The Age of Aquarius

This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius

The Age of Aquarius
Aquarius! Aquarius!

   James Rado, Gerome Ragni

   In “The Age of Aquarius”

That age, or rather its dawning, may still have some resonance in pop culture—if you’re old enough—and that’s because before we started having “bad hair days” we had Hair, the musical, and it introduced the notion of that age in its most celebrated song, “The Age of Aquarius.” Now the notion that we have celestial or astrological ages derives from the precession of the equinoxes, discussed in my last post. This is an add-on to complete the picture. Yesterday I pointed out that a mismatch has developed between the dates on which astrological “months” begin and the actual constellation showing in the sky on those dates. Thus, yesterday, began the period of Libra, but the sun actually rose in Virgo. The reason for this is because precession has caused the seasons to begin earlier and earlier—but we still observe an astrological year fixed far back in time. The astrological age, however, is determined by actual astronomical observation.

The “age” in which we live, at any one time, is determined by the constellation in the sky as the sun rises on the day of the vernal equinox. This year that took place on March 20, and the sun rose in constellation of Pisces. Therefore, these days, we are in the Age of Pisces. So why is Aquarius dawning? And when will its Aquarian sun actually rise?

Well, our current calendar conveniently begins with the first year of the Age of Pisces. Some put that at year 0, others at January 1, 1 AD. Each age lasts 2,160 years. And while the regions actually covered by the 12 houses of the zodiac are of varying width, by convention they are of the same size, each describing 30 degrees of a circle. Therefore the Age of Aquarius will begin with the vernal equinox of 2160—or if you insist on observing a Year 0,  2161. Now for the math.

The Great Age, meaning the time it takes for our poles to point to the same points in the never-changing sky, lasts for 25,920 years. If we divided that number by 12, we get the time during which each house “rules”—2,160 years. Since each such period covers 30 degrees of the sky, the precession of the equinoxes moves 1 degree every 72 years.

The illustration shows Pisces in the center and part of Aquarius in the lower right corner. I've inserted a little orange sun to inicate where the sun rises these days on the vernal equinox. The movement of the sun, over extended ages, on that date, is from left to right, appearing ever more to the right—but it takes a lifetime for it to cover a single degree of the circle—not perceivable through 76-year-old eyes. The image is from Wikipedia (link).

A geometrically more pleasing presentation comes from Roy Taylor’s “Precession of the Equinoxes” (link). It shows the movement of the Spring and Autumn equinoxes over time on a circle of the sky rendered into equal 30 degree segments, each owned by a house. The first shows the Equinoxes after the Age of Pisces just began thus around 2000 BC, the other the situation around 2005 AD. Are we at the dawn of the Age of Aquarius? Roy Taylor thinks so, and the astronomers bear him out.

Food for poetic contemplation, this. The fish-symbolism is intimately linked to Christianity. When I think of Hair, I think of the New Age. But then, when  I contemplate the precession of the equinoxes, I think to myself: What goes around comes around.

The Seventh House

When the Moon is in the seventh house

And Jupiter aligns with Mars

Then peace will guide the planets

And love will steer the stars.

   James Rado, Gerome Ragni

   In “The Age of Aquarius”

Among the constellations of the zodiac, the seventh house is Libra, the scales. Those born between September 24 and October 23 are born in Libra, but (and don’t be surprised) the sun doesn’t rise in Libra at that time of year. Astrology is, as it were, behind the times. The actual, you might say physical, period of Libra’s rule arrives on November 6 and lasts until November 20. There was a time, of course, when the sun, rising at dawn—and not yet shining brightly enough to obscure the sky immediately above it—would be rising in the seventh house. But that was a long, long time ago. The culprit here? It is the precession of the equinoxes.

Now that’s a subject for the geometrically challenged (turns out) and also for the linguistically lazy. Precession? Well it means “coming before.” But what is it that “comes before”? Well the phrase tells us. The equinoxes come before. But before what? It drives you crazy all this techno-jargon. The answer is that every year, the equinoxes arrive 20 minutes before they…ought to—that is to say if we measure time not by our experience of the sun, thus locally, but in reference to the stars. Junk yard dog that I am, today I discovered that there is a so-called sidereal year and also a tropical year. The first comes from the Latin sidereus, “starry,” the second from tropicus, “related to a turning,” thus of the seasons. The first of these is the time it takes for the sun, as seen from the earth, to be in the same place against the fixed stars, thus in the House of Libra, for example. That time is 365.25636 days. Remember. We’re measuring by the stars. The tropical year is the time it takes the equinoxes to return; days and nights are of equal length.  That year takes 365.2421988 days. The difference here is 20.4 minutes. Thus the end of the year, as measured by seasons, comes 20.4 minutes before it should, looking at the fixed stars.

But this, of course, presents a logical problem. What causes this 20 minute difference? The answer is that the earth has two different kinds of rotation. The whole of the earth rotates around its axis—once every twenty-four hours. But the axis itself also rotates—describing a circle, if viewed against the fixed stars, every 25,920 years. It’s movement is tiny—but it results in a slight change in the seasons if their beginning is measured against the fixed stars. Therefore Polaris is only our North Star temporarily—and by 4100 it will point at the Constellation Cepheus, where that constellation’s bright Alderamin will have become the “pole star.” To explain the “wobble” of the axis most people refer to the behavior of gyroscopes or to the wobble of a spinning top. Those examples illustrate axial wobble—but in our case the time scale is so great, speaking of a wobble suggests more motion than is perceivable. We’ve known about this wobble, however, since the Greek astronomer Hipparchus (circa 190-120 BC) discovered it.

There is, therefore, no logical problem. The fixed stars are a great clock—and measure time unerringly. But in their case it really matters from where you’re looking as you are consulting the clock. That wobble moves us ever so little every year, hence we must correct for that movement every time. When we do, those twenty minutes of discord disappear; they are just apparently present because of our change in position relative to the  sidereal clock.

The moon is in the seventh house? Yes. Every night for a while. When Jupiter aligns with Mars? That means that one is above the other in a vertical direction. That happens every twenty-seven months. The Age of Aquarius? It has everything to do with the precession of the equinoxes, to be sure, but let’s do that tomorrow. Today our condolences to every Libra—or Leo, or Aquarius, for that matter. If constellations are responsible for our characters, we’d better talk seriously to our astrologer.
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Image credits: Libra: Skywatching, Daviod H. Levy, Time/Life Books, 1994, p. 183. Top: Wikipedia (link). On that site you can see it spinning—but keep in mind that the bottom of the axis also describes a circle in the case of the earth.

I found the site Astroplot (link) helpful in sorting actual versus astrological dates. And Precession of the Equinoxes, by Roy Taylor (link) is a very good all-around explanation.