A previous post explained the anatomy of the primary celestial cycles of the Sun and Moon. The “resting” part of these cycles are the winter solsticeThe extreme points of sunrise and sunset in the year. In midwinter the sun is to the south of the celestial equator (the reverse in the southern hemisphere) and in midsummer the sun is north of that equator, which is above the geographical Equator). (opposite the summer solstice which was today) and the dark moon (which is coming in a week, after the waning half moon day before yesterday). In the resting phase, the cosmological origin is traditionally found, containing all that is to manifest but that is not yet expressed. In this respect, the Big Bang is the equivalent for modern thinking, as the origin of the entire visible and invisible universe seen via modern instrumentation and discoveries.
Life is somehow connected with our large Moon, without which there could have been no living planet. The form of life appears influenced by the moon and its conjunctions with different planets. And without (a) the tides, (b) the tectonic plates supporting continents, and (c) the tilt and spin of the earth; the earth would be static rather than actively supporting the necessary rhythms of Life. A primordial collision created these features of our earth and moon, since the cyclic archetypes provide an essential framework for living beings, to which their bodies are synchronized through circadian and behavioral rhythms.
The waning half-moon of recent days is approaching the next dark moon, while today’s summer solstice (21st June – the longest day of the year) having arrived: the highest sun of the year is fully manifested in terms of what the sun does, its Will: which is to support the food chain of life and to animate the seasonal climates and habitats suitable for Life.
The Stone Age recognized these cycles, seen in the passive winter and dark moon, a birthing point (spring) and a maturing point (autumn); within a solar narrative punctuated by the lunar cycle and these two by the day of the sun’s rising and setting. The dark moon represents the soil as source of green food feeding the animals and humans.
A natural phenomenal cosmology was visibly operating upon the earth, amenable to simple idea formation and art, and it was essentially correct but quite buried within modern human living. Ideas of death at the winter solstice and burial in the earth’s soil or underground chamber, and perhaps an afterlife as ancestor and even, like nature, rebirth in some future Spring.
Cycles were therefore foundational for whatever the stone age peoples would think about the world. They gave structure to the experienced world and meanings to why the sky had its cycles of light and darkness. But at some stage they started counting time using days and months.
The two extremes and two midpoints defined the further creation of numbers by counting the number of days each cycle took to complete.
The Four-fold Cycle or Tetrad
The first systematization of four different sources of something, as with these four-fold cycles of time, emerged in the work of Aristotle, the famous Classical philosopher of Greece. He realized that every thing has four sources (he said causes), with an example being the activity of a carpenter in making a table. What is a table? To be a successful table, it has to provide a flat surface above the ground. He saw there were four causes:
- The material it was made from which is its material .
2. The tools that can cut the tree and craft the table, which are efficient or instrumental.
3. The carpenter, who understands what a table is and can make it, provides direction towards the final table.
4. The idea of the table is the goal, a formal definition .
The cycles of time can be seen as the engagement of their four-fold in blending the various terms in quadrature – each is a necessary manifestation of the Sun and Moon.
In Bennett’s development of the tetrad, there are two dyads at work.
The motivational dyad is between extremes like the solstice, where winter is resting and summer manifesting Life, as the dark and light halves of the year. The idea of life requires a material basis out of which life can exist.
The operational dyad is of midpoints of Spring bringing new life and Autumn its maturation as seeds and fruit. Without the operational, which is of life itself, the motivational terms, in the sky, would have nothing to act upon.
This shows us that the primary cycles of geocentricThe ancient view of the planetary world in which the inner planets orbit the sun and the sun and planets orbit Earth (the geo part). The Chaldean order was Earth - Moon - (Mercury - Venus -Sun) - Mars - Jupiter - Saturn. time on earth are not really “up there” but are embodied in Life. This fourfold nature is also found in the eclipses
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