The Basic Structure of Cyclic Processes

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THE BASIC STRUCTURE OF CYCLIC PROCESSES

Dane Rudhyar

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna, as embodiment of the creative God, states: "I am the beginning, the middle and end of all cycles." Many modern interpreters, Hindu as well as Western have taken pains to explain that the word "middle" referred to all that happens during the course of the cyclic process. This may be a "rational" interpretation, but like so many of the comments made in our day about ancient Scriptures, it is also superficial; indeed it altogether misses the point. Any cycle contains three fundamentally significant and "creative" moments: beginning, middle, and end.

The life of a human being is no exception. And one may add that when one deals with the unfoldment of a single creative Impulse (or logos at the universal level) there is also a fourth phase which occurs in a realm of "non-manifestation." The basic example is the cycle which we call an entire day. This cycle is defined astronomically by the rotation of the Earth-globe. In terms of actual human experience it is characterized by the rise, culmination at noon, and setting of the Sun; however it includes also a fourth cardinal moment, midnight. Depth in non-manifestation (the unconscious of modern psychology) polarizes culmination at the apex of manifestation, i.e., noon - just as sunset polarizes sunrise.

When Krishna says that he is the beginning, middle and end of cycles, he refers to cycles of manifestation, i.e., existential cycles. But Krishna also speaks of his non-manifested aspect - his "night" aspect. Man also has his night-aspect. In a daily sense it refers to deep dreamless sleep; in a more fundamental and spiritual sense, man's "midnight" occurs during his period of non-manifestation - i.e., between two "incarnations."

In astrology the cycles of the year and the cycles of the day are divided into four periods. We have two equinoxes and two solstices, and the four angles of a chart. But these cycles in traditional geocentric astrology refer to the cyclic motions of one factor, that is, to the apparent motion of the Sun in the sky. The terms "end and beginning" actually apply only to the manifested first half of the cycle. "Noon," or "summer solstice" constitutes the apex of only this first hemicycle.

The situation is different when we deal with the lunation cycle, from New Moon to New Moon. It is different because the lunation cycle is not a "lunar" cycle; but instead a "soli-lunar" cycle. What the cyclic process refers to is the relationship between the Moon and the Sun - a relationship whose character is constantly altered, because of the fact that the two "Lights" move at different speeds. The lunation cycle is a cycle of relationship. It can be considered as the "archetype" of all cycles involving the relationship between two celestial factors moving at different speeds - all celestial bodies move at different speeds. When, therefore, we speak of an aspect between two planets we are referring to one particular phase in their cyclic relationship.

In these cycles of interplanetary relationship the moment of culmination occurs at the midpoint of the whole cycle; thus, in the lunation cycle, at Full Moon. The entire cycle is divided also in two hemicycles, but both hemicycles refer to manifested existential activity - yet the type of activity in the first or "waxing" hemicycle is essentially different from the type in evidence during the "waning" hemicycle; or, more accurately, in each hemicycle the relationship between the two moving factors operates in a characteristically different manner.

This is true whenever the cycle of relationship between any two planets is the subject of astrological study, but the soli-lunar cycle is by far the most important and most easily interpretable of all such cycles of relationship because the changes in the relationship are made evident by the shape of the Moon in the sky. But let us not forget that what changes is NOT the Moon, but the relationship between the Moon and the Sun. This relationship, however, is made clearly visible by the change in the form of the lunar source of the light - a light emanating from the Sun and reflected by the Moon's surface, as seen by an Earth observer.

These italicized words are most important; for any cycle of relationship between two moving celestial bodies exists only in reference to the Earth. The Earth is the third factor in the relationship. Any significant relationship implies, or should imply, a third factor as we shall presently see when discussing the trine aspect.

When an astrologer speaks of an opposition aspect between Jupiter and Saturn, he refers to a particular phase in the cycle of relationship which began when these two planets were in conjunction. An opposition is the culmination of a process which began some ten years before, as Jupiter and Saturn are conjunct every twenty years. If we use the lunation cycle as an archetypal pattern of significance, we can analogically speak of the period lasting from the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction to the opposition (in our present period from February 1961 to the years 1970-71; the opposition occurs three times) as the "waxing" hemicycle of the Jupiter- Saturn cycle. The "waning" hemicycle lasts from the time of opposition to that of the next conjunction (three times repeated during 1981, in early Libra).

Every aspect between the two planets should be considered as "phases" of the entire cyclic process. This means that no aspect can be fully understood except in relation to the character and purpose of the whole process. As astrology is indeed - as Marc E. Jones wrote long ago "the science of all beginnings," it follows that the seed meaning of the entire Jupiter-Saturn cycle resides in latency in the conjunction which starts the cycle. At the conjunction a new set of potentialities is released with reference to the Jupiter-Saturn relationship. What is pure potentiality, but also intense dynamism, at the time of the conjunction should theoretically reach a state of culmination in objective manifestation at the time of the opposition. However, the process started at the conjunction may fail to take hold of the situation to which it refers; in other words, it may fail to overcome the inertial momentum of the past; it may be defeated in one way or another. If so, then the opposition aspect signifies the full evidence of failure, and, in the broadest sense of the term, divorce.

In our present instance February 1961 marked the beginning of the Kennedy Administration, and of a great wave of dynamic hope which swept over much of the world. We all know what subsequently happened. Immediately after Jupiter had moved sufficiently ahead of Saturn to reach a phase of septile relationship (51&1/2 degrees an aspect of "fate in action" or collective Karma) the President was assassinated in circumstances never satisfactorily elucidated, but which may have some relationship to the abortive attempt to invade Cuba in 1961. Just after the two planets formed a semi-square in July 1963, John Kennedy lost his newborn son, and our involvement in Vietnam had at least potentially begun.

The two planets formed a particularly drastic square in July 1965; this is to be considered a "waxing" square. On the other hand the square between the opposition and the next conjunction - which in the lunation cycle means the "last quarter of the Moon" - is a "waning" square. Practically all astrologers consider these two types of squares identical in meaning. They do so because they simply do not realize that aspects have significance only in terms of the structure of a whole cycle of relationship. It is quite as senseless to believe that a waxing and a waning square have the same significance as it would be to say that the solstice of summer and the solstice of winter have an identical meaning in the seasonal cycle of the year beginning at the spring equinox. Even if we consider the shapes of the Moon at the first and at the last quarters we see that they are oriented in opposite directions; so are the Moon-crescent after New Moon, and the Mooncrescent (or de-crescent) before New Moon. Youth has not the same character as old age, even if one sometimes speaks of "second infancy." Likewise the two critical turning points in any cyclic process represented by the two square aspects cannot possibly have the same meaning. They operate in a somewhat similar manner, but at different levels. They mark two opposite stages in the relationship between the two celestial bodies being considered.

The reason why this is usually not recognized by astrologers is because their approach is not "holistic." They speak glibly of cycles, but actually do not think of cycles as wholes in time, i.e., as processes having a beginning, a middle and an end. They do not understand the structure of cycles, because they are hypnotized by geometrical and spatial concepts, and the idea that aspects represent angular divisions of a circle division by two (opposition), by three (trines), by four (squares), etc. Such a process of geometrical sectioning of circular space assuredly is valid and significant, but it is not the only way astrological aspects are formed. There is formin-time as well as form-in-space. The time factor dominates the first (waxing) hemicycle of a cycle; the space factor is mainly effective in terms of values related to the second (waning) hemicycle.

The reason why it is so should be very obvious, philosophically as well as biologically and psychologically. Every cycle of relationship begins in an act of mobilization of power - the power generated by the union of two factors. Something relatively new has been released, and this release means dynamic, concretely focused activity. It means the working out of an impulse to existence and the unfoldment of some sort of structural idea or archetypal form seeking exteriorization through the impulse. The creative Word-in-thebeginning is both energy and form; likewise any human word implies a sound-vibration (which is a release of vocal energy) and some kind of meaning, or feeling; and meaning and feeling refers to a particular kind of relationship between existing entities.

The first half of the cycle (for instance, from New Moon to Full Moon) is therefore essentially a period of building-activity. The new idea or feeling seeks to exteriorize itself in concrete and formed activity. In order to do so, as it is not alone in the world, it meets obstacles and other impulses-ideas-feelings which also seek full actualization. The future has to struggle against the inertia of the past. The waxing aspects during this first hemicycle refer thus basically to impetuous and spontaneous activity, to struggle, overcoming, building, and either to success or failure in the process of actualizing what was inherent and only potential in the original first moment of the cycle. I have described in detail the meaning of these aspects in my book The Lunation Cycle - A Key to the Understanding of Personality, and we shall see presently the manner in which the sequence of such aspects unfolds.

When the opposition aspect is reached, as already stated, two possibilities are encountered: either fulfillment in a concrete form which successfully actualizes what was potential in the original release immediately following the conjunction or a definite realization of failure, and the estrangement of the two factors - united at the time of this conjunction. Estrangement can mean physical separation, divorce, or a gradual withering of the relationship which remains only as an increasingly empty shell.

If the first half of the cycle has been successful - and to the extent it is actually a fulfillment of what was potential at, let us say, New Moon time - a new process starts in the Full Moon experience. It does not start suddenly in most cases, for it has been prepared during the phase of the soli-lunar cycle referred to as "gibbous Moon." Yet in many instances something definite happens; in a sense, it always happens, but the individual person may not quite realize the meaning of the occurrence. There is a "descent" of a spiritual factor which induces a transformation of the mind. Until the opposition aspect mind is subservient to life. At the opposition mind can, and should be born as the power of objectively realized consciousness. This is why Krishna said in the Bhagavad Gita that he is not only the beginning and end, but the middle of all cycles. At the mid-point of a cycle consciousness is focused in a fully manifested and incorporated sense; and this is also why the study of "midpoints" is so important in the interpretation of a birth-chart, for they focus the concrete operation of the spatial relationship between two planets and also the relationship between the two axes of the chart, horizon and meridian.

What happens after the opposition - if it has meant success - is that a new process of consciousness unfoldment begins. Whereas during the first hemicycle activity was primarily (but not exclusively) biologically and physically spontaneous and seeking personal, limited self-expression, during the second hemicycle a mental type of activity pervades, or superimposes itself upon the physical-biological functions and seeks to dominate, guide or control them.

It is evident that such a characterization of the two halves of cycles must be taken in a most general and abstract sense if the principles it implies are to be applied to diverse cycles and various levels of existence. Yet if one can get a clear and basic idea of the principles involved, these can be successfully applied to all cycles. But we should not forget that they are structural principles; they do not deal with particular events. They refer to the development of form in time. We will now see how this structural unfoldment of cyclic processes operates in greater detail.

Person-Centered Astrology