that's interesting.. i am curious how the siderealists view bi-corporal signs? anyone have an idea? i can't imagine it being based the seasons, but i don't know.

James wrote:

i am curious how the siderealists view bi-corporal signs? anyone have an idea? i can't imagine it being based the seasons, but i don't know.

Hi James,

I think you will find an answer if you check out this ongoing thread on the sidereal forum:

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8223

Mark

Oops, looks like Mark beat me to the punch.

@johannes:

What does it mean to "announce the end of one season and the beginning of another"?

Deb and Mark,

Regarding your discussion on the first page of the VP shifting throught the signs, from perhaps 15 degress to 10, 8, etc., I don't understand how the autumn equinox would have fallen within Virgo in Manilius' time or before. I don't see how any Virgoan symbolism would contain such a thing. The equinox would've been in the other direction, i.e. Libra.

Please forgive me if I either missed your points or am off in visualizing the mechanics.

Phil

Larxene wrote:[...] in Virgo, the season contains both spring-like and winter-like events?

If in your question you would replace Virgo by Pisces, i.e.:

[...] in Pisces, the season contains both spring-like and winter-like events.

then this would hit the teachings of Manilius perfectly, him saying

johannes susato wrote:II, 178-180:

"The reason why the bi-corporeals precede the tropics as Aries, Libra, Cancer, and Capricorn, is because they, connecting two seasons, contain double forces."

Thank you johannes, but I do not understand something. As someone who lives in a place where seasons don't really exist, I have no first-hand experience with the them.

So how do the seasons change? Is it like, today is winter, and suddenly tomorrow is spring? Because if that is the case, then the vernal equinox should lie in Pisces, not Aries, since Pisces contains both seasons, and the seasons change or "turn" in it.

Larxene wrote:Thank you johannes, but I do not understand something. As someone who lives in a place where seasons don't really exist, I have no first-hand experience with the them.

So how do the seasons change? Is it like, today is winter, and suddenly tomorrow is spring? Because if that is the case, then the vernal equinox should lie in Pisces, not Aries, since Pisces contains both seasons, and the seasons change or "turn" in it.

The state of the longest, shortes and equal day you can determine exactly.

I really don't know if at all it is as proper as it seems to be, to allot the signs to the seasons or vice versa. Above all the beginnings and endings of the seasons cannot be determined as exactly as solstices and equinoxes, because they are a process and an average of temperature and apearances in nature more than a determined state.

But nevertheless here, in the middle of Europe, there is a clear difference between winter and spring. To say it simply, the winter is cold, the trees are without leaves, nature does not move, even the water of rivers and lakes is often frozen.

In spring there are blossoms in the trees and flowers spread in the grass and gardens. The Sun gains in power, and you can feel it on your skin, and even if sometimes there will be some cold again, it is only for a very short time, mostly during the nights. In spring the trees get all their leaves again and together with the bushes they are like walls again.

Between winter and spring, at the time of Pisces, the cold of the winter gets 'cracks' seen in the ice for example. You can feel more than see that the green in the trees is about to come out of the grey, and even some very special flowers, snowdrops and crocus for example, are ridicilous and bold enough even to break through the snow.

So Pisces has - being placed between winter and spring two forces: still that of the winter, and already some of spring. See Manilius.

Johannes, thank you. I understand now.

Again, I think it is important to distinguish climate seasons from solar seasons. Sometimes ancient astrologers (like Valens book I and Ptolemy) refer to weather and climate changes, not equinoxes and solstices. Sometimes I think they refer to agriculture seasons, which could be a little different, yet again. Anciently, the sun was in the constellation Virgo during the grape harvest and perhaps the wheat harvest, if memory serves. (Sorry, traveling now with no time to check.) The other "shoulder season" attribute of late summer and early autumn was that these were planting times for winter wheat and winter barley. The "virgin" seed grain meant that it had not yet been "fertilized" by the autumn rains.

The constellation Virgo's agricultural associations here are impressive: the woman holding the stalk of grain. (More anciently, as Gavin notes, the date palm frond.) She also has the star Vindiamatrix: " harbinger of the grape harvest."

It may be worth noting that the fall equinox has warmer average temperatures than the spring equinox, as it benefits from the summer heating of the earth's surface; whereas the spring equinox is just pulling out of winter in the northern hemisphere. The onset of the all-important rainy season in the Mediterranean climate zone would occur in mid- to -late autumn defined by the solar calendar.