Summary: Astrology originated when humans became attuned to the repeating astronomical patterns of the annual cycle. The yearly cycle of sunrises and sunsets against the horizon offered humanity the opportunity to make the seasonal predictions necessary for successful agriculture. The naming of the critical stations of the year, the equinoxes and solstices, and the analogy with the diurnal cycle, constitutes a first order of astrology. On a global level, the symbolism of the four directions, the first astrology, has served as a foundation for more elaborate intellectual systems.

It's about an hour before dawn and one of the leaders of a small group of agrarian humans leaves his shelter and family. In the darkness, he follows a path that his body knows by heart. After about a mile of walking, he arrives at the top of a ridge from which a view of both the eastern and western horizons are clear and unobstructed. There's a place to sit here, actually a sighting station, that was built by his great, great grandfather almost one hundred summers ago. The sky is getting lighter. The birds begin to talk among themselves and other animals move about hurriedly. Then, what he has been waiting for happens. The first ray of the Sun shoots out from the top of the far ridge to the east and reaches his eye. He notes where on the ridge this first flash of light occurs, checks his stone alignments, carefully checks the sky for any omens, and then begins the walk to home.

Our skywatcher could have lived anywhere in the world at any time in the past or even in the present. What he was doing is what any organized body of humans, particularly those engaged in agriculture and living in one place, must do he was finding order in nature. Over thousands of years, generations of perceptive skywatchers learned why sunrise is different than sunset, and how the seasons followed the north/south march of the Sun against the horizon. Skywatchers from around the world gave names to the special places that the Sun passed through and they discovered a profound meaning in the cycle of the year that could be applied to the world of human culture. The measuring of the year was the first astronomy. The symbolic meaning of the year was the first astrology. Both probably happened at the same time.

The Astronomical Basis of the Four Directions
The yearly cycle of the Sun underlies the framework of astrology as we know it. The Sun rises in the east, although it's actual position on the eastern horizon varies during the year. During the winter it rises to the south of the true east point, and during the summer it rises to the north of east, at least in the Northern Hemisphere.(1) The extreme rising positions, north and south of due east, were carefully noted by ancient sky watchers. When rising near these extremes, the Sun's daily horizontal increment against the horizon is very small. It changes so little on the days when these northerly and southerly rising positions occur, that these days came to be known as the solstices, a term that literally means "sun standstill." After a few days of hardly detectable movement at its solstice points, the Sun begins to move toward its other extreme, which it reaches six months later.

The midpoint of the Sun's daily rising positions, as tracked against the eastern or western horizon during the course of one year, is exactly due east and west. The Sun rises at these points only on the first day of spring or autumn. Because these days mark the point where day and night are of equal length, and probably also because these days mark the points that are equidistant from the solsticial extremes, they are called the equinoxes.

At the equinoxes, day and night are in balance. At the solstices, the balance between light and dark is upset. At the summer solstice the length of day reaches its maximum and the Sun climbs to its highest point in the sky. The power of the energy from the Sun spurs the growth of living things. At the winter solstice, the reverse is true. At this time of year the Sun, even at noon, is not very high in the sky and it spends relatively little time above the horizon. This is when the dark nightforce dominates and life is held back. No doubt this astronomical fact explains why so many northern hemisphere cultures have a "festival of lights" anchored on or near the winter solstice. Humanity celebrates the waning of the dark force and the beginning of light's advance by making some light of its own.

On the horizon, the midpoint of the solstices defines the perfect eastwest direction. From a vertical perspective, the northsouth direction may also be established. This can be done by measuring, and then bisecting, the arc of the horizon that is located between the rising and setting throughout the year. The gnomon, one of the first scientific instruments (and one that astrologers should take some credit for), would have been employed for this second method. Once these pairs of lines were sighted and marked by a persistent skywatcher, architectural structures could be constructed, permanently incorporating the four directions.

The fact that the four directions are intrinsically different from each other is obvious. Seasonal changes in the natural world are noticeable and they confirm four primary qualities in both time and direction. In a real sense, the locating, naming, and utilization of the four directions is an astrological act. By establishing a fourfold symbolism for the four directions, the cosmic order is copied and heaven is brought down to earth. Some might call this shamanic astrology.

Figure 1

If the application of symbolism to the yearly cycle could be called the first act or order of astrology, then the second order is the linking of the year and the day by analogy. Spring is sunrise, noon is summer, autumn is sunset, and winter is midnight. The day becomes a fractal of the year and the critical stations of cyclic time are named. This kind of thinking is the logic behind the predictive techniques called directions and progressions. The transition from the physical realities of direction, time of day, and season to a full-fledged astrological symbolism was made in more or less the same way by different cultures. In fact, it is amazing how close cultures from all over the globe have come to a universal agreement on directional symbolism, which in turn has become the foundation on which the world's most important astrological and divinatory systems are based. The Symbolism of the Four Directions
In the following paragraphs I will relate the directional systems that were developed in ancient times by the Chinese, Northern European, and Mesoamerican cultures. These cultures, like those of the ancient Near East, appear to have arrived at similar astrological definitions for each of the directions. In each case, the astronomical facts have led to astrological insights. Take, for example, east. It is the direction of the emerging Sun (or life-giving god) which opens the day. East becomes the first principle, symbolic of the birth of the day. It is an event that one looks "forward" to. The word "orientation," which has come to mean "becoming organized in space," literally means facing the orient (east). When east is placed ahead, then west is behind, north is to the left, and south to the right. Basically, east is the direction that is most "in your face." Every major culture that has arisen on this planet seems to have noticed this fact.

The I Ching, a well known divinatory technique from ancient China, appears to be based on the cycle of year and day. The arrangement of the 8 trigrams all have linkages to the diurnal and annual cycle of the Sun. The 64 Hexagrams of the Chinese I Ching, which are used for divination, are the permutations of 8 foundational trigrams. The 8 trigrams symbolize many facets of astronomically based natural cycles, including the seasons and the time of day.(2) The trigram Chen (thunder), which is composed of a solid line with two broken lines above it, symbolizes east, spring, and early morning. Its qualities are said to be arousing, exciting, growth provoking, and expansive.

In Europe, the northern cultures of Germany, Scandinavia, and the British Isles, used runes as a means of writing, but also as a symbolic language. Although the earliest runes varied in number, the figure stabilized at 24. This arrangement of runes, known as the Elder Futhark, incorporates the directions and the cycling of the year. Like the trigrams of the I Ching, the northern European tradition divided the year and the horizon into 8 sections. Four of these are the Cardinal points, east, west, north, and south. The other four are the semi-cardinal points.(3) The dates on which the Sun transits these points halfway between the boundaries of the seasons are Beltane/Roodmas, Lughnasa/Lammas, Samhain/Hallowmass, and Imbolc/Candlemas.

In the Northern Tradition, East is symbolized by the 18th rune, Beorc or Birkana. It is symbolic of new beginnings and the spring equinox, that point in time and space where life regains its foothold on the earth. In modern Norwegian language, verbs that appear to be a variant of Beorc or Birkana, mean "to enrich, to prepare, to break open, or to bear (as in birth)."

The Mesoamerican cultures, which include the Maya and Aztec peoples, used the four directions as a cornerstone of their astrological system. In Maya and Aztec astrology, 20 foundational daysigns are broken into five sets of four signs. The first sign of each of these sets is a sign of the east. The eastern signs, Imix, Chicchan, Muluc, Ben, and Caban (Mayan names are used here) are all signs of initiation and were considered to be positive, forceful, powerful, fertile, and abundant signs as well. Only one of these five was designated as a special place in the scheme of the year, because it was one of only four signs (out of 20) that could fall on the first day of their annual calendar. For both the Classic and Quiche Maya, the sign Caban served as the yearbearer of the east.(4)

At the autumnal equinox, the Sun sets due west. Here it crosses the boundary between north and south and heads toward the time of year when the Sun spends the least amount of time in the sky. Both sunset and autumn suggest a turning inward -- a kind of death or movement away from self and toward the collective. The universal symbolism for this solar passage is descent, decline, and merger. The I Ching trigram Tui (lake), consisting of two solid lines topped by a broken line, symbolizes autumn and twilight. Its meaning is that of restfulness, satisfaction, and openness. The 6th Norse rune, Ken, is the rune of the autumn equinox. It is symbolic of the return to the indoors and the starting of the hearth fire. It is a rune of regeneration through death, illumination, and of seeing through the dark. In Norwegian Ken means "to know or understand." The five signs of the west in Mayan tradition, Akbal, Manik, Chuen, Men, and Cauac, are signs of submergence, internalization of feelings, resurrection, and social ritual. The Maya daysign Manik was the yearbearer of the west.

The Sun at the equinoxes presents us with a straightforward symbolism. The Sun rises, essentially coming into being, then it sets, essentially dying. These phenomena, from which the directions east and west are established, belong to what might be called the horizontal dimension. The solstices are more complex, in part because they require more sophisticated knowledge of astronomy. They, and the directions north and south which are derived from them, represent what could be called the vertical dimension of astrology.

At the summer solstice the Sun rises and sets at its northernmost extreme. In the northern hemisphere, during the period from winter to summer solstice, one could interpret the Sun each day as being "pushed" from the south, making its greatest northern advance on the days around the summer solstice. The reverse is true of the winter solstice. This is when one might say the "forces of the north" push the Sun back to the south where, at noon on the winter solstice, it culminates at its most southerly position. Of course, this is only true in the northern hemisphere, where the cultures under discussion were based. Early humans living in the northern hemisphere also knew that if one traveled northward, one found ice and snow, but few living things, whereas southward travelers might reach hot jungles choked with living things. These environmental facts appear to support the symbolism of the directions.

At the summer solstice, in the northern hemisphere, the Sun rises and sets at its northernmost horizon position and reaches its highest arc in the sky. It is also the longest day of the year, the day when the Sun spends more time above the horizon than below it. This is the time when life is at its peak, plants are growing rapidly, and animals roam freely. The summer solstice and its diurnal equivalent, noon, symbolize externalization, objectivity, and the full power of the lifeforce. The three cultures under study appear to agree that the summer solstice, or by analogy noon, is symbolic of the southern direction.

The Chinese trigram Li (fire/sun/lightning) symbolizes consciousness, clarity, and illumination. It corresponds to the direction south and noon. The 24th Norse rune, Dag, is symbolic of noon, summer, and balance of the polarities -- the midpoint between the advancing and declining movement of the Sun. It stands for the end of one cycle and beginning of the next. In Norwegian, Dag means "day." The Mayan signs of the south, Kan, Lamat, Eb, Cib, and Ahau, are signs of emotion, feeling, and fertility. Eb is the yearbearer of the south.

At noon on the winter solstice the Sun reaches its southernmost culmination and the forces of the north "own" most of the sky. This is the shortest day of the year, a day when the power of the darkness is at its peak. The winter solstice thus corresponds to the northern direction, midnight, and winter. The trigram K'an (clouds) symbolizes the previous three concepts as well as the notions of danger, difficulty, and anxiety. The 12th Norse rune, Jara, is the rune of the winter solstice. It symbolizes cyclicity, completion, and transition. In Norwegian, "Jare" means "year." The Mayan signs of the north, Ik, Cimi, Oc, Ix, and Etz'nab are complex signs suggestive of mystery and contradictions. They were symbolic of difficult times, drought, and bad harvests. Ix was the yearbearer of the north.

We've now seen that three separate cultures have produced similar sets of symbols that reflect the astronomical and physical realities of the annual and diurnal cycles. Experts in each of these systems will be able to point out other subtleties that further delineate the cycle of the year and the day, and other directional complements as well. It should be mentioned that these cultures also include symbols for the center, or the earth itself, though these refer to the observer, not the facts and implications of the moving Sun. While the agreement between the symbols is not perfect, a fact that is probably due more to local geography and climate, they are very close and suggest a common, fundamental symbolism discovered by humanity at large. This shared symbolism is the foundation of the world's astrological and divinatory systems.

The Four Directions as the Foundation of Western Astrology
The zodiac used by most Western astrologers today (the tropical zodiac), has become a symbol of astrology itself. It is, in essence, a symbolic sequence of stages in the year that is framed by the four directions. Each quarter of the year, the time between each of the four main stations of the annual cycle, is trisected to produce three signs. In this scheme, Aries is the sign of the east and springtime. Its opposite, Libra, is the sign of the west and autumn. The first degree of these signs marks the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. The summer solstice begins the sign Cancer, which is a sign of summer, and (using the argument put forward above) is also a sign of the south. Capricorn, then, is the sign of winter and of the north.

The tropical zodiac appears to be a symbolic map generated by the annual cycle of solar risings and settings that oscillate from north to south and back again. Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn are, therefore, the key signs of the directions, and quite possibly the source of the scheme of the elements. Aries is the sign of spring, and therefore by analogy, the sign of sunrise. It is the sign of emergence and the birth of the sungod. It is a fire sign, and some would say, the source of the other two fire signs. From Aries, rays extending in equal arcs of 120 degrees will designate the beginnings of the other two fire signs, Leo and Sagittarius. Fire, according to this logic, is the element of the east.

Libra is the sign of autumn, the sign of sunset, and the direction west. It is an air sign, suggesting that it is the primary sign of the element air. The same approach can be taken for Cancer and Capricorn. These two signs might be looked on as origin points for the other elements, water and earth. Taking this directional foundation for quaternary symbolism further, links can also be made with the four humors or temperaments. The temperaments were a conceptual framework for ancient healers, an ancient psychological typology, and in modern times, the foundation of Jung's four functions. The choleric temperament is hot, easily aroused. This sounds like fire. The melancholic temperament is sad and depressed. Perhaps this is earth. The sanguine temperament is confident and optimistic. This may be air. The phlegmatic temperament is slow and impassive. This may be water. While the connections are somewhat blurred, it is possible that these foundational concepts (not to mention the four archangels, the four evangelists, and four tarot card suits) all derive from the four directions and their midpoints, and ultimately from the astronomical motions of the Sun.(5) Astrology lies deep within the fabric of culture.

The horoscope used by today's astrologers preserves the four-quarter concept. The eastern direction is the Ascendant, the point of the zodiac that was rising at the time of a birth or an event. The Ascendant is the point of emerging identity and it symbolizes the presentation of self in everyday life. Knowing our Ascendant is critical to knowing who we are. We meet ourselves in the east here we encounter "what we must do to be who we must become." Any planet rising in the east strongly imprints its influence on our personalities, more so than when it is in other parts of its diurnal cycle.

The Descendant marks the western part of the horoscope. This is the point that is symbolic of encounters, i.e. the point where the self converges with the world of the notself. At the Descendant, the self is submerged into the lives of others. In a sense, joining is a dying of the individual self.

The northern direction of the horoscope is marked by the I.C. (Imum Coeli) or lower meridian of the horoscope, which is also the cusp of the fourth house. The fourth house is said to rule both early life and the end of life. Here we face life's deepest uncertainties, including our unconscious origins and our inevitable death. This directional association presents a confusing reversal, because if Aries is placed over the first house, then the sign Cancer (south, summer, noon) will fall at the fourth house, whereas the I.C. marks the region of the sky that is physically to the north and the point where the Sun is at midnight.

Marking the southern direction is the M.C. (Medium Coeli) or Midheaven. This point also marks the noon position of the Sun and the cusp of the 10th house, which is said to designate one's social status and role. The Midheaven symbolizes the worth of a person in terms of the outer world. It represents goals, objectives, successes, and failures. If Aries is placed on the Ascendant, then Capricorn becomes the sign of the Midheaven. Again, there is a kind of reversal of the poles going on here. While the Sun enters this sign at its southernmost rising point during the winter solstice, Capricorn is a sign of the north. However, the Midheaven marks the region of the sky that is southernmost.

One solution to this problem is offered by the Hamburg School of Astrology, known in the United States as Uranian Astrology. In this school, a reversal of the zodiacal framework is used in erecting horoscopes. The sign Libra is positioned where Aries is normally placed. By doing this, Libra, which is the sign of the west, falls to the left just as west does on standard maps. This puts Aries, the sign of the east, at the eastern section of the map. Capricorn is then north, and Cancer south. In some ways, this arrangement of signs and directions is closer to the astronomical realities (and certainly closer to the conventions of mapping) than the layout that has become standard in Western astrology whereby the chart "faces" south.

The horoscope of birth is literally a map of the self with the four directions, the internal zodiacal order, and the angles, as a framework on which everything else rests. The four directions show where each planet is located in its diurnal cycle. The zodiac, itself produced by the four directions, shows where planets are located in their larger cycles. Both the four angles and the four-element zodiac are based on the astronomical movements of the Sun. Because the planets follow close to the Sun's path, Western astrologers have placed them within these directional frameworks established by the Sun.

From ancient times to the present day, the concept of the four directions has served as both a real and a symbolic framework for personal and collective organization. The orientation of a temple or ceremonial center, built so that it aligns with the rising of the Sun on a particular day, is an act of attunement to the cosmos. The directions of a temple are based on astronomy, but they are also given meaning, so the alignment of buildings might be considered an astrological act. The modern astrologer does something similar when he advises a client that relocation to the northeast, a kind of personal realignment, may improve the quality of his life. Unlike the nature dominating tendency of modern Western civilization, such alignments are acts of cosmic ecology, actions which attempt to attune humanity to the cosmic environment.(6) Such acts are basically astrological, and so are the foundations of the world's great symbolic systems.

Table of Cultural Correspondences

Figure 2

In the above diagram the directional symbolism of Mesoamerican (Mayan glyphs), Chinese, GrecoMesopotamian, and Northern European (Nordic) cultures are correlated. I have used the Mesoamerican convention of placing east at the top of the figure.

East: Spring and sunrise the birth of life and the emergence of self.
Mesoamerican: Yearbearer of the east: power, creation, life, emergence. Chinese: Trigram Chen: thunder, arousing activity, excitement, growth and expansion. Greco/Mesopotamian: Sign Aries: initiating, forceful, headstrong, pioneering. The sign of spring. Nordic: Rune Beorc, Birkana: new beginnings, the point at which the play of life begins in earnest, spring equinox.

West: Autumn and sunset the descent into the notself.
Mesoamerican: Yearbearer of the west: social reality, family, group, social cooperation. Chinese: Trigram Tui: the lake, satisfaction, fullness and openness. calmness, dispersed energy. autumn, twilight, the decline of life. Greco/Mesopotamian: Sign Libra: balance, harmony, cooperation, peace. The sign of autumn. Nordic: Rune Ken: indoors, illumination, regeneration through death, seeing through the dark, the starting of the hearth fire, the autumn equinox.

North: Winter and midnight the struggle of life.
Mesoamerican: Yearbearer of the north: secrecy, darkness, isolation, fear, hidden knowledge. Chinese: Trigram Kan: danger, anxiety, depth, mystery. Greco/Mesopotamian: Sign Capricorn: formality, cold, difficulty, losses. The sign of winter. Nordic: Rune Jara: cyclicity, completion, orderliness, harvest, end and beginning, winter solstice.

South: Summer and noon the triumph of life.
Mesoamerican: Yearbearer of the south: affirmation of life, nature, fertility, healing. Chinese: Trigram Li: clarity, consciousness and illumination, summer and noon. Greco/Mesopotamian: Sign Cancer: food, nature, family, domestic security, birth. The sign of summer. Nordic: Rune Dag: the end of one cycle and beginning of next, the door between the rising half of the year and the declining half, the balance of the polarities, high noon, midsummer.

Footnotes
(1) Nearly all high civilizations developed in the northern hemisphere. The most notable exceptions are the Andean cultures which flourished in the mountainous regions of western South America. These cultures also organized themselves around the four direction concept, though they also employed the far more complex seque directional system. For more information on these cultures, particularly those of the Incas, see writings by Gary Urton. William Sullivan's "The Secret of the Incas" also discusses Andean directionology to some extent.

(2) There are two primary arrangements of the 8 trigrams. The King Wen arrangement, also called the Later Heaven Circle, is the one that generates the 64 hexagrams and is the one I'm referring to here.

(3) The semicardinal points are prominent in the systems of the more northerly peoples, less so with the tropical cultures. At higher latitudes the Sun's rising and setting position on the horizon will be far closer to the midpoints between east/west and north/south, an annual spatial fact that suggests an analogous division of annual time into eighths.

(4) A different set of yearbearers were used by the Aztecs, as well as several other Mesoamerican cultures. The Maya themselves changed yearbearers during the Post Classic period. In all cases, however, only four yearbearers were used, one for each direction.

(5) The semicardinal points, located in the zodiac at 15 degrees of the fixed signs, are the components of the Egyptian Sphinx, the Four Evangelists, and others. One would suppose that the four elements reach their most dense or permanent form at the midpoint of these signs.

(6) Astrology's biological basis and social basis may be similar. As life evolved on this planet it utilized astronomical rhythms to regulate bodily functions. Eventually, these rhythms were internalized. To use the terms of astrobiologists, exogenous cycles that required an external agent, became endogenous or internalized cycles. The same thing seems to have occurred as early humans struggled to make sense out of the surrounding world and ultimately create culture and civilization. The external facts of repeating astronomical cycles offer various kinds of security, ones that can serve as frameworks around which human culture and social systems can be built. Calendars, based on astronomy, organized early humanity in matters of time. Maps and directions organized them with space. Both incorporate the rhythms of the sky. Symbolic thinking, which preceded rational thought as a means of communicating or transmitting information over great expanses of time, explained these connections between man and nature. Astrology is a kind of conscious internalization or learning from the external environment that is has become the foundation of much of who we are, both as individuals and as a society.

References
Chu, W.K. trans., W.A. Sherrill, ed. The Astrology of I Ching. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1976.

Gleadow, Rupert. The Origin of the Zodiac. New York: Castle Books. 1968.

Pennick, Nigel. The Ancient Science of Geomancy. London: Thames & Hudson. 1979.

Pennick, Nigel. Runic Astrology. Wellingboro, Northamptonshire: The Aquarian Press. 1990.

Rudhyar, Dane. The Pulse of Life. Berkeley, CA: Shambala Publications. 1970.

Scofield, Bruce. Signs of Time: An Introduction to Mesoamerican Astrology. Amherst, MA: One Reed Publications. 1994.

Williamson, Ray A. Living the Sky: The Cosmos of the American Indian. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1984.

Wong, Eva. FengShui: The Ancient Wisdom of Harmonious Living for Modern Times. Boston: Shambhala. 1996.

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