Universal Cycles and the Lives & Times of great Cultures

considering Spengler’s the Decline of the West in theAbysmal terms.

see The Decline of the West
vol 1
vol 2

Oswald Spengler proposes that when people assemble to a certain point, when they develop Cities based upon a fundamental Idea, they embark upon expressing a particular Destiny through the lifetime of the Civilisation in question, through to its inevitable death.

The pattern of the Cultural lifetime is described in terms of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. (see Spengler’s Civilization Model)

So the lifetime of a Culture and Civilzation follow the pattern of human lifetimes, as well as the celestial patterns in the play of light across the celestial canvas.

The 13 Months labeled with the signs of the 13 Constellations of the Zodiac

[n.b. At the Vernal and Autumnal Equinox every person in the world, regardless of whether they live at the Equator, in the Tropics, in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere or the far reaches of the Boreal and Austral Poles, lives through a Day and Night of equal length.]

As a civilization develops, grows, differentiates, expands, codifies, rigidifies, and decomposes into the chaos from which its sprouting successor will emerge, so do the patterns of time cycle.

As with the Daily round of the Sun, from Midnight to Dawn, Midday, Dusk, and the return to Midnight.

As with the New Moon, which waxes to Full and wanes back to New.

As with our own growth, development, maturation, and final dissolution.

For articles regarding light, biological cycles, the body, & health, see also:
Chronobiology
The Light Book
Human Development and Fertility Cycles
Time and Health

5 Months, 4 Cherubim and 1 non-living Symbol

Consider the following symbols, signs and elements from the image above:

Taurus ~ Earth
Leo ~ Fire
Libra ~ Aether
the Eagle ~ Water
Aquarius ~ Air

Spengler describes the development of the Culture as emerging from the chaos of the dissolution of its predecessor.

As the elements necessary coalesce, the Culture’s development accelerates, (as with the change in Sunlight as we pass the Vernal Equinox), it establishes itself aggressively against its equal-others, falls into codification of its ideology, intellectualises its function, and eventually declines into senility.

Earth is the foundational element, from which the plants grow, and stake their claim of the ground with their roots. The establishment of the foundational elements.

Fire is the energetic application and expression of will.

Aether, the numenous ephemera representing Libra, the only sign of the zodiac (from Greek for circle of animals, as with the Chinese system) that is not a living being, floats over the Summer Solstice, and the longest Day. It represents the ideal representation and expression of a Culture, in the form of the architecture of its greatest Cities.

Water, the condensation of the ideals represented by the Aetherial into a code by which those who fall under the influence of the culture may quickly adapt to its customs. This stage represents the beginning of the increase in abstraction into intellectual models over those connected to direct individual experience and observable phenomena. A distillation of the ideal, coagulating it away from its nebulous perfection.

Air, the element of the sword, the rational mind, the intellect, or in Spengler’s terms, the waking-consciousness. The over-intellectualisation of the civilisation’s operation, abstract and detached from the facts of living, signifies the descend of the culture into senility and stagnation.

This bears further research, however, upon initial consideration, a compelling pattern reveals itself, regardless of geography, ethnicity, or time period. It bears both cyclical and linear characteristics, suggesting a spiral or helical structure.

compare Spengler’s pattern of the life of Culture to Arguelles’ reanalysis of History according to the Mayan Great Cycle.

the image in Large

from Time Is Art dot Net

Aztec Architecture

Images of urban design that considers celestial phenomena.

see also
theAbysmal Calendar
Timing Gestation
= = = =
from
Aztec Architecture

aztec shrine of the gods

= = = =
from
Aztec Empire

Founding of Tenochtitlan from codex Mendoza, c. 1541 - 42 CE
= = = =
from
The Aztec

Avenue of the Dead
Teotihuacan
Pre-Aztec city designed based on celestial events.

Moon Pyramid
Teotihuacan

from this site on Tenochtitlan

a map of the city

see also:
Guide to the Aztec Sun Stone and Calendar
Aztec Calendar and Aztec Sun Stone Links
Ancient Calendars, Astronomy and Numerology

Metonic Cycles - ancient revelations of interest

Calendar Reform: observation of Metonic Cycle.

from: Occidental Mythology by Joseph Campbell
quoting: Prof. Gilbert Murray’s Greek Epic

In the Classical period the effort to coordinate the lunar and solar calendars culminated in the astronomer Meton’s Grand Cycle of Nineteen Years, according to which (to quote Murray’s statement):

“On the last day of the nineteenth year, which was also by Greek reckoning the first of the twentieth, the New Moon would coincide with the New Sun of the Winter Solstice; this was called the ‘Meeting of Sun and Moon’ - a thing which had not happened for nineteen full years before and would not happen again for another nineteen.”

Joseph Campbell Continues:

“…the fundamental idea of all thee pagan religious disciplines, both of the Orient and of the Occident, during the period of which we are referring (first millennium B.C), was that the inward turning of the mind (symbolized by the sunset) should culminate in a realization of an identity in esse of the individual (microcosm) and the universe (macrocosm), which, when achieved, would bring together in one order of act and realization the principles of eternity and time, sun and moon, male and female, Hermes and Aphrodite (Hermaphroditus), and the two serpents of the caduceus.”

“The image of the “Meeting of Sun and Moon’ is everywhere symbolic of this instant, and the only unsovled questions in relation to its universality are: a) how far back it goes, b) where it first arose, and c) whether from the start it was read both psychologically and cosmologically.”

“The symbolism was known to Europe, China and Japan, the Aztecs and Navaho…”

The Meton Cycle of 6, 940 days = 235 lunations = 19 years

Note: the New Moon falls on (as per USNO)

December 20 2006 - Solstice Dec 22
December 22 2014 - Solstice Dec 21
December 23 2022 - data unavailable

Proposal: to use December 22nd 2014 as the start date for a new Metonic Cycle. A new name might also be of benefit.

– Synaptic Date (d/m/y/20) - Monday 1.9(7).(0)
– chronological — 2303 days until implementation

The Olympiad

Four-year measures for split-second finishes.

Olympic Calendar:
The first Olympiad is reckoned to the Summer of 776 BCE (Poleptic Gregorian). Each Olympiad = 4 years.

1 CE = AUC* 754 = 3rd year of OL 6 (Olympiad)

June 25, 745 BCE - eclipse of the Sun

AUC* Ab urbe condita = from the founding of the City i.e. Rome
Aprilis 21, AUC 1 = 753 BCE = Founding of Rome

Dividing the Day

beyond Daytime and Nighttime

24 hours x 60 minutes x 60 seconds

Unix Time Stamp’s epoch began January 1 1970 CE and has counted each chronological second since then. This measure of time works similarly to the Julian Date, which counts each chronological day since Monday January 1, 4713 BC in the Proleptic Julian Calendar.

A proleptic calendar measures days prior to its inception as if it had been in use. As Julius Caesar introduced the Julian Calendar in 46 BC, the proleptic calendar measure from an arbitrary staring date, i.e. January 1, 4713 BC until the inception date, 46 BC, then forward.

(see also Roman Calendrics and Plutocratic Mythology)

Among technopolist cultures, clocks abound, rarely out of sight, or more than a question away. The ubiquity of wrist watches, electronics devices, public clocks, computer monitors, receipts, bell towers, and so on. Rarely does one find oneself lost to these points of reference.

The alternative method requires a general understanding of the course of the Sun through Earth’s Heavens - or the apparent motion of the Sun from the perspective of our rotating Earth - during the course of the day from season to season.

Mesopotamian Day & Numerology
In “History Begins at Sumer”, Samuel Kramer tells of the third millennium B.C Sumerian astronomers living along the Tigris River who noticed that there were roughly 360 days in the year. The missing five days were declared occasional holidays.

This number 360 was very convenient since it was divisible by many smaller numbers, so they divided each day into 360 gesh, which were later changed by the Babylonians to 24 hours with two levels of subdivisions.

Present day use of minute and second is traced to the Latin translations of the Babylonian designations for these subdivisions: small bits (minuta -> minutes) and secondary small bits (secunda minuta -> seconds).

Around 2400 B.C. the Sumerians developed an ingenious sexagesimal system to represent all integers from 1 to 59 using 59 different patterns of wedges (cunei . . . cuneiform) which were usually imprinted in soft clay and later hardened. Integers from 60 to 3600 were then represented by a different symbol for 60 which was combined with the other 59 patterns.

Like our decimal system it was positional so that the successive symbols were assumed to be multiplied by decreasing powers of 60. For instance, the number 365 in the decimal system would, in the sexagesimal system, be written 6 5 (= 6 times 60 + 5 times 1), just as 65 in our decimal system of base ten means 6 times 10 plus 5 times 1.

An adventuresome, determined and curious reader with a calculator can verify that the Babylonian number 4 23 36 (equals {4 times 60 times 60} + {23 times 60} + {36 times 1}) represents 15,816 in our decimal system.

Although both the 24-hour day and the 365-day calendar are popularly attributed to the Mesopotamians, it was not until the Babylonians took power in Mesopotamia that this reckoning of time was adopted.

Indian Day
Hindu Astrology & Day
hindu sexagesimal system
hindu metrics of time

A day was divided into
8 Prahara subdivided into 6 Danda (Danda ~ 1/2 hour)

Danda into 25 Laghu
Laghu into 10 Kastha
Kastha into 5 Ksana
Ksana into 3 Nimesa
Nimesa into 3 Lava
Lava into 3 Vedha
Vedha into 100 Truti

Truti ~ 1/300th of a second.

According to Yoga:

10 long syllables (gurvakshara) = 1 respiration (prana)
6 respirations = 1 vinadi
60 vinadis = 1 nadi
60 nadis = 1 day

Smallest measure of time:
Paramanu = 1/60,750th of a second

Other measures

Krati = 1/34,000th of second
Truti = 1/300th of a second
Nimesa = 16/75ths of a second
Vipal = 2/5ths of a second
Ksan = 1 second
Pal = 24 seconds
Minute = 60 seconds
Ghadi = 24 minutes
Hora Hour = 60 minutes
Divasa Day = 24 hours

Chinese Day

The Chinese Calendar uses the 12 animals of their Zodiac, each symbolising a 2-hour period and symbolic association as follows:

23h00 - 01h00 Rat - North - Winter - Black Warrior
01h00 - 03h00 Ox
03h00 - 05h00 Tiger
05h00 - 07h00 Hare - East - Spring - Green Dragon
07h00 - 09h00 Dragon
09h00 - 11h00 Snake
11h00 - 13h00 Horse - South - Summer - Red Bird
13h00 - 15h00 Sheep
15h00 - 17h00 Monkey
17h00 - 19h00 Cock - West - Autumn - White Tiger
19h00 - 21h00 Dog
21h00 - 23h00 Pig

AAAS Resolutions for Calendar Reform

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Resolved, That the American Association for the Advancement of Science approves of any alteration in the calendar that would adjust it to modern conditions for scientific work and that the Association would welcome in this connection cooperation with other bodies such as the committees of the League of Nations that are concerned with this subject.

[Adopted by the AAAS Council, January 1, 1925.]

***

Whereas, This association is already on record as approving a simplification of the calendar; and

Whereas, The League of Nations in 1931 proposed two plans for serious consideration: one, the 13-month plan; the other, the 12-month equal quarters plan known as the World Calendar; and

Whereas, The 12-month equal-quarter plan has the advantages of a minimum of disturbance of the present system and greater flexibility in subdivision of the year; be it therefore

Resolved, That the American Association for the Advancement of Science hereby approves the 12-month equal quarters plan for the simplification of the calendar.

[Adopted by the Executive Committee by Authority of the Council, December 30, 1935.]

Definition of Health for the Masses

societies’ symbioses +1

see also: space, time and medicine, ayurveda, gestation, time and health.

A healthy society, as a city, can be measured by the nature of the relationships between its constituent members.

Using natural ecosystems as a model, the longer-lived old-growth regions, such as in the Pacific NorthWest in North America, a general idea of health can be defined.

Old-growth ecosystems have a number of characteristics in common: expansive diversity of lifeforms and a low incidence of disease. Dis-ease, in this case, refers to relationships the organisms have with one another.

Disease represents an imbalanced relationship between two or more organisms, in which one or more organisms suffer as a result. The most common example of this is parasitism, as with mosquitoes or tapeworms and their host.

Health, in opposition to disease, represents harmonious relationships, in which each participating organism benefits, as with mycorhizal fungi and plants nourishing one another.

Parasitism, in a social context, can be identified as competitive behaviour over the basics of life, such as shelter, land, food, clean water, as opposed to the luxuries.

Health, then, can be identified as cooperative behaviour over the basics, that all might be fed, never thirst, find shelter from harsh circumstances.

Synaptic Calendar and a redefined +1 rule.

The Synaptic Calendar’s synapse, the intercalary green day on the Winter Solstice provides a means for observing our social progress by stepping off the path for a day. It is a pause for thought, of reflection back and forward, to the year past, our memories, and the year ahead, our dreams.

The perpetual structure of the Synaptic Year can only maintain itself with the addition of the exceptional day. With the notion of an intercalary day, acknowledged, yet still outside the calendar, we are including the “other” in our observation of the days

that there always be room for one more: one more day, one more person at the table, one more voice in the choir, one more thoughtful idea.

Call this the +1 rule*.

The Abyss, as the Abysmal, represents all that we do not, and can never know or understand. To acknowledge this is to acknowlege the “other” in its most fundamental form. However, the other can be transformed to acquaintance to friend to intimate to family. The Abyss remains ever unknowable.

Synapsis:
cooperation, mutual beneficence, +1 rule

* the +1 rule refers to the discovery of an subtle differentiating cultural subtext.

backgammon and time

it’s in the numberology

In ancient and current traditions game boards and pieces have been used as a means of both remembering the time and as a fun past-time. Many elements to the game can be associated with modern day calenders :

2 checker colors = day and night

12 points = months of the year and the zodiac

24 points = hours in a day

30 checkers = days of the month

7 as the sum of opposite sides of dice = days of week

Book of Enoch & Time

 Apocryphal References:
quote retrieved from the essay on the possibility of the earth having had a 360-day year.

Book of Enoch destroyed by the Church, preserved in Ethiopia, and found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

If the Earth had a 360-day year, then the Moon would have a 30-day month. Given this assumption, then the passage below, referring to the Moon altering her order, the planets altering their course and so on, then such a time is now.

The weather change its course = “Climate Change”

Ideally, creating a metaphor, a symbol, an image, or series of images, that represent our greatest shared ideals, and applying it to a calendrical system combining measures of days that reflect progressive astronomical, astrological narratives, may change the way we view the Moon and the Sun and our relationship to them.

When our calendar becomes a tool that serves us to learn, and to adopt and to cooperate, instead of merely serving as a coat-hanger for scheduling. 

[note the gratuitous use of the word "And"] 

“2 And in the days of the sinners the years shall be shortened,
And their seed shall be tardy on their lands and fields,
And all things on the earth shall alter,
And shall not appear in their time:
And the rain shall be kept back
And the heaven shall withhold (it).
3 And in those times the fruits of the earth shall be backward,
And shall not grow in their time,
And the fruits of the trees shall be withheld in their time.
4 And the moon shall alter her order,
And not appear at her time.
5 [And in those days the sun shall be seen and he shall journey in the evening on the extremity of the great chariot in the west]
And shall shine more brightly than accords with the order of light.
6 And many chiefs of the stars shall transgress the order (prescribed).
And these shall alter their orbits and tasks,
And not appear at the seasons prescribed to them.
7 And the whole order of the stars shall be concealed from the sinners,
And the thoughts of those on the earth shall err concerning them,
[And they shall be altered from all their ways],
Yea, they shall err and take them to be gods.
8 And evil shall be multiplied upon them,
And punishment shall come upon them So as to destroy all.’”
(The Book of Enoch 80:2-8)

Ezekiel’s Wheel

Cherubim bearing fixed and mobile celestial wheels

 

see 13-months-13-constellations-rebalancing-libra-the-elements/ and Taurus - Leo - Eagle - Aquarius.

Ezekiel

1:4I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north-an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal,

1:5
and in the fire was what looked like 4 living creatures. In appearance their form was that of a man,

1:6
but each of them had 4 faces and 4 wings.

1:7
Their legs were straight; their feet were like those of a calf and gleamed like burnished bronze.

1:8 Under their wings on their 4 sides they had the hands of a man. All 4 of them had faces and wings,

1:9
and their wings touched one another. Each one went straight ahead; they did not turn as they moved.

1:10
Their faces looked like this: Each of the four had the face of a man, and on the right side each had the face of a lion, and on the left the face of an ox; each also had the face of an eagle.

1:11
Such were their faces. Their wings were spread out upward; each had two wings, one touching the wing of another creature on either side, and two wings covering its body.

1:12
Each one went straight ahead. Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, without turning as they went.

1:13
The appearance of the living creatures was like burning coals of fire or like torches. Fire moved back and forth among the creatures; it was bright, and lightning flashed out of it.

1:14
The creatures sped back and forth like flashes of lightning.

1:15
As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the ground beside each creature with its four faces.

1:16
This was the appearance and structure of the wheels: They sparkled like chrysolite, and all four looked alike. Each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel.

1:17
As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the creatures faced; the wheels did not turn about [d] as the creatures went.

1:18
Their rims were high and awesome, and all four rims were full of eyes all around.

1:19
When the living creatures moved, the wheels beside them moved; and when the living creatures rose from the ground, the wheels also rose.

1:20
Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, and the wheels would rise along with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.

1:21
When the creatures moved, they also moved; when the creatures stood still, they also stood still; and when the creatures rose from the ground, the wheels rose along with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.

1:22
Spread out above the heads of the living creatures was what looked like an expanse, sparkling like ice, and awesome.

1:23

Under the expanse their wings were stretched out one toward the other, and each had two wings covering its body.

1:24

When the creatures moved, I heard the sound of their wings, like the roar of rushing waters, like the voice of the Almighty, [e] like the tumult of an army. When they stood still, they lowered their wings.

1:25
Then there came a voice from above the expanse over their heads as they stood with lowered wings.

1:26
Above the expanse over their heads was what looked like a throne of sapphire, [f] and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man.

1: 27
I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him.

1:28
Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him.

***

3:12

Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me a loud rumbling sound—May the glory of the LORD be praised in his dwelling place!-

3:13
the sound of the wings of the living creatures brushing against each other and the sound of the wheels beside them, a loud rumbling sound.

3:14
The Spirit then lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness and in the anger of my spirit, with the strong hand of the LORD upon me.

3:15

I came to the exiles who lived at Tel Abib near the Kebar River. And there, where they were living, I sat among them for seven days-overwhelmed.

***

10:1
I looked, and I saw the likeness of a throne of sapphire [a] above the expanse that was over the heads of the cherubim.

10:2
The LORD said to the man clothed in linen, “Go in among the wheels beneath the cherubim. Fill your hands with burning coals from among the cherubim and scatter them over the city.” And as I watched, he went in.

10: 3
Now the cherubim were standing on the south side of the temple when the man went in, and a cloud filled the inner court.

10:4
Then the glory of the LORD rose from above the cherubim and moved to the threshold of the temple. The cloud filled the temple, and the court was full of the radiance of the glory of the LORD.

10:5
The sound of the wings of the cherubim could be heard as far away as the outer court, like the voice of God Almighty [b] when he speaks.

10:6

When the LORD commanded the man in linen, “Take fire from among the wheels, from among the cherubim,” the man went in and stood beside a wheel.

10:7
Then one of the cherubim reached out his hand to the fire that was among them. He took up some of it and put it into the hands of the man in linen, who took it and went out.

10:8
(Under the wings of the cherubim could be seen what looked like the hands of a man.)

10:9
I looked, and I saw beside the cherubim four wheels, one beside each of the cherubim; the wheels sparkled like chrysolite.

10:10
As for their appearance, the four of them looked alike; each was like a wheel intersecting a wheel.

10:11
As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the cherubim faced; the wheels did not turn about as the cherubim went. The cherubim went in whatever direction the head faced, without turning as they went.

10:12
Their entire bodies, including their backs, their hands and their wings, were completely full of eyes, as were their four wheels.

10:13
I heard the wheels being called “the whirling wheels.”

10:14
Each of the cherubim had four faces: One face was that of a cherub, the second the face of a man, the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle.

10:15
Then the cherubim rose upward. These were the living creatures I had seen by the Kebar River.

10:16
When the cherubim moved, the wheels beside them moved; and when the cherubim spread their wings to rise from the ground, the wheels did not leave their side.

10:17
When the cherubim stood still, they also stood still; and when the cherubim rose, they rose with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in them.

10:18
Then the glory of the LORD departed from over the threshold of the temple and stopped above the cherubim.

10:19
While I watched, the cherubim spread their wings and rose from the ground, and as they went, the wheels went with them. They stopped at the entrance to the east gate of the LORD’s house, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them.

10:20
These were the living creatures I had seen beneath the God of Israel by the Kebar River, and I realized that they were cherubim.

10:21
Each had four faces and four wings, and under their wings was what looked like the hands of a man.

10:22
Their faces had the same appearance as those I had seen by the Kebar River. Each one went straight ahead.

***

11:22
Then the cherubim, with the wheels beside them, spread their wings, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them.

11:23
The glory of the LORD went up from within the city and stopped above the mountain east of it.

11:24
The Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the exiles in Babylonia [d] in the vision given by the Spirit of God.
Then the vision I had seen went up from me,

11:25

and I told the exiles everything the LORD had shown me.

Ezekiel 40 & 41 & 42 & 43
interesting description of the Temple.

44:5
The LORD said to me, “Son of man, look carefully, listen closely and give attention to everything I tell you concerning all the regulations regarding the temple of the LORD. Give attention to the entrance of the temple and all the exits of the sanctuary.”