seasonsgalactic

THE SEASONS OF URANUS
ASTRO-MYTHOLOGICAL ENTRY
INTO THE VAST EXPANSE

Myth is the secret opening through which
the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos
pour into human cultural manifestations.

Joseph Campbell

As stated in my introduction, the Seasons of Uranus astrological/mythological technique I am introducing here is meant to assist you in entering into a new realm of human awareness characterized as the Sixth Sun. Regardless of whether you find this historical framing of our modern era helpful or not, you will undoubtedly find that directly experiencing the technique itself activates new insight and understanding in your life. Many of those insights will derive from your direct encounter with the tzolkin or “Count of Days,” the mysterious intellectual artifact at the core of Mesoamerican cosmology.

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The 260 Unit Tzolkin


Traditionally the tzolkin has been applied to everything from
astronomy, to agriculture, to military operations, to day-to-day astrological prognostications, the latter of which continue to be performed in the highlands of Guatemala where the tzolkin has been used by generations of Mayan daykeepers as a repeating count of 260 days. The tzolkin , however, is not limited to this traditional method or scale of application. As revealed by Mayan scholar and visionary Jose Arguelles, in his 1984 book Earth Ascending, the tzolkin is mathematically fractal in nature, hence universally applicable since fractals retain their structural integrity at whatever scale they manifest at.


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Typical fractal pattern.

The whole of the Seasons of Uranus technique owes its existence to the fractal nature of the tzolkin. The technique began to take form early in 1986 when I suddenly realized that in addition to being used as a count of days, the tzolkin could be used as a count of Moon cycles as well. Several years of Moon cycle journaling on my part passed before I further realized that this expanded scale of use of the tzolkin put it into direct correspondence to the orbit of Uranus. The correspondence is this: 260 synodic cycles of the Moon (29.5 days each) is exactly equivalent to one Uranian season of 21 years, which is one quarter of the 84 years it takes for Uranus to orbit the Sun. I have since gone on to reveal other dimensions of this correlation and have named the whole approach the Lightning Path. The Seasons of Uranus technique has emerged naturally out of my 42 year exploration of that path, begun in 1972 when I first encountered Dane Rudhyar’s book The Lunation Cycle.



Astroglyph for Uranus


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84 Year Orbit of Uranus


The Seasons of Uranus technique builds on the cyclic foundation provided by the orbit of Uranus, an orbital cycle held by many astrologers to be the most apt astronomical metaphor for a contemporary human life span. As Dane Rudhyar writes:

Human life is no longer one simple process, plant-like in rhythm. During one life span of their body, men and women appear fated to have to experience perhaps two or three different lives — to die to the first and to be reborn into another which demands a basically new start — and, in a very real sense, a new education. The old Saturn and Jupiter-Saturn cycles are no longer adequate clocks beating the hours and minutes of existence. We have to seek new ways of measuring the living time of human individuals; and it is the motion of Uranus which reveals to us at present the most significant pattern of changes in our long and complex lives as modern individuals.


The Seasons of Uranus technique represents exactly what Rudhyar refers to as a “new way of measuring the living time of human individuals”. It begins at the New Moon prior to a person’s birth and progresses onward at the rate of one tzolkin sector per Moon cycle. In this way, it brings the ancient wisdom of the tzolkin to bear on a person’s life in a simple, practical, and personally meaningful way.

According to the Seasons of Uranus technique, each and every New Moon is a potential moment of personal empowerment, a natural and regularly repeating opportunity for us to be infused with meaningful, astrologically-timed symbolism drawn from the tzolkin. It should be noted, however, that New Moon is simply the entry point into what is actually a multi-stage empowerment process, the full extent of which extends over the complete 29.5 day cycle. Conveniently, the changing phases of the Moon seen in the night sky provide a visual metaphor for the process, one that is explained in detail by Dane Rudhyar and others to be an archetype of ALL cycles of relationship. I refer the reader to my article
The Moon Is In My Heart for much more information about this important aspect of the Seasons of Uranus technique, including a freely downloadable lunation journal .

LUNATION

MYTHOLOGICAL DIMENSION OF THE SEASONS OF URANUS TECHNIQUE

While the Seasons of Uranus technique has its roots deep in Mesoamerican cosmology, I would be remiss if I did not here point out an important socio-cultural linkage between Hopi and Mayan mythology, both of which indicate that a profound “Shift of the Ages” is now underway. By bringing our own awareness into practical, working relationship with the transformative symbolism of the tzolkin, we begin to participate mythically in that Shift. In terms of Mesoamerican mythology, this mystical form of participation, in however small a degree, translates as helping to bring about the prophetic return of the peaceful and benevolent spirit of one of its most important Mesoamerican mythological figures known to the Maya as Feathered Serpent/ Kukulcan, and to the Aztecs, as Quetzalcoatl. According to Robert Boissiere, author of
The Return of Pahana, such a return goes well beyond Mesoamerican mythology to include that of the Hopi as well:

In my view, part of the return of Pahana, or the Christ, or Quetzalcoatl, in these critical times is the return of an earthly "cycle" that will incorporate the qualities mankind needs most: faith, compassion, and love instead of greed, selfishness, and illegitimate profit. This will be a cycle that operates on principles that have characterized the great spiritual teachers of all time. Looking back, humans will have only to see the destruction created by the previous cycle to gather their energies to move ahead. The message of the return is here, now, revealed in the content of everyday life. It is perhaps cloudy at the moment, but still it waits to be urged forward through the presence of a returning archetype that will redirect the efforts that have been consumed in so many wrong choices and have led to such despair. This is where the Native American revival, the New Age revolution, and the hundredth-monkey syndrome are taking us. This is what the return is all about: the myth becoming reality.

In a foreword to Boissiere's book, Mayan elder Hunbatz Men concurs with him when he refers to Pahana and Quetzalcoatl (Kukulcan) as one and the same essence:

For us Maya, the Pahana is Kukulcan – two different names that represent the same symbol. The prophecies say that when the sacred symbols are newly understood, it will be the time of awakening for the human race before our father, the Sun, and his sisters, the stars.


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Hopi Ceremony

In his own book, Secrets of Mayan Science and Religion, Men expands on the meaning of the Pahana/Kukulcan archetype. He explains that “Ku” means sacred, God. “Kul” is coccyx, the base of the spine where a mysterious solar charge resides. “Can” means serpent. “Kukulcan” therefore, is the serpent of sacred knowledge -- virtually one and the same as kundalini, fiery serpent energy of Eastern yoga traditions. This same serpent energy is known in esoteric yoga traditions throughout Mesoamerica and is commonly referred to by its Aztec name Quetzalcoatl, or Feathered Serpent. Steven McFadden, author of the book Ancient Voices describes QuetzalcoatL poetically as “the embodiment of the serpent rainbow beam of cosmic intelligence--the electric sperm of the universe fertilizing the womb of the Earth.”

Finally, in his book The Story of Quetzalcoatl, Jim Berenholtz explains that “Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent, is the heart and essence of ancient America, representing the duality within and around all things in this universe.” For centuries, Quetzalcoatl has been invoked by culture heroes throughout Mesoamerica as a universal archetype of peace polarizing the violent forces led by his twin brother Tezcatlipoca, god of war.


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Tezcatlipoca (l) Quetzalcoatl (r)


Sacred knowledge associated with Feathered Serpent is embedded in ancient pyramids throughout Mesoamerica. Thousands of people visit these structures each year but only a handful realize something very essential about them. It is a message conveyed on the lips of contemporary practitioners of Mayan spirituality when they say: ”You are the pyramid, the pyramid is you.” What these practitioners are refering to is that the cosmic principles coded into sacred pyramid architecture are one and the same as those coded into the human body.

Nowhere is revelation of this sacred knowledge more apparent than in a spectacular equinox phenomenon associated with the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent at Chichen Itza in the Yucatan. Each year, at both the spring and the fall equinox, tens of thousands of people from around the world gather in Chichen’s temple courtyard to witness a spectacular phenomenon skillfully contrived by ancient temple builders to reveal the secrets of Mesoamerican cosmology. Exactly on the day of the equinox a distinct pattern of light and shadow forms on the western side of the northern stairway of the temple: a giant undulating serpent, made up of seven triangles of light, descends from the top platform of the pyramid to a huge sculpted serpent head at its base.

Chichen Itza

Pyramid of Kukulkan (Feathered Serpent), Chichen Itza, Mexico


Mayan elder Hunbatz Men explains that this equinox phenomenon is a sacred teaching bequeathed to all generations and to all peoples by his ancestors. Inspired by enduring and transcendent cosmic laws, the sacred architecture of those ancestors endures:

The Mayan masters teach that we are the integration of the seven powers of light, traveling in the form of the serpent, undulating eternally with movement and measure. In Mayan, the pyramid is called k’u, the root word for the sacred Hunab K’u, the Only Giver of Movement and Measure. Thus, when we see the seven triangles in Chichen Itza during the equinoxes, we are witnessing a demonstration of culture which pervades the atmosphere and stones of this sacred place. With respect and humility, we should kneel before the presence of Kukulcan or Quetzalcoatl. By so doing, we will begin to awaken our cosmic consciousness, allowing Hunab K’u to enter the sacred temples in our bodies!

Hunbatz Men, Mayan Science and Religion p.126
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Feathered Serpent altar stone by Deb Anthony

MYTH BECOMING REALITY

The benefit of working consciously and sustainedly with the integrated mythic symbolism of the Feathered Serpent archetype and the Seasons of Uranus technique is that we are naturally led, lunation-step-by-lunation-step, into trans-personal realms of consciousness where, in brief moments of
mystical realization, we are infused with energy and information emanating from the vast expanse. Such is the nature of what could be considered to be a transformative path of awakening that engages us astrologically, not only with planet Uranus, but with all three of the outer planets. Michael Meyer describes this path in his article A Call to Transformation:

Uranus, Neptune and Pluto challenge us to shift our loyalties to a higher center, to realize a new, more inclusive sense of relationship to all that is. In a few words, the three outer planets represent the process of modulation to a higher octave of being, activity and consciousness. In spiritual or theosophical terms, such a process is called the Path. Each of the three outer planets symbolizes a particular step along the path to the galactic center, and the sort of tests and teachers the aspirant is likely to encounter along the way. Similarly, the three planets represent still mostly underdeveloped faculties latent within us all, evolutionary steps we are now trying to realize.

PLANETARYorbits

The Seasons of Uranus technique makes use of a previously hidden connection between the lunation cycle and the orbit of Uranus and it is this connection that makes possible a practical means of bringing to conscious awareness, the kind of latent faculties spoken of by Meyer, above. Much of why this is possible is because of the nature and purpose of the tzolkin. So, let us examine this ancient and mysterious intellectual artifact more closely.

In its core fractal structure, the tzolkin is
comprised of 13 numbers and 20 glyphs, thus generating 260 combinations. Each combination constitutes an integrated mythological directive or divination, much like an individual hexagram of the ancient Chinese Book of Changes, the I Ching, or like a card from the Tarot. By contemplating the tzolkin codes and by allowing their directives to inspire and animate our behaviour, we are brought into resonance with the integral wholeness of the tzolkin grid, thereby becoming empowered to act in attunement to the etheric consciousness force latent therein. According to the Maya, this is a consciousness force ultimately emanating from Galactic Center, what they call Hunab Ku, the One Giver of Movement and Measure.

As representative of a wide range of human experience, the 260 combinations of number and glyph comprising the tzolkin constitute a potent map of consciousness. Each combination represents a code of transformation, one stage in a 260-stage archetypal process, the end goal of which is the attainment of expanded consciousness and unconditional love (AHAU). Repeated application of these codes to our own lives enables us to gradually shift our awareness from the realm of the purely personal, to that of the broadly trans-personal. In his 1986 book The Mayan Factor, Jose Arguelles sums this notion up when he says of the tzolkin: “Everything is in it that pertains to being, not only as progressions of the light but as a ladder to be ascended by hero and heroine alike. The twenty Signs in their ever-revolving order define a path of life in which the physical being prepares and is a stage for the higher mental spirals of being.


RADIALTZOLKIN
Radial Tzolkin with symbol for Hunab Ku (Galactic Center) at core.



There are countless ways to interact with the tzolkin. As indicated above, the way revealed to me is based on conscious alignment with the fractal structure of the tzolkin, its previously hidden integration with the synodic cycle of the Moon (New Moon to New Moon), and with the orbital dynamics of Uranus. To actively and fully engage with this novel integration of symbolic systems is to begin to live the artistic and symbolic life of the myth maker.
Marilyn Ferguson, author of the seminal 80’s book The Aquarian Conspiracy, considers such a life to be uncommon in the modern era:

Our culture has little understanding of the purpose of myth or the role of the myth-maker. Myths are not for believing or disbelieving. They are for using. If a myth or metaphor works in revamping our deepest values, it is truer than the evening news or the textbook fact. Myth, poetry, art and music are truths of a different dimension -- sustenance and regeneration for the tired spirit. The human brain learns best by story, by game, by a framework of meaning.


The integration of lunation cycle, Uranian orbit and tzolkin I am introducing here as the Seasons of Uranus technique is just such a framework of meaning as Ms. Ferguson refers to above. As an integrated whole, the technique creates an astrologically-determined timeline of symbolism, a map of consciousness wherein sequential codes of transformation await contemplation by anyone wishing to expand their awareness along these lines. According to the Seasons of Uranus technique, such a contemplation begins at ONE IMIX, representative of the Great Mother archetype, an intelligent and omni-present unity of bi-polar forces pervading all of Creation. In terms of our local galaxy, ONE IMIX refers to its centre, what the Maya call Hunab Ku: One Giver of Movement and Measure. From ONE IMIX the contemplation proceeds through all 260 stages of the tzolkin and culminates with THIRTEEN AHAU, symbolic of a state of cosmic consciousness and unconditional love, a true pinnacle of human self-mastery and fulfillment. As cryptic codes providing ever-present guidance toward attainment of such a pinnacle, the 260 combinations of number and glyph infuse aspirants with ancient wisdom regarding the whole gamut of human experience. The Seasons of Uranus technique is a personalized timing tool that points out what codes are particularly relevant to us, according to the season of life we are in at the time. This is made possible through counting the Moons (lunations) of our life, starting at birth.

AHAUloverswebround

Through contemplative application of tzolkin codes to our lives, we are enabled to gradually shift our awareness from the realm of the purely personal, to that of the broadly trans-personal, from the realm of the unconscious to that of the conscious. This is a process rooted in the moment we take our first breath as a newborn. That breath takes place within the context of a particular lunation cycle and it launches us into the journey of our life, a gradual journey of ascension that can be astrologically mapped using the Seasons of Uranus technique. It is a technique which makes possible an objective overview of our life that facilitates both retrospective, and anticipatory, analysis of that life on a lunation-cycle-by-lunation-cycle basis.

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One asks: “What is involved in applying the tzolkin codes to our lives in a practical way so as to fully engage in the process of transformation of consciousness engendered by them?”

Each lunation experienced within the context of the Seasons of Uranus technique has an astrologically specific reference within both the tzolkin matrix, and the four seasons context of the Uranian orbit. Hence, Uranian season by Uranian season, our life unfolds and by viewing that life through the lens of the natural timing sequence mapped by the Seasons of Uranus technique, we are able to invoke a universal symbolic language of transformation to help us convey to ourselves and to others, what we understand our constantly changing lives to be about.

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HOW TO DETERMINE YOUR LUNATION ALIGNMENT TO THE TZOLKIN

To begin to align your consciousness with the tzolkin as outlined above, you will need to determine the relative placement of the current lunation in the ongoing series of lunations begun at your birth. This requires an astrological calculation as shown in the “Calculations” section of this website.

May all who feel resonant with the call to Uranian transformation at this auspicious planetary hour be empowered by the unceasingly harmonious dance of the Sun and the Moon, and by the galactically expansive wholeness of the tzolkin and its wealth of ancient wisdom. Ho!

GLOBALSEASONS
REFERENCES

Fractal Time

Earth Ascending

The Mayan Factor

The Lunation Cycle

Secrets of Mayan Science and Religion

Introduction to Maya Cosmogenesis 2012

2012 AD - Mayan Calendar Galactic Alignment

TZOLKIN: Visionary Perspectives and Calendar Studies

Mexico Mystique: the Coming Sixth World of Consciousness

2012 AND THE GALACTIC CENTER: The Return of the Great Mother

The World Age cosmology of the Maya calendar end-date in A.D.2012


Dane Rudhyar Audio: Cycles of Life: The Structure and Unfoldment of Cyclic Processes in Astrology