The Question of Time in Astrology
A fundamental, yet often neglected, question in astrology is how do we keep time? In the roots of the tradition, astrology was inseparable from that pursuit. The art arose not as a system of symbolic abstractions floating free of the real world, but as a way of reading time from the movements of the heavens. The Sun’s yearly path along the ecliptic, the Moon’s phases, the rising and setting of fixed stars, the conjunctions of superior planets – these were clocks. To know the time was to watch the sky’s aliveness.
Our timekeeping is only a loose descendant of this older framework. We still honor the solar year and lunar month in name, but most of our civil timekeeping is divorced from observable phenomena. Current clocks tick with a bureaucratic rigidity. Time is now more abstract, imagined as a single line of uniform motion. Traditional astrology, by contrast, placed its measures within the visible cycles of the sky. It treated time not as discrete and linear, but as cyclical, a complex weave of overlapping patterns, each cycle resonating with others.
MEANING / ROOTED IN TIME
My engagement with this material is at once technical and ideological. Within the zeitgeist of contemporary secular materialism, astrology has been divested of one of its most essential truths: its medium is time itself. Mundane charts, properly understood, remind us that we are not isolated individuals but participants in overlapping temporal rhythms that extend beyond our lives and frame our living in webs of relationship. They foreground the recursive nature of historical process: what has been conditions what will be, and the present moment serves as both consequence and cause, the inscription of the future within the present.
Astrology reminds us of the importance of the root chart. All moments are connected to roots that precede them. In astrology, there is no way to understand “now” without first understanding “then.” There is no way to know what will be without knowing what is and what was.
Similarly, astrology teaches us to think of time differently. It encourages us to reflect on time’s unfolding in multiple cycles of irregular and overlapping rhythms all expressed in an alive present. It asks us to consider time’s expression through multiple tempos and textures.( brontez) In this framework, the “present” cannot be imagined as neutral or self-contained; (nothing is neutral or self contained) rather, it is continuously refracted through cycles that extend beyond individual lifespans. Time cannot be conceived as a unique line of novel unravelling. Each moment spirals within a complex web of root charts, themselves unraveling at different cadences simultaneously over time. This situates every moment in vast cycles of recurrence and transformation. Every chart is both a seed and a root.
This raises a series of critical questions. What if individual charts (even our own nativities) were approached not as isolated texts but as embedded within these broader temporal frameworks? What if world horoscopes were understood as “root charts,” requiring us to situate our own nativities (and by extension our lives) within their unfolding patterns? And further, what might it mean to cultivate responsibility toward these mundane roots and the world they represent? What would it mean to dramatically reframe our awareness of time and think of our present as part of long lineages of history? To see ourselves as seeds inside larger cycles, responsible to the living future and the present past?
Abu Maʿshar’s Book of Religions and Dynasties, also known as On the Great Conjunctions lays out an elegant system of temporal architecture. Abu Maʿshar’s analysis of the Jupiter–Saturn cycle provides a particularly robust framework. Ma ‘Shar’s schema organizes history through the conjunctional periods of Jupiter and Saturn in idealized 20, 60, 240, and 960-year cycles.
Three of Abu Ma'Shar's Six Elements
For today’s post, we’ll keep things simple. I’ve been experimenting with drawing diagrams that help students visualize these cycles, especially those eager to deepen their understanding of astrological time. We will examine how the cycles of Jupiter and Saturn are combined as time-keepers.
The Islamicate astrologers achieved a remarkable sophistication in temporal design. By observing the motions of the superior planets, they constructed vast, overlapping cycles that organized history into meaningful periods. Their work built intricate scaffolding for time itself, mapping centuries with elegance and precision.
In the image below, I lay out the basic architecture of Jupiter and Saturn. Many of you will be familiar with this cycle (The great conjunction) & the corresponding triplicity eras. For our guide, we’ll turn to excerpts from the ninth-century astrologer, Abu Ma’shar’s Book of Religions and Dynasties. Ma’shar outlines six different configurations. We'll look at three here.
To begin, Ma'Shar introduces temporal framing for prognostication. He names that there are six.
Since the things from which to deduce advanced knowledge of the occurences of general <types of event> and thier particular instances in future times are gained from six elements, <here they are:>
Abu Ma'Shar, Book of Religions and Dynasties, trans. Yamamoto& Burnett. page 11
THE OUTER CIRCLE
Ma'Shar instructs us to observe the cycles of Jupiter and Saturn, to note when they begin in Aries (the spring tropical sign). This cycle covers 960 solar years. (The large outer circle represents these 960 years)
The first is from the celestial bodies positions in the horoscopes of the revolutions of the years in which the conjunction of the two superior planets occurs in the spring tropical sign, happening every 960 solar years.
Abu Ma'Shar, Book of Religions and Dynasties, trans. Yamamoto & Burnett. page 11
THE FOUR INNER CIRCLES
Ma'Shar instructs us to observe the cycles of Jupiter and Saturn within specific triplicities. We know that the cycles of Jupiter and Saturn emphasize the triplicities. They join every 20 years in signs of the same element. That idealized version of that cycle covers 240 years of repeating conjunctions in the same triplicity. (The four circles inside the larger circle represent these 240 year periods)
The second is from the celestial bodies positions in the horoscope of the revolutions of the years in which their conjunction occurs when they shift from one triplicity to another, occurring every 240 solar years
Abu Ma'Shar, Book of Religions and Dynasties, trans. Yamamoto & Burnett. page 11
THE TWELVE SMALL CIRCLES
Ma'Shar instructs us to observe the cycles of Jupiter and Saturn in a single conjunction. These two superior planets meet every twenty years. (The twelve small circles inside the four inner circles represent these 20 year periods)
The fourth is from the celestial bodies' positions in the horoscopes of the revolutions of the years in which their conjunction occurs in each sign, happening every 20 years.
Abu Ma'Shar, Book of Religions and Dynasties, trans. Yamamoto & Burnett. page 11
For those of you who are a bit more advanced, the below image maps the current cycle. The dates listed are for the mean conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn. You can see the transition from the earthy triplicity to the air triplicity in 2000. The mean conjunction in Gemini/2000 then spirals into the 2020 conjunction in Aquarius. You can follow the arrows as Jupiter and Saturn circle the triplicity.
