sidereal or tropical?
Today I’m here to discuss something technical, but hopefully in an inspirited way: sidereal and tropical measurements of the lunar stations. This essay is broken into two sections seeking to answer the question: should we use tropical or sidereal coordinates when working with the lunar stations? The first answer to this question will be a historical one; the second answer an esoteric one. We’ll start by reviewing some of the research I’ve done on sidereal and tropical approaches to the lunar mansions, then I’ll attempt to answer this question in terms of gnosis by telling you what God told me when I asked her.
part 1: the ecliptic as a cultural practice
An illustration of a Chinese astronomical map from the Song Dynasty, showing the way that the sky (except the pole in the circle in the center) was divided into 28 unequal stations based on the stars, via Wikipedia
This question is contentious and convoluted. On its surface it is often summarized simply: in Jyotish, they use the sidereal zodiac for everything and in Western astrology, we use the tropical zodiac for everything.
As the mainstream discourse seems to go amongst English-speaking astrologers, the mansions have basically always been used following the tropical zodiac by astrologers west of India, with station 1 (Sharaṭain) starting at 0º tropical Aries. Case closed.
But is this actually true?
To summarize what is an extremely complicated topic, Chinese and Indian astronomers have a well-established tradition for interaction with their lunar station systems. There is extensive debate about which of these two cultures innovated the system of the lunar zodiac, but both systems are extremely ancient and important to their respective cultures. Let’s leave it at that. The Indian astrological approach is very straightforward, using the sidereal zodiac (typically using the Lahiri ayanamsa but not always) for their measurement of the 12 signs of the zodiac and their 27 nakshatra नक्षत्र. [1] The Chinese approach to the ecliptic is much more complicated (and Chinese astrology seems to be less invested in the ecliptic specifically than Indian or Greco-Islamicate western astrology). My understanding is that they traditionally use a tropical zodiac, but then draw boundaries for their xiù 宿 based on the positions of their indicator stars (so, using a sidereal system). The xiù, at least in their most canonical form, also use what is sometimes called a “constellational” approach, in which each station’s size varies depending on how close or far the various indicator stars are. [2]
Those who specialize in such things tell me that the Sassanian Persians used a sidereal zodiac and that the stations as a formalized system likely emerged into Arabic-speaking culture through the bridge Persian culture formed with the civilization of India. [3] So, at least at the beginning, the stations we’re discussing were calculated sidereally.
It seems like this question of sidereal vs tropical haunted astrologers for centuries—
What a relief! We’re surrounded by ancestors.
I found that Abraham ibn Ezra, a Jewish astrologer-rabbi from Spain, argued for a constellational approach to the stations (just about the same as the Chinese one described above) or at least a sidereal approach, even though he used the tropical zodiac for everything else. [4] Ibn Ezra’s argument is essentially the same as mine: if the lunar stations are defined by certain stars, shouldn’t we be interpreting them by the Moon’s physical presence near the stars? Ibn Ezra was highly educated in the Arabic language and made the important observation that most of the names of the stations were identical to the names of their stars (or otherwise directly referenced them). Hundreds of years after the fall of the Sassanian Empire, across the world, the idea of the sidereal stations hadn’t died out.
Ibn Ezra lived and wrote in the Islamicate cultural milieu of the medieval Iberian peninsula, so maybe part of his approach was focused on his own Arabic scholarship? Even that doesn’t seem to be the case: I’ve found intimations of sidereal/constellational station systems in popular astrological textbooks in late-medieval/early-renaissance Europe, written in languages like German and English. [5] Note that this phase of the astrological tradition in the late 1600s represented some of the very tail end of “traditional astrology” until its revival in the 20th century. From the earliest introduction of the lunar stations to some of their latest iterations, astrologers have asked continuously how to integrate the stars into our judgements.
The idea that so-called Westerners have always used only the tropical stations is a myth. It is has been an ongoing conversation all along.
Both / And instead of Either / Or?
There are reasonable theoretical arguments for both the sidereal and tropical stations. As I’ve said above, I am personally inclined to agree with ibn Ezra that it makes the most sense to ground the stations in their indicator stars. This is the primary theoretical push of the project I am presenting, and I want to advocate for it considering that it seems to not be the mainstream perspective.
I don’t want to pretend that the tropical stations are without merit, though.
One of the primary uses for the stations in Arabic-speaking cultures are their connection to weather and the seasons. The anwā’ • أنواء are groupings of stars associated with the bringing of seasonal rains [6], which are of vital importance for the inhabitants of the arid environments of Mesopotamia and the Arabian Peninsula. As I understand it, these stars were grouped together something like parans with one star/asterism having its heliacal set at the same time as another star/asterism had its heliacal rise on the other side of the sky. [7] In other words, these stars are on opposite sides of the sky and either rise or set at (roughly) the same time. They’re bound together not by actual proximity but rather the fact that the transition heliacal phase around the same time of year. The setting stars are called the anwā’ and the rising stars are called the ruqabā’ [8] • رقباء. The manāzil themselves are often described as subdivisions of these larger anwā’ groupings, and so there is a strong seasonal element to the interpretation of the lunar stations.
This seasonal element is often given in Arab culture as a naturalistic explanation of what the stations are and how they exert their influence on the world. Another seasonal element that we see in, for example, al-Buni’s Shams al-Ma’arif • The Sun of Knowledge, is the connection between the stations and temperament. Stations can be described as hot or cold, wet or dry, or even just temperate. All of these associations arise from a seasonal metaphor.
The connection between the stars and the seasons is extremely tenuous—it makes sense on the short span of human lives, but on the scale of centuries they fall apart. The “wet” stars that brought the seasonal rains to Yemen upon their heliacal set no longer co-occur with those rains anymore (and haven’t for centuries). The seasonal variations of temperature associated with a given station don’t happen during that station’s activation any more.
So what do we do about that?
It seems to me that the manāzil have always had a blend of stellar and seasonal attributes that are intrinsic to their nature. It’s not possible to extricate their sidereal and tropical traits from each other.
Maybe we shouldn’t try?
There are technical issues that arise as the solstices precess forward so we have to pick a method to ground ourselves in. The method that I have been lead to use myself is the sidereal one. Let’s leave it at that for now.
A final note against dessication
Dessication means “the state of being dried up,” something that I want all of my work to be a caution against.
A sidereal approach to the stations seems to be a relatively minority perspective, at least for those who use the tropical zodiac otherwise. There is a group of people using the sidereal nakshatras along with the tropical zodiac (Vic DiCara being a good entry point to their scene) but they are working with the 27 station Indian nakshatra system. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course! We selenophiles have so much to learn from the nakshatras!
But what I have been drawn to are the Islamicate manāzil, and a sidereal approach to them is in the minority. I want my work to provide an example of how we can investigate this system from a place of curiosity, but I don’t want to create my own dogmatic camp.
All of these approaches to the lunar zodiac deserve a seat at this table. Sidereal, tropical, constellational, all of them.
My goal is to contribute to building shared gnosis. That requires a big table!
Really, all of these systems are cultural models for relating with the greater universe, which follows no such regimented order as the perfect Hellenistic ecliptic attempts to envision. Perhaps they have more value if they aren’t taken completely dogmatically but rather with an open-mind?
Our ancestors have taught us that the lunar spirits are shapeshifters. Working with them, the magician can produce a talisman for invisibility or a spell to open locked doors. These spirits detest borders and gatekeeping.
Perhaps we can show respect to this class of spirits and our inquisitive ancestors by disregarding borders too?
part 2: on the role of gnosis
For it attracts in the same hour, it sends dreams (oneiropompeî), it causes sickness, produces dream visions (oneirautopteî), removes enemies when you reverse the spell, however you wish. But above all be protected by a protective charm and do not approach the procedure carelessly or else the goddess is angry.
— PGM IV 2622-2707
Space Encounter by Frank Frazetta, cover art for Writer's of the Future: Volume V, via WikiArt
The way all of this started was through a dream divination spell.
With all of my astrological work, one of my top goals is to maintain rigorous standards of research and citation. I love digging through journals and inspecting papyri, and I’m excited to share the interesting things I’ve found with all of you. But at its root, this is an esoteric practice. I have no illusions about the scientific nature of esoteric knowledge; it’s just the wrong tool to use for this way of seeing the world. My own orientation as an astrologer is heavily informed by the work of Geoffrey Cornelius, may his memory be a blessing. Cornelius explains in The Moment of Astrology that astrology is primarily a divinatory practice, a “gift of the soul” as he puts it. Divination is better approached as a traditional ancestral craft, like basket-weaving or ship-building, rather than a formalized science.
I want to provide a true and honest citation for where any assertion I make comes from and, sometimes, that means citing dreams and divination.
Gnosis?
Gnosis, at least the way I’m using it, refers to a kind of revealed knowledge brought forth through spiritual contemplation of a subject. The kind of gnosis I describe isn’t gathered from books and articles, but from direct relation with the spirits who haunt these texts. Sometimes we see others sneer at UPG, unverified/unsubstantiated personal gnosis. Discernment is a vital skill, but I would argue that gnosis is inherently relational and personal. As we share our gnosis with other knowledge-seekers, we may deepen it through our relationships with other human spirits (sometimes I and others have called this “shared gnosis”). Even as we share, though, what the spirits reveal to us individually remains personal. And all real gnosis is unverified. Who could verify divine revelation? It is up to practitioners to develop their own tools of discernment and, ideally, connect with others to support them in navigating notoriously destabilizing contact with the spirit world.
The station stroll is a gnosis gathering project.
“it sends dreams [and] produces dream visions”
In the summer of 2022, I received a tarot deck that I had supported on Indiegogo, The PGM Tarot by Jason Augustus Newcomb. Up until that point, I had been performing various lunar magic and remedies on my lunar return each month for a little over a year. My natal Moon, as I’ve written about in the past, isn’t in great shape. These remedies became a nucleation site from which my magical practice developed into its current form. As we get into it, I think you’ll agree that it makes sense that this project was born from the womb of the dark Moon in Capricorn.
Each month, I would make and consume lunar remedies outside at night and do a quick divination about whatever intersections of fate I had found myself in that month, looking towards the coming month. Sometimes I would do a bit of magic and on an especially well-aspected return I had made lunar mansion talismans. I did whatever divination I felt called to on a given month, usually geomancy, tarot, or yijing. For my return in June that year, I was excited to try out my new deck.
The 9 of Wands from the PGM Tarot. At the top, a lunar phylactery, in the middle a minor arcana scene, and at the bottom a Homeromanteion lot: “and I shall send him wherever his heart and spirit urge him.”
Newcomb’s tarot is a fascinating system—it is a tarot, for sure, but it heavily incorporates many interesting elements of Greco-Egyptian occulture into it. Each of the minor arcana contain a more or less PCS-esque scene as you’d expect, but also a spell from the PGM on top and a token from the bibliomantic Homeromanteion on the bottom. Rather than full spread, I chose to draw a single card to help me get to know this dense system he’d created. I drew the 9 of Wands, depicted on the right (or above on mobile). Newcomb’s guidebook explains that the spell is a protective charm from PGM IV 2622 - 2707.
The Homeromanteion token I had been given felt so evocative to me. That summer I had found myself in a major crossroads: I had recently moved to a new town where I knew no one, I been admitted to a competitive academic program, one of my long term romantic relationships was falling apart. Everything in my life appeared to be in flux amid my impending Saturn return.
Sitting in the dark, I felt compelled by the spell presented in front of me. Homer, the original magician-ancestor in Greek culture, says “I shall send him wherever his heart and spirit urge him” to me. My heart and spirit definitely felt urged by the charm.
I dashed back into the house to grab my copy of the PGM and read the spell I’d been given by nothing but the flickering candles and the light of the waxing gibbous Moon rising. Its introduction is quoted at the top—it appears to be a spell to the Moon that does anything within the purview of the lunar sphere. The charm on tarot card is a phylactery, a magical charm which was inscribed onto something (in this case, cardstock) to provide protection in encounters with divinity.
The way I approached “casting” it followed the urges of spirit. I decided to suffumigate the tarot card with the lunar incense I’d been using and ask for Selene to send me a dream. At that time, the question plaguing me was a super technical astrological one:
Should I use tropical or sidereal coordinates when working with the lunar stations?
I had talked to so many other practitioners, read everything I could, and I still couldn’t decide. I mean, I could really see technical and esoteric arguments in both directions. I was at a complete impasse.
So I decided: maybe I should just ask Selene herself?
Outside, I raised the perfumed tarot card to the glowing silver orb and asked from the bottom of my heart what the Queen of the Night thought I should do. Then, without doing anything else or speaking to anyone, I went straight to bed.
Selene’s dream
i dreamed i was questing through a dark and decaying city with a small group of people. i didn’t recognize any of them. the city appeared to be long under siege, with uncontrolled fires burning in collapsed buildings and no living thing in sight. perhaps the siege had been long ago and this was the desolation left in its wake. my group was led by someone else, i was just following along.
we reached the end of our journey: a tall building, the only one remaining standing in the destroyed city. when we entered, it appeared to be an office building inside. the lower levels were derelict, but the elevator was working. my group piled in and headed up. we stopped intermittently, but each floor we hit was just as destroyed as the last.
finally, we reached the top, and the elevator opened into a clean, white office. the floors and walls gleamed with an inner light, all of the fixtures and accents were shining silver. a tall woman with long straight black hair burst out of an office, swarmed with advisors. she held a laptop open in one hand and was responding to emails while her attendants harried her with overlapping questions. members of my party chased after her as she went into the elevator and headed back downstairs, others wandered off in other directions.
alone, i found my way into a corner room where a short woman with mousy brown hair sat in front of a perfume organ. she seemed relaxed and unbothered. she invited me to sit down to mix a bespoke perfume together, which she poured into a little vial and gifted to me. she told me she hoped it would help and gave me some words of encouragement.
then i woke up.
Okay, but sidereal or tropical?!
It’s been my experience that a dream divination doesn’t always reveal its meaning initially, it takes some interpretation. I spent the day after furiously texting my friends and discussing the dream with my partner and pouring over what it might have meant. I cast a dream horary for the time I woke up and interpreted it following the techniques of Sahl ibn Bishr. As time passed, the interpretation I settled on was this:
The woman with the straight black hair was the spirit of the moon’s tropical station in my nativity, Sa’d al-Bul’a (station 23)
The mousy woman was the spirit of my nativity’s sidereal station, al-Balda (station 21). Through my research, I learned that my natal Moon actually shares her degree with the projected degree of the 21st stations indicator star, π Sagittarii (whose traditional name is identical to the Arabic name of the station)
My natal sidereal station and its star have something special to offer me. My tropical station isn’t who I need to be chasing after on my lunar returns.
Maybe the Moon can be in two stations at once? There are strong arguments for each approach, maybe each individual practitioner just has to choose which coordinate system resonates with their soul?
If you look back to my intro post, this interpretation is the foundation of the approach I have chosen to take with the stations. Perhaps this story can serve as an example of how to navigate esoteric research.
Maybe you can decide which system you should focus on by asking the Moon to send you a dream?
Notes
[1] Hart de Fouw & Robert Svoboda. 2011. Light on Life: An Introduction to the Astrology of India. Arkana.
[2] Derek Walters. 2002. Chinese Astrology. Watkins.
[3] Daniel Martin Varisco. 1991. The Origin of the anwā’ in the Arab Tradition. Studia Islamica, 74, 5–28. https://doi.org/10.2307/1595894
[4] Shlomo Selah. 2009. Abraham Ibn Ezra The Book of the World. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004179141.i-356. See section 62, p 93 (and Selah’s discussion on p 148)
[5] see Book 3, Chapter 3 of William Ramesey’s Astrology Restored as a late 17th century English example or Planeten Buch for a late 16th century German one
[6] The singular is naw’ • نوء and can mean “present” or “gift.” I think the metaphor is something like the storm clouds rising up in heaps bringing the gift of life.
[7] Parans are a fascinating concept, far too complex to explain in this paragraph. The anwā’ and ruqabā’ aren’t exactly in paran to each other but I think it’s an interesting comparison to consider them as a kind of star grouping based on timing rather than apparent location. Check out this article for more about the history and theory of parans.
[8] The singular is raqīb • رقيب. A raqīb is a guard or sentry—to me it seems like the anwā’ are disappearing, leaving the gift of rain in their wake, while the raqīb guard the stormy skies in their absence.