose – and astronomers did so at will during the heyday of celestial mapping in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Former constellations are constellations that are no longer recognised by the International Astronomical Union for various reasons. HERE

Ophiuchus is a large constellation located around the celestial equator. Its name is from the Greek Ὀφιοῦχος "serpent-bearer", and it is commonly represented as a man grasping the snake that is represented by the constellation Serpens. Ophiuchus was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations. It was formerly referred to as Serpentarius and Anguitenens. More HERE

Ophiuchus is located between Aquila, Serpens and Hercules, north-west of the centre of the Milky Way. In the northern hemisphere, it is best visible in summer. It is located opposite Orion in the sky. Ophiuchus is depicted as a man grasping a serpent; the interposition of his body divides the snake constellation Serpens into two parts, Serpens Caput and Serpens Cauda, which are nonetheless counted as one constellation.

There is no evidence of the constellation preceding the classical era, and in Babylonian astronomy, a "Sitting Gods" constellation seems to have been located in the general area of Ophiuchus. However, Gavin White proposes that Ophiuchus may in fact, be remotely descended from this Babylonian constellation, representing Nirah, a serpent-god who was sometimes depicted with his upper half human but with serpents for legs.

The brightest stars in Ophiuchus include α Ophiuchi, called Rasalhague ("head of the serpent charmer"), at magnitude 2.07, and η Ophiuchi, known as Sabik ("the preceding one"), at magnitude 2.43. Other bright stars in the constellation include β Ophiuchi, Cebalrai ("dog of the shepherd") and λ Ophiuchi, or Marfik ("the elbow").

 Barnard's Star, one of the nearest stars to the Solar System (the only stars closer are the Alpha Centauri binary star system and Proxima Centauri), lies in Ophiuchus. It is located to the left of β and just north of the V-shaped group of stars in an area that was once occupied by the now-obsolete constellation of Taurus Poniatovii (Poniatowski's Bull).

Taurus Poniatovii (Latin for Poniatowski's bull) was a constellation created by Marcin Odlanicki Poczobutt in 1777 to honor Stanislaus Poniatowski, king of Poland. It consisted of stars that are today considered part of Ophiuchus and Aquila. It is no longer in use. It was wedged in between Ophiuchus, Aquila and Serpens Cauda.

The stars were picked for the resemblance of their arrangement to the Hyades group which form the "head" of Taurus. Before the definition of Taurus Poniatovii, some of these had been part of the obsolete constellation River Tigris.

River Tigris or Tigris (named after the Tigris river) was a constellation, introduced in 1612 (or 1613) by Petrus Plancius. One end was near the shoulder of Ophiuchus and the other was near Pegasus, and in between it passed through the area now occupied by Vulpecula, flowing between Cygnus and Aquila. It did not appear on Johann Bode's atlases and was quickly forgotten.

 In 2005, astronomers using data from the Green Bank Telescope discovered a superbubble so large that it extends beyond the plane of the galaxy. It is called the Ophiuchus Superbubble.

Urania (Ancient Greek: Οὐρανία, Ourania; meaning "heavenly" or "of heaven"), also spelt Ourania, was, in Greek mythology, the muse of astronomy and a daughter of Zeus by Mnemosyne and also a great granddaughter of Uranus. Eldest of the divine sisters, Urania inherited Zeus' majesty and power and the beauty and grace of her mother Mnemosyne.

Urania dresses in a cloak embroidered with stars and keeps her eyes and attention focused on the Heavens. She is usually represented with a celestial globe to which she points with a little staff. She is able to foretell the future by the arrangement of the stars.

Griepenkerl, Venus Urania

Urania, o'er her star-bespangled lyre,

With touch of majesty diffused her soul;

A thousand tones, that in the breast inspire,

Exalted feelings, o er the wires'gan roll—

How at the call of Jove the mist unfurled,

And o'er the swelling vault—the glowing sky,

The new-born stars hung out their lamps on high,

And rolled their mighty orbs to music's sweetest sound.

—From An Ode To Music by James G. Percival

During the Renaissance, Urania began to be considered the Muse for Christian poets. In the invocation to Book 7 of John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, the poet invokes Urania to aid his narration of the creation of the cosmos, though he cautions that it is "[t]he meaning, not the name I call" (7.5)

Urania Cottage was a refuge for fallen women established by the writer Charles Dickens in Lime Grove, Shepherd’s Bush, London in the late 1840s. 

Bacchylides, Fragment 3 (trans. Campbell, Vol. Greek Lyric IV) (C5th B.C.):

"[The poet] has his share in the violet-haired Mousai (Muses).The light of man's excellence, however, does not diminish with his body; no, the Mousa (Muse) fosters it. And the sweet-voiced cock [the poet] of lyre-ruling Ourania (Urania)."

Aratus Solensis, 1600, Hug. Grotii Syntagma Arateorum. Ophiuchus, Serpens, Scorpius.

Isis Urania 

Sidney Hall Urania's Mirror Monoceros Canis Minor and Atelier Typographique

Love and light,

Trace

xoxo

Singing Stars

Do stars make sounds?

The stars might be singing – but, since sound can’t propagate through the vacuum of space, no one can hear them. The sound was at such a high frequency - almost a trillion hertz - that even animals like bats and dolphins (which have a much bigger range than humans) wouldn't have been able to hear it. In fact, the unexpected sound was six million times higher than that anything that can be heard by a mammal.

Nebula RCW49 

Scientists have recorded the sound of three stars similar to our Sun using France's Corot space telescope. A team writing in Science journal says the sounds have enabled them to get information about processes deep within stars for the first time.

NGC 1977

You'll hear a regular repeating pattern. These indicate that the entire star is pulsating. The sound of one star is very slightly different to the other. That's because the sound they make depends on their age, size, and chemical composition. The technique called "stellar seismology", is becoming increasingly popular among astronomers because the sounds give an indication of what is going on in the stars' interior.

Listen to each star HERE "It's like listening to the sound of a musical instrument and then trying to reconstruct the shape of the instrument".

It's not the first time that scientists have associated "singing" with celestial objects. In November, Rosetta mission scientists discovered that the comet that the Philae space probe landed on had its own mysterious signal.

Is there an actual harmony of the spheres? A chance discovery by a team of researchers has provided experimental evidence that stars might generate sound. They announced their discovery March 23, 2015. HERE

Astronomers have used the words star and sound in the same sentence before. Asteroseismology is a study in which tiny oscillations within a star can be used to probe its internal structure. In those sorts of studies, astronomers effectively turn tiny variations in a star’s light into sounds.

Now a group of physicists is talking about something else: actual sound generated by the stars themselves. The scientists – including Dr John Pasley of the Department of Physics at University of York – said in a statement:

The study of fluids in motion – now known as hydrodynamics – goes back to the Egyptians, so it is not often that new discoveries are made. However when examining the interaction of an ultra-intense laser with a plasma target, the team observed something unexpected.

Scientists … realized that in the trillionth of a second after the laser strikes, plasma flowed rapidly from areas of high density to more stagnant regions of low density, in such a way that it created something like a traffic jam. Plasma piled up at the interface between the high and low-density regions, generating a series of pressure pulses: a sound wave.

However, the sound generated was at such a high frequency that it would have left even bats and dolphins struggling! With a frequency of nearly a trillion hertz, the sound generated was not only unexpected but was also at close to the highest frequency possible in such a material – six million times higher than that which can be heard by any mammal!

Pasley, who worked with scientists from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai, India, and the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Central Laser Facility in Oxfordshire, said:

One of the few locations in nature where we believe this effect would occur is at the surface of stars. When they are accumulating new material stars could generate sound in a very similar manner to that which we observed in the laboratory – so the stars might be singing – but, since sound cannot propagate through the vacuum of space, no one can hear them.

Asteroseismology ~ scientists convert starlight into sound, for purposes of study.

One use of the technique of asteroseismology is in the search for exoplanets. That’s because tiny variations in a star’s light – the same little oscillations in starlight that are converted to sound during asteroseismology – also sometimes reveal planets passing in front of their stars.

HERE 

What is Harmony of the Spheres?

Ancient philosophers described the movement of the Sun, Moon and planets as “the music of the spheres” — the geometry of the cosmos conceived as proportional mathematical harmony.

Harmony of the Spheres

The astronomy of the Pythagoreans marked an important advance in ancient scientific thought, for they were the first to consider the earth as a globe revolving with the other planets around a central fire.  They explained the harmonious arrangement of things as that of bodies in a single, all-inclusive sphere of reality, moving according to a numerical scheme.  Because the Pythagoreans thought that the heavenly bodies are separated from one another by intervals corresponding to the harmonic lengths of strings, they held that the movement of the spheres gives rise to a musical sound-the "harmony of the spheres."

Source: Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2000

Pythagoras

(b. c. 580 BC, Samos, Ionia--d. c. 500, Metapontum, Lucania)

Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the Pythagorean brotherhood that, although religious in nature, formulated principles that influenced the thought of Plato and Aristotle and contributed to the development of mathematics and Western rational philosophy (Pythagoreanism). Pythagoras migrated to southern Italy about 532 BC, apparently to escape Samos' tyrannical rule, and established his ethico-political academy at Croton (now Crotona).

It is difficult to distinguish Pythagoras' teachings from those of his disciples.  None of his writings has survived, and Pythagoreans invariably supported their doctrines by indiscriminately citing their master's authority.  Pythagoras, however, is generally credited with the theory of the functional significance of  numbers in the objective world and in music.  Other discoveries often attributed to him (e.g., the incommensurability of the side and diagonal of a square, and the Pythagorean theorem for right triangles) were probably developed only later by the Pythagorean school.  More probably the bulk of the intellectual tradition originating with Pythagoras himself belongs to mystical wisdom rather than to scientific scholarship.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica 97

The harmony of the cosmos

The sacred decad, in particular, has a cosmic significance in Pythagoreanism: its mystical name, tetraktys (meaning approximately "fourness"), implies 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10; but it can also be thought of as a "perfect triangle," as in the Figure.

Speculation on number and proportion led to an intuitive feeling of the  harmonia ("fitting together") of the kosmos ("the beautiful order of things"); and the application of the tetraktys to the theory of  music revealed a hidden order in the range of sound.  Pythagoras may have referred, vaguely, to the "music of the heavens," which he alone seemed able to hear; and later Pythagoreans seem to have assumed that the distances of the heavenly bodies from the Earth somehow correspond to musical intervals--a theory that, under the influence of  Platonic conceptions, resulted in the famous idea of the "harmony of the spheres."  Though number to the early Pythagoreans was still a kind of cosmic matter, like the water or air proposed by the Ionians, their stress upon numerical proportions, harmony, and order comprised a decisive step toward a metaphysic in which form is the basic reality.

In reviewing the accounts of music that have characterized musical and intellectual history, it is clear that the Pythagoreans are reborn from age to age. The German astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) perpetuated, in effect, the idea of the harmony of the spheres, attempting to relate music to planetary movement. René Descartes (1596-1650), too, saw the basis of music as mathematical. He was a faithful Platonist in his prescription of temperate rhythms and simple melodies so that music would not produce imaginative, exciting, and hence immoral, effects. For another philosopher-mathematician, the German Gottfried von Leibniz (1646-1716), music reflected a universal rhythm and mirrored a reality that was fundamentally mathematical, to be experienced in the mind as a subconscious apprehension of numerical relationships. 

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica 97

HERE

Nishmati ~Sound Of Light

Stellar engineering

Stellar engineering is a type of engineering (currently a form of exploratory engineering) concerned with creating or modifying stars through artificial means.

While humanity does not yet possess the technological ability to perform stellar engineering of any kind, stellar manipulation (or husbandry), requiring substantially less technological advancement than would be needed to create a new star, could eventually be performed in order to stabilize or prolong the lifetime of a star, mine it for useful material (known as star lifting) or use it as a direct energy source. Since a civilization advanced enough to be capable of manufacturing a new star would likely have vast material and energy resources at its disposal, it almost certainly wouldn't need to do so.

Star lifting

Star lifting is any of several hypothetical processes by which a sufficiently advanced civilization (specifically, one of Kardashev-II or higher) could remove a substantial portion of a star matter for any number of purposes. The term appears to have been coined by David Criswell.

Stars already lose a small flow of mass via solar wind, coronal mass ejections, and other natural processes. Over the course of a star's life on the main sequence this loss is usually negligible compared to the star's total mass; only at the end of a star's life when it becomes a red giant or a supernova is a large amount of material ejected. The star lifting techniques that have been proposed would operate by increasing this natural plasma flow and manipulating it with magnetic fields.

The star-lifting array around Polaris squeezes this brillant star using intense magnetic fields, causing mass to be ejected from the polar regions. HERE

Stars have deep gravity wells, so the energy required for such operations is large. For example, lifting solar material from the surface of the Sun to infinity requires 2.1 × 1011 J/kg. This energy could be supplied by the star itself, collected by a Dyson sphere; using only 10% of the Sun's total power output would allow 5.9 × 1021 kilograms of matter to be lifted per year (0.0000003% of the Sun's total mass), or 8% of the mass of Earth's moon.

More HERE

Many science fiction authors have explored the possible applications of stellar engineering, among them Iain M Banks, Larry Niven and Arthur C. Clarke.

• In the Space Empires series the last available technology for research is called Stellar Manipulation. In addition to the ability to create and destroy stars, this branch also gives a race the ability to create and destroy black holes, wormholes, nebulae, planets, ringworlds and sphereworlds. Just as described above, this technology is so advanced that once the player has the ability to use them, they usually don't need them anymore. This is even more the case with the last two; once one of these megastructures is complete, the race controlling the ringworld or sphereworld has almost unlimited resources, usually leading to defeat of the others.

• In The Saga of the Seven Suns, by Kevin J. Anderson, humans are able to convert gas giant planets into stars through the use of a "Klikiss Torch". This device creates a wormhole between two points in space, allowing a neutron star to be dropped into the planet and ignite stellar nuclear fusion.
• In episode 12 of Stargate Universe, Destiny was dropped prematurely out of FTL by an uncharted star that the crew determines to be artificially created and younger than 200 million years old with an Earth-sized planet containing a biosphere exactly like Earth's being the only planet in the system. Spaceship Destiny recharges its power cells by flying through stars ("Light").

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.

— W. B. Yeats, The Wind Among the Reeds

love and light,

Trace

xoxo

☆ Astrological Age ☆ Mythology

The stars and us

Astrological Ramblings

One of my favourite constellations is the Cygnus ~ A northern constellation lying on the plane of the Milky Way, deriving its name from the Latinized Greek word for swan. The swan is one of the most recognizable constellations of the northern summer and autumn, it features a prominent asterism known as the Northern Cross (in contrast to the Southern Cross). Cygnus was among the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations.

Cygnus contains Deneb, one of the brightest stars in the night sky and one corner of the Summer Triangle, as well as some notable X-ray sources and the giant stellar association of Cygnus OB2. One of the stars of this association, NML Cygni, is one of the largest stars currently known. The constellation is also home to Cygnus X-1, a distant X-ray binary containing a supergiant and unseen massive companion that was the first object widely held to be a black hole. Many star systems in Cygnus have known planets as a result of the Kepler Mission observing one patch of the sky, the patch is the area around Cygnus. In addition, most of the eastern part of Cygnus is dominated by the Hercules–Corona Borealis Great Wall, a giant galaxy filament that is the largest known structure in the observable universe; covering most of the northern sky.

Cygnus is one of the constellations that the Kepler satellite surveyed in its search for extrasolar planets, and as a result, there are about a hundred stars in Cygnus with known planets, the most of any constellation.

The Kepler-22 system is also notable, in that its extrasolar planet is believed to be the first "Earth-twin" planet ever discovered.

In Greek mythology, Cygnus has been identified with several different legendary swans. Zeus disguised himself as a swan to seduce Leda, Spartan king Tyndareus's wife, who gave birth to the Gemini, Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra; Orpheus was transformed into a swan after his murder, and was said to have been placed in the sky next to his lyre (Lyra); and the King Cygnus was transformed into a swan.

My favourite myth ~ The Greeks also associated this constellation with the tragic story of Phaethon, the son of Helios the sun god, who demanded to ride his father's sun chariot for a day. Phaethon, however, was unable to control the reins, forcing Zeus to destroy the chariot (and Phaethon) with a thunderbolt, causing it to plummet to the earth into the river Eridanus. According to the myth, Phaethon's brother, Cycnus, grieved bitterly and spent many days diving into the river to collect Phaethon's bones to give him a proper burial. The gods were so touched by Cycnus's devotion to his brother that they turned him into a swan and placed him among the stars.

The Fall Of Phaethon Painting by Gustave Moreau

Sodoma. Fall of Phaethon. Oil on canvas (Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA)

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, there are three people named Cygnus, all of whom are transformed into swans. Alongside Cycnus, noted above, he mentions a boy from Tempe who commits suicide when Phyllius refuses to give him a tamed bull that he demands, but is transformed into a swan and flies away. He also mentions a son of Neptune who is an invulnerable warrior in the Trojan War who is eventually defeated by Achilles, but Neptune saves him by transforming him into a swan.

Together with other avian constellations near the summer solstice, Vultur cadens and Aquila, Cygnus may be a significant part of the origin of the myth of the Stymphalian Birds, one of The Twelve Labours of Hercules.

The astrological age.

An astrological age is a time period in astrologic mythology which astrologers claim parallels major changes in the development of Earth's inhabitants, particularly relating to culture, society, and politics. There are twelve astrological ages corresponding to the twelve zodiacal signs in western astrology. At the completion of one cycle of twelve astrological ages, the cycle is claimed to repeat itself  every 25,920 years.

There are two myths about the effects upon the world due to the astrological ages. Some astrologers believe the changes upon Earth are caused and marked by the influences of the given astrological sign associated with its Age, while other astrologers think that the ages simply happen in that sequence.

Astrologers cannot agree upon exact dates for the beginning or ending of the ages, with given dates varying hundreds of years.

There are three broad perspectives on the astrological ages:

• Archeoastronomers are interested in the ages because some researchers believe that ancient civilizations often depicted cultural references to the ages. Archeoastronomers in general do not 'believe' in astrology, but they study the cultural traditions of societies that did refer extensively to astrology.
• Astrologers have been interested in relating world history to the astrological ages since the late 19th century; however, most astrologers study horoscopes, not astrological ages.
• The general public has become aware of the Age of Aquarius since it was publicized in the musical Hair.

Contentious aspects of the astrological ages:

Definitive details on the astrological ages are lacking, and consequently most details available about the astrological ages are disputed. The 20th century British astrologer Charles Carter stated that

"It is probable that there is no branch of Astrology upon which more nonsense has been poured forth than the doctrine of the precession of the equinoxes." (precession of the equinoxes as the root cause of the astrological ages).

In 2000 Neil Spencer in his book True as the Stars Above expressed a similar opinion about the astrological ages. Spencer singles out the astrological ages as being "fuzzy", "speculative", and the least-defined area of astrological lore. Derek and Julia Parker claim that it is impossible to state the exact date for the start of any astrological age and acknowledge that many astrologers believe the Age of Aquarius has arrived while many claim the world is at the end of the Age of Pisces.

Consensus approach to the astrological ages:

Though so many issues are contentious or disputed, there are two aspects of the astrological ages that have virtually unanimous consensus—firstly, the claimed link of the astrological ages to the axial precession of the Earth and commonly referred to as precession of the equinoxes; secondly, that, due to the nature of the precession of the equinoxes, the progression of the ages proceeds in reverse direction through the zodiacal signs.

Other opinions on the astrological ages:

Many astrologers find ages too erratic based on either the vernal point moving through the randomly sized zodiacal constellations or sidereal zodiac and, instead, round all astrological ages to exactly 2000 years each. In this approach the ages are usually neatly aligned so that the Aries age is found from 2000 BC to AD 1, Pisces age AD 1 to AD 2000, the Aquarian Age AD 2000 - AD 4000, and so on.[24] This approach is inconsistent with the precession of the equinoxes. Based on precession of the equinoxes, there is a one degree shift approximately every 72 years, so a 30-degree movement requires 2160 years to complete.

Ages involving the opposite sign ~ An established school of thought that an age is also influenced by the sign opposite to the one of the astrological age. Referring back to the precession of the Equinoxes, as the Sun crosses one constellation in the Northern Hemisphere's spring Equinox (March 21), it will cross the opposite sign in the spring Equinox in the Southern Hemisphere (September 21). For instance, the Age of Pisces is complemented by its opposite astrological sign of Virgo (the Virgin); so a few refer to the Piscean age as the 'Age of Pisces-Virgo'. Adopting this approach, the Age of Aquarius would become the Age of Aquarius-Leo. Ray Grasse also claims that each sign of the zodiac is involving with the opposite sign.

History of the Astrological Ages

Hipparchus

The great demarcation point in the history of the astrological ages is around 127 BC when the Greek astronomer-astrologer Hipparchus from observation discovered that the great immovable sphere of fixed stars was not fixed but slowly moving eastwards due to what is now known as precession of the equinoxes. It is possible that some other astronomers before Hipparchus had also noticed the phenomenon, but it is Hipparchus who is credited with this discovery. This discovery by Hipparchus is not entirely unexpected as Hipparchus is considered to have been the greatest observational astronomer in his time and up until Tycho Brahe in the 16th century AD. What is highly contentious in modern times is the claim by many that observation of the effects of precession of the equinoxes was known well before the time of Hipparchus and his contemporaries in Greece or even Mesopotamia. The academic answer is no – precession of the equinoxes was unknown in earlier times.

Did the Ancients Recognise Precession Before Hipparchus?

Giorgio de Santillana (1902 – 1974) became professor of the History of Science in the School of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1954 and along with Hertha von Dechend they published a book entitled "Hamlet's Mill, An Essay on Myth and the Frame of Time" in 1969.

Santillana and von Dechend state that ancient myths have no historical basis but a cosmological one based on a primitive form of astrology. They recognized the importance of the heliacally rising constellation as markers for the astrological ages and claimed that knowledge of this phenomenon had been known for thousands of years previously. They claim that to understand ancient thinking it is necessary to understand astrology, not the modern sun-sign or horoscopic astrology, but the astrology of ancient times which was the lingua franca of ancient times. They go further and state that our knowledge of the dawn of astrology and its relationship to ancient myths and star names is limited to about 2100 BC during the Renaissance of Sumerian Culture instead of being able to examine the real old material on the subject. In "Hamlet's Mill" it is claimed that the ancient Greeks knew of three successive destructions that correlate to three ages and that since the beginning of history the vernal point has moved through Taurus, Aries, and Pisces. Hesiod in "Works and Days" refers to five successive ages.

As early as 1811, modern researchers were examining evidence for knowledge of precession of the equinoxes and astrological ages before Hipparchus. Sir William Drummond published "Oedipus Judaicus - Allegory in the Old Testament" in 1811. Drummund expounds on his hypothesis that a greater part of the Hebrew Scriptures are merely allegorical writings that hide the true content. Furthermore, the Orientalists were mainly concerned with astronomy and most of their ancient myths are really disguised astronomical records.

Drummond believed that the 49th chapter of Genesis contains prophecies allied to astronomy and that the twelve tribes of Israel represented the 12 zodiacal signs. Drummund makes his case that at the time of Abraham, the Amorites first recorded the shift from the Age of Taurus to the Age of Aries as represented by the year commencing with the Ram (Aries) rather than the bull (Taurus).

The Book of Joshua indicates that by the time of Moses the equinoxes had already shifted from Taurus to Aries as Moses had ordained that the civil year should commence with the month of Nisan (Aries) rather than the month of Taurus.

The feast of the Passover is probably a celebration of the Age of Aries with the Paschal Lamb representative of Aries, traditionally associated with the symbol of the ram or sheep.

Drummond also hypothesizes that most number references in ancient texts were coded to hide their real value by their multiplication by 1000 or multiples of 1,000. For example, in the Old Testament Joshua commanded 30,000 men and he slew 12,000 inhabitants of the city of Ai. The historian Berosus stated the Babylonians commenced astronomical observations 49,000 years (7 x 7 x 1000) before Alexander the Great.

Most early references were related to 7 (Sun, Moon, and five visible planets), 12 (number of zodiacal signs and months per year), 30 (degrees per sign of the zodiac), and higher combinations of these numbers and other numbers associated with astronomical observations and astrology.

The problem of understanding the exact nature of ancient astrology is that it was only partly documented, leaving the question of the extent of their undocumented astrological knowledge. Michael Baigent in "From the Omens of Babylon: Astrology and Ancient Mesopotamia" suggests that there is evidence that there was probably an older or parallel oral tradition of astrology at the time of publication of Enuma Anu Enlil believed published over the period (1595–1157 BC). The ancient Mesopotamians believed that history repeated itself after a massive cycle of many years.

Anno Domini

There exists evidence that the modern calendar developed by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century AD commencing with the birth of Jesus Christ at AD 1 was influenced by precession of the equinoxes and astrological ages. Dionysius' desire to replace Diocletian years (Diocletian persecuted Christians) with a calendar based on the incarnation of Christ was to prevent people from believing the imminent end of the world. At the time it was believed that the Resurrection and end of the world would occur 500 years after the birth of Jesus.

The current Anno Mundi calendar theoretically commenced with the creation of the world based on information in the Old Testament. It was believed that based on the Anno Mundi calendar Jesus was born in the year 5500 (or 5500 years after the world was created) with the year 6000 of the Anno Mundi calendar marking the end of the world. Anno Mundi 6000 (approximately AD 500) was thus equated with the resurrection of Christ and the end of the world. Since this date had already passed in the time of Dionysius, he therefore searched for a new end of the world at a later date. He was heavily influenced by ancient cosmology, in particular the doctrine of the Great Year that places a strong emphasis on planetary conjunctions. This doctrine says that when all the planets were in conjunction that this cosmic event would mark the end of the world. Dionysius accurately calculated that this conjunction would occur in May AD 2000. Dionysius then applied another astronomical timing mechanism based on precession of the equinoxes. Though incorrect, some oriental astronomers at the time believed that the precessional cycle was 24,000 years which included twelve astrological ages of 2,000 years each. Dionysius believed that if the planetary alignment marked the end of an age (i.e. the Pisces age), then the birth of Jesus Christ marked the beginning of the Age of Pisces 2,000 years earlier. He therefore deducted 2,000 years from the May 2000 conjunction to produce AD 1 for the incarnation of Christ.


Today the stars no longer guide our navigation, orchestrate our time-keeping, or pace our planting and harvesting but nearly all ancient civilizations shared this wisdom of time as a cyclical higher  power and thus organized themselves to best survive by keeping the uncertainty and chaos away through acts seeking harmony with this cosmos. Western culture's linear march- of-time model, moved beyond the wisdom of these past civilizations.

Past ages

The Age of Leo (The Leonian Age)

Symbol for Leo: 

Zodiacal sign: the vernal equinox (northern hemisphere) is occurring in Leo.

NGc 3190 is a spiral galaxy with tightly wound arms and lying in the constellation Leo.

Timeframe:
Zodiacal 30 degrees:
Patrick Burlingame interpretation: began ca. 10,006 BC and ended ca. 8006 BC
Common interpretation: ca. 10,500 BC to 8000 BC

Overview
"The Golden Age". The major event in this age was deglaciation of what now constitutes much of the modern habitable world. The deglaciation ultimately caused a 300-foot (90 m) rise in the sea level. The sign Leo is a Fire sign and is mythically ruled by the Sun in astrology.

The Age of Cancer (The Cancerian Age)

Symbol for Cancer: 

Zodiacal sign: the vernal equinox (northern hemisphere) is occurring in Cancer;

Timeframes:
Zodiacal 30 degrees:
Neil Mann interpretation: began ca. 8600 BC and ended ca. 6450 BC
Patrick Burlingame interpretation: began ca. 8006 BC and ended ca. 6006 BC

Overview
"The Age of the Great Mother." Cancer is ruled by the Moon, and is associated with the process of bearing, birthing, nurturing, and protecting. In astrologic mythology this age marks the beginning of civilization, with domestication of farm animals and nomadic people settling down to living in permanent dwellings.

Religious similarities:
Widespread evidence of the mother goddess in the Near East (the 'mother' archetype in all shapes and forms is always related to the sign Cancer).

The Age of Gemini (The Geminian Age)

Symbol for Gemini: 

Zodiacal sign: the vernal equinox (northern hemisphere) is occurring in Gemini;

Timeframes

• Zodiacal 30 degrees:
  • Neil Mann interpretation: began ca. 6450 BC and ended ca. 4300 BC
  • Patrick Burlingame interpretation: began ca. 6006 BC and ended ca. 4006 BC

Overview
"The Age of Communication, Trade and the Twins"

Historical similarities
During this mythological age writing developed, and trade started to accelerate. The constellation can be seen as two people holding hands (thought to be twins), believed by some to be symbolic for trade and communication of peoples. In myths associated with the constellation of Gemini, both writing (including literature, newspapers, journals, magazines, and works of fiction) and trade (including merchants) are traditional archetypes belonging to the sign of Gemini.

Most forms of local transportation are archetypes mythologically linked with the sign of Gemini.

Religious similarities:
Multiple gods, such as the pantheon of gods in Ancient Greek literature, are believed to have appeared in this Gemini age probably in Sumer (Mesopotamia). (Gemini is not only associated with the archetype of 'twins' and 'duality' but also 'multiplicity').

The Age of Taurus (The Taurean Age)

Main article: Sacred bull

Symbol for Taurus: 

Zodiacal sign: the vernal equinox (northern hemisphere) is occurring in Taurus;

Timeframes

• Zodiacal 30 degrees:
  • Neil Mann interpretation: began ca. 4300 BC and ended ca. 2150 BC
  • Patrick Burlingame interpretation: began ca. 4006 BC and ended ca. 2006 BC
• Constellation boundary year:
  • Shephard Simpson interpretation: began ca. 4525 BC and ended ca. 1875 BC

Overview
"The Age of Earth, Agriculture, and the Bull" This age is claimed to have occurred approximately around the time of the building of the Pyramids in Egypt.

Religious similarities:
Bull worshiping cults began to form in Assyria, Egypt, and Crete during this mythological age.

• Ankh: thoracic vertebra of a bull - Egyptian symbol of life
• Worship of Apis, the bull-deity (see also Bull (mythology)), the most important of all the sacred animals in Egypt, said to be instituted during the Second Dynasty of the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt and worshipped in the Memphis region until the New Kingdom (16th century BC).
• When Moses was said to have descended from the mountain with the ten commandments (c. 17th – 13th century BC, the end of the Age of Taurus), some of his people or followers were found by him to be worshipping a golden bull calf. He instructed these worshippers to be killed. This represents Moses "killing" the bull and ending the Age of Taurus, and ushering in the Age of Aries, which he represents.
• Marduk
• Tauroctony

More Here

The Age of Aries (The Arian Age)

Symbol for Aries: 

Zodiacal sign: the vernal equinox (northern hemisphere) is occurring in Aries;

Timeframes
Zodiacal 30 degrees:
Neil Mann interpretation: began ca. 2150 BC and ended ca. 1 AD
Patrick Burlingame interpretation: began ca. 2006 BC and ended ca. 6 BC
Constellation boundary year:
Shephard Simpson interpretation: began ca. 1875 BC to ca. 100 AD

Overview
"The Age of War, Fire, and the Ram"

Historical similarities:
Aries represents a Fire symbol as well as bold actions, a lot of these behaviors can be seen during any age. However, the themes emphasised during this age relate to courage, initiative, war, and adventure. Nations during this age such as the expanding empires of China, Persia, Greece, and Rome, are often cited as examples of the archetypes of Aries in action. Also the Aries constellation shows a ram running. This could correspond with the sacrifice of Abraham's Ram. While the number of names containing the sound of the ram during this period is noted: Ra (Sun God), Ram, Rama, Brahman, Brahma, Abram/Abraham, Amon Ra, and Ramesses I. The battering ram was employed by the Assyrians, Greeks, and Romans with great success during this time.[dubious – discuss] (The symbol of Mars, the planetary ruler of Aries, evokes this interpretation.) According to the Roman state religion, the Roman people were the "Sons of Mars".

Aries is associated with the metal iron, and iron ore was for the first time smelted and worked into iron swords in Anatolia during the early phase of this era, replacing the heavier, softer-metaled, duller-edged bronze swords of the previous Taurus Age.

Traits of Aries such as 'initiative' may suggest the explosion of originality in the development of social aspects, sciences and arts in regions such as Ancient Greece but at the same time traits such as 'Impulsivity' may be attributed to the various Wars of the time.

Religious similarities:
The Age of Aries ushered in efforts to replace polytheism with monotheism. The earliest known attempt was by the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten, who, in about 1350 BC, decreed the Sun God Aten to be the supreme deity, apparently in reaction to his earlier lack of inclusion in religious rites by his family. After his death, however, power reverted to the original polytheistic priests, who re-established the old religion. Speculation (including that of Freud) has it that later, during the reign of Ramesses II, Moses was influenced by rumour of Akhenaten's revolutionary idea, and grasped the idea of a single supreme God, who especially favoured his people, as an inspirational mechanism that best suited his people held in bondage. The symbol of Aries can be seen as representing the power of multiple gods streaming down into a single god-head.

Moses (born c. 16th–13th century BC; 7 Adar 2368 – 7 Adar 2488 in the Hebrew calendar), an early Biblical Hebrew religious leader, lawgiver, prophet, and military leader, condemns his own people upon finding them worshiping a 'golden calf' (a symbol of the previous Age of Taurus and of the worship of the bull deity) after coming down Mount Sinai. These events may have occurred during the Age of Aries (see also dating the Exodus).

See also:

• Mithraism
• The Mithraic Question and Precession

"The Mysteries of Mithra, which came to flower in the near east during the Hellenistic age as a kind of Zoroastrian heresy, and in the Roman period was the most formidable rival of Christianity...
Celebrants wore masks representing animals of the Zodiac: for astronomy was undergoing a new development in this period through an application of Greek thought to the data of the centuries of Sumero-Chaldean observation. In all religions of the age,Download the Zodiac had come to represent the bounding, ever revolving sphere of time - space - causality, within which the unbounded Spirit operates unmoved yet moving in all." Joseph Campbell

More HERE

Mithraism was a mystery religion with devotees sworn to secrecy. Nothing could be spoken or written down. What little is known of Mithra, the god of justice and social contract, has been deduced from reliefs and icons found in temples. Most of these portray Mithra clad in a Persian-style cap and tunic sacrificing a white bull in front of Sol, the sun god. Sol's wife Soma, the moon, begins her cycle and time is born. The letters 'VSLM' that are inscribed on many Mithraic stones are part of a secret code thanking Mithra for his good deeds and are recognizable only to the faithful. Mithraism and Christianity competed strongly because of the striking similarity in many of their rituals.

Both involve shepherds, an ark built to escape a flood and a form of baptism. Devotees knelt when they worshipped and a common meal - a communion- was a regular feature of the liturgy.

HERE ~ THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
by Franz Cumont

Present and future ages

The Age of Pisces (The Piscean Age)

Symbol for Pisces: 

Zodiacal sign: the vernal equinox (northern hemisphere) is occurring in Pisces;

Some astrologers claim the Age of Pisces is the current age and they believe it will remain so for approximately another 600 years.^{[citation needed]} At that time, the vernal equinox point will have moved into the constellation of Aquarius, thus beginning the Age of Aquarius. Other astrologers claim the Age of Pisces ended with the great cosmic alignment of 12/21/12, thus beginning the Age of Aquarius.

Timeframes

Zodiacal 30 degrees:
Neil Mann interpretation: began ca. AD 1 and ends ca. AD 2150.
Heindel-Rosicrucian interpretation: began ca. AD 498 and ends ca. AD 2654
Patrick Burlingame interpretation: began ca. 6 BC and ended ca. AD 1994
Mayan: ended 21 December 2012
Newland: began 25 January 1989
Constellation boundary year:
Shephard Simpson interpretation: began ca. 100/90 BC and ends ca. AD 2680.
12/21/12 Great Cosmic Alignment interpretation: began ca. 138 BC and ended 21 December 2012

Overview
"The Age of Monotheism, Spirituality, and the Fish"

The age of Pisces began c. 1 AD and will end c. 2150 AD. With the story of the birth of Christ coinciding with this date many Christian symbols for Christ use the astrological symbol for Pisces, the fishes. Jesus bears many of the temperaments and personality traits of a Pisces, and is thus considered an archetype of the Piscean. Moreover, the twelve apostles were called the "fishers of men," early Christians called themselves "little fishes," and a code word for Jesus was the Greek word for fish, "Ikhthus." With this, the start of the age, or the "Great Month of Pisces" is regarded as the beginning of the Christian religion. Saint Peter is recognized as the apostle of the Piscean sign.

Historical Similarities

The Age of Pisces is characterized by the Christian age. The fish is thought[by whom?] to have been chosen as a symbol for Christianity by the early Christians primarily because Jesus' ministry is associated with fish; he chose several fishermen to be his disciples and declared he would make them "fishers of men." The Age of Pisces corresponds with the Christian Era. Pisces is associated with the continuous research of humanity about the truth hidden behind what is perceived by five senses, which corresponds with the mysteries associated with Christ's life.[citation needed] Also, like with the previous transition into the Age of Aries, the people were reluctant to evolve into the new thinking of the transitioning age symbolized by the Passion of Christ narrative.[citation needed]

Religious Similarities

Jesus Christ is said to be the "Alpha and Omega," the first and last, Aries and Pisces. In Christian religion he is seen as the sacrificial Lamb of God (end of Age of Aries) and the "Fisher of Men" (dawn of the age of Pisces). His symbol is the ichthys or ichthus, from the Greek ikhthýs (ἰχθύς, "fish"), and he calls to him "fishers of men" as his disciples. His communion food is designated as fish, when he asks for as much after his resurrection. His early Christian followers were called the "little fishes" and represented by two fishes – a symbol for Pisces.

The fish was also the symbol of the early Church (Catholicism). Its shape was used in the catacombs in order to identify the first Christians. In this respect, "Ichtus", a Greek word, represented a fish. The first Christians made an ideogram out of it: that is, they took each letter of the word "I-ch-th-u-s" to form other words related to Christ, "Iesus Christus Theou Uios Sôter". This expression can be translated into "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior".

The sign of Pisces is a sign of sacrifice, charity, mercy, compassion, and pardon. The entire Christian religion therefore strives in this way. The annual religious period that corresponds to the sign of Pisces is Lent, a period of sacrifice.

Christ named his disciples "Fishers of Men", alluding to fish, to fishing. The sign of Pisces is the symbol of forgiveness, of secrecy, of reclusion. This is why, for centuries, Christians have confessed their sins, in secret, in a reclusive place (a confessional). It was the Sacrament of pardon or penance. The sign of Pisces is also associated with mercy: this is why Christians often asked God to have mercy on them. The "Kyrie Eleison" is in fact sung ("Lord, have mercy upon us") at mass on Sundays.

The Pope still wears a mitre, which is in the shape of a fish.

The Twelfth House

The sign of Pisces also corresponds to the twelfth house of the zodiac (a cadent house), house of prayer, of the recluse. During the Age of Pisces, we witnessed the creation of monasteries: for a greater part, the lives of monks and members of numerous religious communities consisted of meditation and praying to God. There were even cloistered religious communities whose members refused any contact with the outside world, preferring to devote themselves to spiritual activities.

The Age of Aquarius (The Aquarian Age)

Main article: Age of Aquarius

Symbol for Aquarius: 

Zodiacal sign: the vernal equinox (northern hemisphere) is occurring in Aquarius;

More  HERE

Popular culture:

In popular culture, the expression "Age of Aquarius" usually refers to the heyday of the hippie and New Age movements of the 1960s and 1970s. The 1967 successful musical Hair, with its opening song "Aquarius" and the memorable line "This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius", brought the Aquarian Age concept to the attention of a huge worldwide audience. This New Age phenomenon is seen by some astrologers to be marked by the conjunction of the planet Uranus, ruler of the sign Aquarius, and the coming age, with Pluto, ruler of the masses, bringing radical change, in the 1960s. However, as the song relates, it is only considered by astrologers as the "dawning" or "cusp" of the Age, with the full strength of the Age not occurring until some time in the future.

A little extra ~ Brief Overview

The oldest structures on earth are fertility goddess temples on the island of Malta honoring the annual cycle of life. Their beginning and end between 4400 -2200 BCE holds a remarkable coincidence or synchronicity with the  Movement of  the Age of Taurus. This esoteric knowledge of a 26,000-year cycle of earth moving through the heavens was known in ancient Egypt and Babylonia where written records have survived. There will never be irrefutable proof that the knowledge has its source in India but the Vedic texts written in the 2nd millennium BCE after a longer period as an oral legacy do reference prior ages before Taurus. The Chinese are said to have adopted around the same time Egypt was first rising as the dominant culture of the Mediteranean. Taurus is  city-states] The greatest reference to prior ages is considered  the Great Sphinx and the age of Leo  [10,715 - 8,572 bce] in Egypt.

Pre-history beginning with The Age of Cancer =8,572 - 6,429 BCE
Age of Cancer Beetle or Sacred Scarab of Egypt, later the Crab, Isis (Eve)

The Sign Cancer is also the sign associated with the Great Mother, the creator of the Universe.
This same mother can be seen manifesting in various ancient cultures: the Isis of Egyptians, Nana of Chaldeans, Rhea of the Romans, Spiderwoman of the Hopi, and Shakti of the Vedic scriptures, but they all arose from the early Mother goddess cults of the Age of Cancer.

Astrology signs, associated with body parts.

Sun worship of Leo gave way to Moon The age of moving from caves to fixed dwellings.

The Butterfly Nebula - NGC 6302 (also called the Bug Nebula, Butterfly Nebula, or Caldwell 69).

The Sword Of Orion.

The largest known structure in the universe ~ below

Earth and moon interconnected with starfield (by Johan Swanepoel)

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has recently spotted a galaxy estimated to be over 60 million light years away from the Earth.

Possibly the Youngest Galaxy Ever Seen, an irregular dwarf galaxy about 45 million light-years away is seen in this image from NASA. NASA/ESA/A. Schaller.

love and light

Trace

xoxo