The Truth About Time

I often smile at astrology critics who believe that what happens in the sky above has zero influence on what transpires on the earth. The very way we go about our lives is governed by how the ancients observed the planets to organize time.

To be fair, the ancients weren’t describing rocks orbiting in space as having any physical influence on the Earth. They were more interested in what the planets represented by their movement.

As they began to plant their own crops, they looked to the heavens. Observing the movement of the planets, the Heavens taught them about time.

Planetary movement allowed the ancients to predict what will happen, days, months and even years into the future. The rotation of the Sun and Moon allowed them to follow the year, month, day, hour and even the 60 minutes within the hour.

Babylonian Mathematics and the Base-60 System

The division of time into 60-minute hours and 60-second minutes can be traced back to the sexagesimal (base-60) numeral system. The Babylonians, who lived around 2000 BCE in Mesopotamia, inherited the base-60 system from the earlier Sumerians.

This system was useful because 60 is a highly divisible number, with divisors like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30. This made calculations, particularly with fractions, much easier. The idea of dividing time and the circle into 60 units comes from ancient Sumerian mathematics and astronomy.

Identifying the Year

Solstice is a word that means when the ‘Sun stands still.’ Over the year, the Sun appears to shift and rise from a slightly different angle. After the summer solstice, the Sun begins to drift southward until the winter solstice, when it travels back to the north.

This movement is really from our perspective on the Earth, because the Earth is tilting on its axis.

Equinox means ‘equal night’ when the period of daylight matches to the period of darkness. During the equinox, the Sun rises due East and sets due West.

If you were to place a marker in the ground and mark the shadow each day, you would see how the Sun is rising from different locations throughout the year.

This is why we have many solar calendar monuments like Stonehenge and Chichen Itza. The ancients would have observed how an equal period of time could be broken into 24 hour bits that held 12 hours light and 12 hours of darkness at the equinox.

But the Moon too, displayed systematic movement. The idea of 12 months in a year is not apparent by the movement of the Sun. It comes from how the Moon ‘disappears’ and ‘reappears’ over the year. Before we established our modern calendars, each year had 12 new Moons.

In a way, we've lost our connection to nature's way of Time.

The Book of Enoch, found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, describes the first month coinciding with the Spring equinox. Many cultures use the first new Moon as the beginning of the year, while others, like the Jewish New Year, use the Fall equinox as the start of the New Year.

Establishing the Hour

Ancient people, including the Babylonians, were very concerned with observing the movement of the heavens, and they recognized the regularity of cycles like the lunar phases, solstices, and equinoxes.

The division of a circle into 360 degrees likely came from these astronomical observations. It was a convenient approximation of the number of days in a year (close to 365) and allowed for precise angular measurement of celestial bodies.

They divided the day into 12 "double hours" based on how the Sun moved through in the 12 constellations of the zodiac. They chose these constellations because they are located on the ecliptic, or the sliver of a path where the Sun and planets moved through the sky.

These ‘double hours’ became the 24 smaller units of a day. The hour was further divided into 60 minutes, and each minute into 60 seconds, using their base-60 system.

Invention of the Circle

The use of 360 degrees to represent a circle is believed to have originated from this same sexagesimal system, tied to early observations of the Sun's path across the sky, with 360 degrees approximating the solar year.

From Meso-America to Sumeria, this division allowed for easy calculations of angles and positions of celestial objects.

While the days in a year were eventually changed to 365, the Sumerian, Egyptian, Rig Veda from India, and Mayan Long Count calendar all described the year as 360 days.

It wasn’t until we realized that the Earth was orbiting the Sun (taking roughly 365 days) that the calendar was changed to 365 days.

Legacy and Adoption

Astronomy passed from Babylon to Egypt and to Greece and then to the Romans. This is why we find many elements of Babylonian timekeeping and astronomy.

Although the Romans used different numeric systems, the sexagesimal system’s division of hours and degrees persisted.

In the Roman era, this division became formalized as the 24-hour day, with hours, minutes, and seconds being subdivided using the base-60 system.

The idea of dividing the hour into 60 minutes comes from the same mathematical principles that led the Babylonians to divide a circle into 360 degrees. Their base-60 system proved convenient for both timekeeping and astronomy, influencing how we still measure time and space today.

Deeper Aspects of Astrology

The movement of the heavens revealed guidance that aided the ancients on when to plant and when to harvest. In Egypt, ancient temples were aligned to capture the appearance of Sirius, which was embodied Isis. It signaled the inundation of the Nile, or the tears of Isis.

6500 years ago, when the Babylonian and Sumerian civilizations thrived, the snake constellation, Hydra appeared during the winter solstice. This constellation disappears below the celestial horizon during the summer solstice.

The regenerating snake motif, popular across virtually all cultures, may have originated from the movement of Hydra.

The planet Venus too, also appeared to demonstrate irregular and underworld behavior. As the Morning Star, Venus is visible in the eastern sky just before sunrise for about 9 months.

When it passes between the Earth and Sun, or moves to the other side of the Sun, it ‘disappears.’ This led to stories about an archetype descending or being abducted into the underworld.

Venus becomes the Evening Star when it 'magically' reappears in the western sky just after sunset. It remains visible for about 9 months.

Astrology Today

Astrology has a rich heritage tracing back to our earliest civilizations. After thousands of years of measuring celestial progressions against world events, the movement of the planets through the constellations continue to tell a story.

It may be that the heavens captured the imagination of the ancients who watched it, allowing the archetypes and stories to become more defined.

This would be similar to how a popular Netflix series can become the Zeitgeist of the time.

It may be that consciousness, before the development of language and left-brain dominance, gave the ancients access to inspired guidance. This source of rich inspiration and symbols arises during dreaming, when the right-brain is active.

We wake up into the dominant left-brain and the symbols of the right-brain dissolve. This is why we have difficulty remembering our dreams.

While we may have lost our connection to this insightful source of inspiration, Astrologers still access this vision today.

Either way, the story of the stars is alive and well in modern times. Each morning when we rise, we honor a system of celestial behavior that will regulate our entire day.