When we talk about "tides" in astrology, be it transits, or tides related to the progressions, or to the annual and monthly rhythms, we talk about PERIODICITY.
This word *periodicity* refers to what we also call RHYTHM, or the frequency-related properties of a perceivable & measurable motion of a body (or, more precisely put, an inter-related system of bodies!).
What we have and use today under the name "ephemeris" in astrology came as result of initial long-term observations, paired with consistent recording of what has been actually observed.
The oldest preserved written material of this kind is known today as the "texts" of the "Enuma Anu Enlil", and the "Babylonian Astronomical Diaries"; these are recordings based on which over time insights into rhythms (periodicity) of astrological planetary bodies emerged with greater clarity, and which enabled such historical figures as Nabiruannu and Kidinnu to later develop what is today called the "System A" and "System B" of tablets, out of which, as early Lunar and Solar motion related observations, notes and insights, over time further conclusions were made possible, so that the calculations of planetary movements which we now call "ephemeris" came to be.
In other words: all we have calculated and written about what-will-be when it comes to the future movement and positions of astrological planets is based on *what we have seen so far of their motion* - it is a *projection* of the periodicity recognized, during what has been within our perception and experience-thus-far, into that which is yet-to-come.
Whether the planets, for each new day (time period) will be moving/at-position as these calculations show, we do not know *with absolute certainty* in advance; just like we do not know *with absolute certainty* whether the phenomenon of Sun rising will transpire for each next day, until this day actually comes to unfold in experience. In truth, all we do know is: "this is how it has been happening so far".
The longer the time-span of observations and the data recorded available, with greater certainty we approach the conclusions (rhythms/pattern-related insights) made based on that data, and more sure we feel about a given thus ascertained rhythm or periodicity to be representing such natural laws the insight into which enables us to not only know what-was, but to also, and solely in this rhythm-related specific way, be aware of what-is-yet-to-be.
During the long, slow and gradual process of this scientific development, a habit formed of slipping from the perspective framework of *observation in order to learn what-is* into *observation in order to confirm what's already been concluded upon, seen as-it-was*, and with this latter, from what used to be *looking in order to See, so to move in alignment with natural rhythms about which the insights have emerged* into *looking in order to control*, to direct in accordance to someone's *interpretation of symbolic-representation notes of these rhythms* the further movements within the human activities.
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To say that we can "predict", or know in advance, *exactly* what events will come to transpire in the future, is a blatant lie.
The *specifics* of what is the Future, the yet-to-come, is, as long as it is what it is - the future, and not the present or past - Unknown.
That which we can rightfully call "the known" is simply: the degree of our understanding of rhythms/periodicity/patterns of the thus-far-observed -- this degree (as well as the quality of it) changes (evolves) over time; and *within this context* there is the (lesser or greater) degree of reliability of that which has been noticed, and thus-far-ascertained-as, Natural Laws.
As this understanding deepens and evolves, through experience and observation, the *intimacy of connection* with these Rhythms (or movement-patterns) becomes greater and we are able to make decisions and perform actions, during our Earthy existence, in increasingly greater (more fine-tuned) accord and harmony with these, observed as universally-applying for our life on Earth, Rhythms.
And this is the sole function and central "purpose" of the astrological prediction tools: to expose one's conscious mind to awareness-of and immediate perception of these subtler Rhythms, such that one's personal movements: choices & actions, can be aligned, *with greatest possible degree of conscious awareness* in it, with the wider natural Rhythms/periodicity of movement, the what we call "celestial harmony".
Or, in other words: we are listening to the "music of the spheres" - not in order to somehow "put" our intellectual mind in position of a "composer", or even merely "conductor" of such vast, *infinite* Symphony, but simply for the natural Joy of abiding in the awe of presence to its openly-disclosed Beauty; and this spontaneously leads toward the instruments which are our individual human selves developing into functioning with ever-increasing degree of attunement to this Harmony.
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When it comes to the practically most-relevant, primary tides for someone existing on Earth, we're in the "midst" (the observation point) of a tripartite system: Sun-Moon-Earth. The Moon revolves around our planet (and is the single one celestial body to be doing so), and the Earth-Moon system revolves around the Sun (the Sun being our first-immediate celestial body around which this planet revolves; and the next such - the first next when it comes to distance in space - being the Galactic center itself).
All that we can observe and see about the motions of each of these two, the Sun and the Moon, in the sky, is based *on the mutual connection* of their rhythms, as it is experienced/seen from Earth.
The actual precise measurements of Sun's position along the background-reference of the celestial belt-area of the Zodiac are possible due to the qualities, unique speed and rhythms of the Lunar movement. The stars near-by the Sun itself can be immediately observed only at dawn and at sunset. It is the rhythm of the Moon, and this *exactly as it is in its relation with the Solar visible rhythm-of-motion across the sky*, which makes it possible for us to see the periodicity (the rhythms, patterns) and to come to conclusions (calculations) about the movement of both & each of these two bodies.
Neither could there develop observation-based knowledge of one or the other of these two bodies’ motion, without the peculiar inter-connectedness of their rhythms.
Or, to express this in another way, using historical more "technical terms": it is the observed Syzygy (the Soli-Lunar conjunctions and oppositions, or the New and Full Moon) phenomena which has been the *key* factor in the development of the "System A" and "System B" computation-tablets, that are the basis of all that we know and use today under the name of "planetary ephemeris".
The precise measurements of the motion of the five naked-eye visible planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) against the starry backdrop of the Zodiac belt are only possible within the context of our awareness of the Rhythms of the Soli-Lunar tides; these observations and measurements can accurately be performed solely within the framework-context of our perception of Time itself - the nights-&-days, the months, and the years.
It is the Soli-Lunar periodicity, the pattern-tides of the mutual connection of their rhythms, which is at the root of all of our practical (as creatures-living-on-Earth), perception of Time.
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I ask the reader to read again, and stay as long as it may be needed, with the above five paragraphs.
It is not possible to understand in what ways & to what degree the existence and motion of these two celestial bodies, the Luminaries, differ for us practically, when it comes to both the Nature and the Importance of it, from the existence and motion of the rest of the "planetary suit" of our local stellar system - not possible to at all see this properly without spending some time reflecting on the mutually-related dynamic, the intrinsic inter-dependency (for us on Earth), this specific very peculiar *how* of the mutual-connection between these two, Luna and Sol.
It is not the Sun and the Moon, each separately, but the two of them *together* --- the two-operating-as-one in what we call the Soli-Lunar tide, and specifically with their Syzygy-phenomena as the key moments in this tide --- which makes it possible for anything that we know in present day as "astrological calculations", and "astrological predictions", to at all be.
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So when exactly did the "fork in the road" come to appear for the notion/concept of the *Solar and Lunar Revolutions* to become interpreted as: referring to the position in time for each of these bodies, by itself, in relation to a given its own natal Zodiac position - as the primary basis for the annual and the monthly tide related astrological predictions?
When was it initiated, in astrological practice, that these Two, the Luminaries, with their peculiar Singular, mutually intrinsically tied-to-each-other and inter-dependent tidal rhythm of visible motion, start being perceived (and thought-of & treated) in a seclusive, continuity-of-wholeness-disrupting/dispersing, blindness-based (and further greater-and-greater blindness-fostering) way ... ?
... We know that during the 16th century there appeared a text titled "De Revolutionibus Nativitatum", whose author's name has been signed as "Hermes". And we know that all the astrology-related material that has been circulated and worked-with in Europe during & surrounding the wider time-span of the Dark Ages period is based on the early Greek material.
And we do know that the core of the Hellenistic astrology, with main content & further branch-stemming of it which still has survived to this day to be available to us now, is based on the material which was transferred to Greece from the Middle East; during Alexander's time, at cca 330 B.C., Callisthenes was operative in bringing the Naburiannu and Kidinnu Tablets from the Babylon-region to Greece.
The destruction of libraries, with its irreparable loss of historic documents, as well as other human activities of similar kind over time, lay over it as a heavy, thick veil of blackness, hiding the details of the process from the direct immediacy of our vision ...
..... It is up to those whose eyes -- both eyes together in tandem, and with each wide open -- have been well habituated and trained to look into the pitch-darkness of the nakedness of the night sky, to *keep Observing* - and to persist - through all the passing tidal shifts and changes - until, for each such pair-of-eyes acting-as-one, their unique celestial-harmony-based phase of Revelation, the emergence-into-clear-sight of that which has been hidden and obscured, comes to its due opening-up.
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~ Know Thyself! ~
