THIS ARTICLE IS A CHAPTER FROM KARNI’S BOOK “STORIES OF ANCIENT ASTROLOGY”

Today most cultures use a solar calendar.

By saying that we must first comment that we say “solar” but what we actually mean is planetary – meaning “of Earth” since what the calendar is calculating is Earth’s rotation around the sun that takes 365 days. This rotation also creates the seasons.
But ancient cultures used different celestial bodies as their time measurement. The Mesopotamian time revolved around the lunar month, while the Egyptian time was measured by the zodiac’s very slow movement of the astrological era – a very slow movement measuring a cycle of 26,000 years.

These clocks are utterly different – since each is working by a completely different time scale, giving attention to a different “hand’ in the universal clock. But not only because of that they are so different…

The moon is the closest celestial body to earth. It does not have its own course but is dependent on Earth’s course rotating around the Sun. The Moon is actually like Earth’s baby – revolving around it. And tracking time or setting the seasons according to it would always create a problem, as the Moon is subjective to Earth and does not stand by its own.

As we know using a lunar calendar will always create a gap when compared to the Earth’s actual rotation around the Sun – and hence a gap between the lunar cycles and the actual seasons. The Babylonians knew about that fact and knew they needed to adjust their calendar every few years to the actual situation by adding an ‘extra month”.  So trying to track time according to the Moon will be like trying to track a spoon through a cup of tea, not realizing that the light breaks while entering the water and what we see with our eyes is a moderation of the actual truth, detached from it.

Today we started to realize that even trying to track the absolute time by focusing on the Earth’s rotation around the sun is also not 100% accurate, as the sun itself is at motion. So even our solar calendar needs to be adjusted now and again to fit “reality”.

The truth is that as far away we aim our focus – the more accurate and exact we can get. Think of tracking the view from a moving car: the closest scenery will always change, but the most distant view is the one that will remain the longest.

So – as we come to think of it – the Egyptians, aiming to the far galaxies, had the most accurate time measurement and the most clear astrology and knowledge of time. Our Sun-based astrology of today is seemingly accurate, but there is still a gap between the time we calculate according to Earth’s rotation around the Sun and the absolute time. It is a small gap, of one degree every 72 years. Not noticeable during a man’s life but is noticeable during the epochs. And the fluctuation of the lunar calendar is so rough that it would need its moderation every few years.

But it is not only timing and accuracy that we are seeking here – because there is a different meaning that each one of the depths we are looking at holds.

The lunar astrology is a very short-sighted astrology. Not only physically – as the moon is very close earth, but also symbolically, as it focuses at one’s own benefit. The moon symbolizes in astrology the child, our subjective emotions, our very basic desires and our likes and dislikes.

The Solar astrology (mainly used today), which should actually be called the terra-logy (of earth’s) talks about our aims and wishes, the grown-up perspective and the center of our lives. It is a bit more broad-sighted than the lunar point of view, just as the sun is more distant to us than the moon. But when one comes to think of it, it is still all about me-me-me. And this is also what most astrology is about today – personal readings, vocation readings, relationships, the best timings to do this or that – but mainly our own benefit.

And the real astrology, that is long-forgotten but was known to the Egyptians, is the most far-viewing one, measuring time-scales that are galactic and not personal and its aim is to help us be located in the bigger picture of the universe.

Understanding these 3 scales of perception can shed a bit more light upon the riddle of the Sphinx, for now we can start to grasp that only by going through the sun – and that would mean leaving behind the personal and objective fluctuated view of the moon and even leave behind one’s own wishes and awareness – one could really reach the stars, which is the higher form of universal perception.