The Equinoxes
The Spring Equinox
The first great Gate stood open wide. A voice came through that portal: "Hercules, my son, go forth. Pass through the Gate and enter on the Way. Perform thy labor and return to me, reporting on the deed.
The Equinoxes and the Solstices mark the beginning of the seasons in the Northern Hemisphere and also mark the entry of the sun into each of the cardinal zodiac signs.
Precession Of The Equinoxes: The gradual westward shift (about 50' each year) of the equinoctial points along the ecliptic due to the ecliptic due to the rotational movement of the poles of Earth's axis.
The Precession of the Equinoxes
This Precession-of-the-Equinoxes page and the entire website are excerpted from You and the Universe, a handmade, individualized fine art book on astrology, ...
page 37, You and the Universe: precession of equinoxes
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Equinoxes: spring (0 Aries) and autumn (0 Libra) the midpoints between the solstices; the days when sunrise to sunset are equal through day and night; times of energy-transition.
Equinoxes represent the two points of intersection of the Ecliptic and the Celestial Equator. Sun transits over them when day and night are equal. These points slowly move backward. This is known as precision of equinoxes.
The equinoxes are commonly defined as the moment wherein the Sun reaches the point at which the plane of the ecliptic intersects the plane of the equator.
Equinoctial Signs.
Aries and Libra. v. Signs ...
The equinoxes occur on the 21st of March when the Sun enters Aries, and the 21st of September when the Sun enters Libra. At those times the day and night are of equal length all over the earth. See 'Equator,' and 'Precession of the Equinox.' ...
Equinox, Equinoxes. One of either of two times during the year when the sun crosses the celestial equator and the length of the day and night are approximately equal. The term means "equal night." See also "Vernal Equinox" and Autumn Equinox.
Precession of the Equinoxes
This term refers to way the equinoxes move backwards very slowly through the zodiac, due to a wobble in the Earth's rotation.
At the times of the equinoxes, the Sun is apparently traveling along the line of the equator and is at 0 degrees declination, but at the time of the solstices (the longest day or night), the Sun is 23' 27.5" from the equator, thus at 23' 27.
Precession of the Equinoxes: Refers to the slow movement of the Vernal Equinox in a backward motion in relation to the constellations which make up the sidereal zodiac.
The latter represents the end of a 25,920 year cycle -- a cycle based on the Precession of the Equinoxes.
The length of the astronomical cycle of the precession of the equinoxes is calculated to be almost 25,786 years, or, as Yeats gives it, roughly 26,000 years (AV B 252 & 254).
Because of the precession of the equinoxes, over the centuries the twelve zodiacal signs in Western astrology no longer correspond to the same part of the sky as their original constellations.
By the time of Hipparchus, however (2nd century BCE), the equinoxes and solstices were slipping noticeably out of sync with the beginnings of the constellations they were identified with.
Main article: Precession of the equinoxes
The signs of the zodiac do not necessarily coincide with the actual constellations for which they are named.
It goes something like this: "Due to the precession of the equinoxes, the Sun at a given time of year is no longer in the sign it was 2,000 years ago. Therefore you are not really an Aries, but a Pisces! ...
I was trying to make a point that Tropical Astrologers should take into account the precession of the equinoxes. The system they used from Ptolemy was aligned with the stars 2000 years ago. It's important to maintain that.
(Astrologers in non-Western traditions use different systems.) The tropical, or solar, year is measured relative to the sun and is the time between successive vernal equinoxes (365 days, 5 hr, 48 min, 46 sec of mean solar time).
The end result is that approximately every 2,160 years (i.e. 1/12th of 25,920 years), the Precession of the Equinoxes appears to rotate the spring equinox from one constellation to another.
Wiccan practices are based on the "Wheel of the Year," with four major festivals on fixed dates, four lesser festivals at the solstices and equinoxes, and sometimes minor festivals centering around phases of the moon.
The grand-papa of all of our cycles is the Precession of the Equinoxes.
Of these, the last movement known as the precession of the equinoxes is responsible for the development of the concept of a sidereal or fixed zodiac that was widely used for horoscopic calculations in Indian astrology.
The arithmetic difference between planetary positions calculated sidereally and tropically is a value for what is called the procession of the equinoxes, or the Ayanaunsh. Today, this difference is 24 degrees.
This slight movement is known as the precession of Equinoxes. The zodiac, which reckons the first degree of Aries from the equinoctial point, which has a precession every year, is the movable zodiac or Sayana adopted by the western astrologers.
(190-120) Hipparchus- figures out the precession of the Equinoxes. Hipparchus also composed a star catalog listing some 1000 stars. (150) Mystical writings of Nechepso in Egypt. (135) Birth of Posidonius - teacher of astrology to the Romans.
These ages are based on the precession of the equinoxes that shifts the alignment of the Earth to the ecliptic plane. And there's great interest in this current age as a time of the old world dying, and a new one being born.
Because the precession of the equinoxes now places the traditional Via Combusta some ten degrees earlier, this stricture is often ignored.
The Sun's entry into these signs marks the equinoxes and solstices. The first day the Sun is in Aries is the first day of Spring (in the Northern hemisphere). The first day he is in Cancer is the first day of Summer.
The two zodiacs are constantly drifting farther apart due to what is called the precession of the equinoxes (they are currently about 24 degrees apart).
Astrological TERMS introduced here: Tropical Astrology, Signs, Seasons, Zodiac, Vernal Equinox, Sidereal Astrology, Star, Constellation, Precession of the Equinoxes, A Great Year, An Age, Age of Aquarius, Ecliptic, Heliocentric Astrology, ...
These stars once marked the cardinal points of the equinoxes and the solstices. They are also known as the Archangel stars being watchers of the four points of the compass. They were characterised as horses, the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.
[7] Information typically contained therein included information on the Moon, planets, solstices, equinoxes, Sirius, meteors, comets, the weather, commodity prices, river levels and historical events.
Ayanamsa - The difference between the starting point of the Tropical and Sidereal Zodiacs, due to the precession of the equinoxes.
Part 4 of "Taurus Teaching Tips", Taurean Michael Star discusses the astronomical "Age of Taurus", how "Precession of the Equinoxes" creates an Age and how it is determined, why Constellations and Signs are not the same, ...
Equinoctial Signs - Aries and Libra. These signs hold the vernal and autumnal equinoxes.
On the saphea, the projection is from one of the equinoxes and the celestial sphere is projected onto the great circle of the celestial sphere defined by the poles and the solstices (the solsticial colure). That is, the projection is from the "side".
Even connoisseurs of astrology in the west accept the astronomical basis for precession of the equinoxes and the moving Sidereal Zodiac in respect of World Ages.
The points at which the Sun's apparent orbit intersects the Equator are the Equinoxes, and the points of greatest separation are the Solstices. (These names have to do with an entirely different but coincidental factor.
v. Precession
.) ...
But to it you should add others things that would help you to comprehend the cosmic phenomena [equinoxes, solstices, phases of the Moon, high and low tides, eclipses, etc., etc.
IC means the bottom of the heavens. This represents home, family and ancestry. Ingress Signs - these signs coincide with the solstices and equinoxes and include the Cardinal signs: Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn.
The classical Greeks named the Tropical Signs for the constellations that, at that time, approximately coincided. Due to the Precession of the Equinoxes, the Signs and the Constellations no longer coincide. See also Zodiac.
In Tropical Astrology the qualities associated with the signs are linked to the seasons, rather than to the fixed stars, and therefore the precession of the equinoxes and the growing difference between the Tropical Signs and the relative positions ...
 See also: Equinox, Sun, Astrology, Earth, Planet
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