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The op started with the erroneous assumption that the equator marks a climatic boundary on the earth. Anyone in Brazil or Nairobi might argue.in former times all astrologers had a school atlas with the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn marked out
Matthew Goulding

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nixx,

that was funny! i was mostly thinking of how this dividing everything into 2 - in this example - north/south - is the basis for a lot of split brain thinking where logic is always seen as the final arbiter in the matter. i don't think we can answer everything with logic.. that was mostly what i was trying to convey.. you will probably be able to take something i have said here and make a good laugh out of it too!

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james_m wrote:nixx,

that was funny! i was mostly thinking of how this dividing everything into 2 - in this example - north/south - is the basis for a lot of split brain thinking where logic is always seen as the final arbiter in the matter. i don't think we can answer everything with logic.. that was mostly what i was trying to convey.. you will probably be able to take something i have said here and make a good laugh out of it too!
Humour is often a defence against anxiety. You might have been going into this complex terrain Curry got into in his last paragraph to Greene, in Cosmos and Culture. We could go there one day but not on this thread, thus my brief aside.

Hand touched on this area in his podcast when stating in his view that if mind/soul are epiphenomena of the brain (which they probably are, as far as I can see!)then astrology is ''irrevocably impossible'' the way it is generally understood today.

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Mark wrote: As Margherita Fiorello pointed out astrologers have been debating this since the renaissance! Astrologers such as Cardano and Campanella suggested the logical stance for an astrologer following the tropical zodiac was to reverse the signs. On the other hand Morin vehemently disagreed with this stance his in book Astrologia Gallica.

Mark
?I'm reading only now this thread- sorry for the late reply, Mark.
In effect in Cieloeterra, the tradition school lead by Giuseppe Bezza, they reverse the qualities of the signs, ie they reverse signs tout court.
For example Aries, being the beginning of the Fall in the Southern Hemisphere will be moist and warm and of long ascension, like our Libra, so it can be easily called Libra .
Anyway I'm a little uncomfortable with this, especially because the fixed stars remain to their place obviously, (they could not be flipped), and I don't like this, because signs'meaning cannot be easily parted from constellations and fixed stars, it's obvious that some characters of signs depend on stars of the background constellation.
So I don't reverse. Anyway in Italy it's rare to cast a chart for the other hemisphere, so it is not a major problem for us.

p.s. Russel Crowe is a manifest Aries, he could not be anything else, especially a Libra :(
This is a screenshot from Phasis, the software based on Cieloeterra teachings
Image
Traditional astrology at
http://heavenastrolabe.wordpress.com

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margherita wrote:Anyway I'm a little uncomfortable with this, especially because the fixed stars remain to their place obviously, (they could not be flipped), and I don't like this, because signs'meaning cannot be easily parted from constellations and fixed stars, it's obvious that some characters of signs depend on stars of the background constellation.
Margherita,

out of interest, how do you reconcile this view with the fact that the Tropical divisions are now around 24 degree out from the groups of fixed stars they are named after?
http://www.esmaraldaastrology.wordpress.com

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Konrad wrote: Margherita,

out of interest, how do you reconcile this view with the fact that the Tropical divisions are now around 24 degree out from the groups of fixed stars they are named after?
Konrad, I was sure somebody would write me something like that :)

Anyway I believe that the precession is a natural phenomenon, just happens- putting the zodiac upside down a little less natural.
Traditional astrology at
http://heavenastrolabe.wordpress.com

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margherita - with one obvious difference, it is the kind of question an astronomer opposed to astrology asks all the time!

on the next mystery challenge i plan on offering a chart from the southern hemisphere.. whether someone will actually talk about the important role stars play in a delineation let alone the significance of the sid or trop zodiac to the nature of the chart will be especially informative! it never seems to get discussed and i am sure many would benefit from seeing someone put in practice what they talk about, even if it is after the fact or in a mystery chart exercise.. conjecture and theory seem to reign supreme on astrology blogs/forms.

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Margherita wrote: Mar 21, 2014, 2:55 pm
... the fixed stars remain to their place obviously, (they could not be flipped), and I don't like this, because signs'meaning cannot be easily parted from constellations and fixed stars, it's obvious that some characters of signs depend on stars of the background constellation.
Ciao Margherita,

This brings to mind a recent discussion I had with Paul (in the Uranus-Aries thread) about what would qualify a celestial object as a sign ruler. It made me come to think of the fixed stars of a zodiacal constellation as "ruling" - or being in strong affinity with - their corresponding sign. This could explain why both the tropical and sidereal zodiacs seem to work. However, they would represent two different levels. Whether one or the other is in accordance with your astrological observations would depend on which level to tune in to.

Greetings to Bella Italia!
Michael Sternbach

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This resonates with me; I am usually a chain smoking, milk guzzling Moon in Cancer, whereas when flying or mountaineering I chiiter chatter like a dollymop after a night on the pina coladas.

Prior to this epiphany, I was bewildered by the view 11 quirky organic archetypally unfolding images, and some scales, were unconsciously projected into the sky to help explain these ideal mathematical divisions. Synchronistically or divinely or handily or unknowingly or notheywerenotingly when these ?searching? constructs were more aligned.

http://cura.free.fr/quinq/01hand.html

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margherita wrote:
Konrad wrote: Margherita,

out of interest, how do you reconcile this view with the fact that the Tropical divisions are now around 24 degree out from the groups of fixed stars they are named after?
Konrad, I was sure somebody would write me something like that :)

Anyway I believe that the precession is a natural phenomenon, just happens- putting the zodiac upside down a little less natural.
I don't doubt it. :)

I meant, practically, if you see some of the significations of the signs as stellar-based, how do you integrate that into a Tropical framework? Personally, I see it the other way around: some of the significations are, if not seasonally-based, at least based upon the Sun's rise and fall through the Equinoxes, and then subsequently imposed onto a Stellar measurement. I'm just interested to see how it works the other way around.
http://www.esmaraldaastrology.wordpress.com

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Hello Michael and Konrad, not sure I want to be involved in a discussion about sidereal astrology :)

To be honest I believe both that fixed stars are connected to the signs' meaning, which is evident to me in Manilius or Firmicus, and on the other hand that there is solar meaning which is due to the fact that tropical signs are portions of the ecliptic, which is nothing else than the path of the Sun.

But this could be explained because astrology was born in a given Mediterranean/Eastern area in a period when the two zodiacs were almost coincident.
I have already written which I believe that exporting a cultural product in a different area has its pro and cons, something is necessarily lost.
Traditional astrology at
http://heavenastrolabe.wordpress.com

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Margherita wrote: Mar 22, 2014 9:32 am
To be honest I believe both that fixed stars are connected to the signs' meaning, which is evident to me in Manilius or Firmicus, and on the other hand that there is solar meaning which is due to the fact that tropical signs are portions of the ecliptic, which is nothing else than the path of the Sun.
Your mention of Manilius and Firmicus in this context is interesting. It's been a while that I have looked into their books and my recollection of them is a bit incomplete. But I recall quite vividly the wonderful Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara where you find a depiction of Manilius' system big style! :D
But this could be explained because astrology was born in a given Mediterranean/Eastern area in a period when the two zodiacs were almost coincident.
In Franz Boll's opinion (in his Sphaera) the Babylonians started out by dividing first the equator, later the ecliptic into twelve sectors that they named after the more or less coinciding constellations. (Interestingly, the constellation Libra was originally a part of the constellation Scorpio but was "cut off" in order to have a namesake for that sign.)

Waybread and Deb, I recall that you referred to alternative (or complementary) hypotheses regarding the Babylonian origin of the tropical zodiac in recent posts - such as the calculation of eclipses, or the orb of the Sun - and I would appreciate to hear more about these, if possible. :D
I have already written which I believe that exporting a cultural product in a different area has its pro and cons, something is necessarily lost.
This happens all the time. Yes, something gets lost, but something new gets created. It has always been the inevitable process by which evolution of the human species progresses. For example, without the influx of Greek-based Arabic knowledge notably via Spain and Sicily in Medieval times we Europeans would conceivably still be using wooden torches in the dark.