Two major hurdles on my astrological path have been, and so for many many years, the choices in house systems and the Tropical versus Sidereal (or Vedic) Zodiacs dilemma. The long and mentally painful hours and months and years of juggling the contradictions, the limitations, the possibilities. At time one settles for a way of approaching things… then like  Medusa one fears even looking at the disturbing lack of coherence.

The hurdle that is the topic here is that of the two Zodiacs.

Sidereal

Sidereal systems of astrology calculate twelve zodiac signs based on the observable sky and thus account for the apparent backwards movement of fixed stars of about 1 degree every 72 years from the perspective of the Earth due to the Earth’s axial precession.

Tropical

Tropical systems consider 0 degrees of Aries as always coinciding with the March equinox (known as the spring equinox in the Northern Hemisphere) and define twelve zodiac signs from this starting point, basing their definitions upon the seasons and not upon the observable sky wherein the March equinox currently falls in Pisces due to the Earth’s axial precession.

These differences have caused sidereal and tropical zodiac systems, which were aligned around 2,000 years ago when the March equinox coincided with Aries in the observable sky, to drift apart over the centuries.

The fact that both approaches and systems are used successfully is testimony to the need to delve into the deeper meanings of cycles, which all coexist, fascinating clockworks of the Universe. Dane Rudhyar showed me, as a young man, how to look at everything cyclically or rather ‘spirally’, and while attempting to synthesize and accept to apprehend both zodiacs I discovered a book by Canadian Québécois Jean-Paul Michon titled Les Douze Clefs du Double-Zodiaque (The twelve keys of the double zodiac) which is the first and only person who published work around an integral approach. From then on I felt relieved to fully dare to combine the zodiacs I call my approach Spiral Astrology (Thank You to J. P. Michon for the rite of passage). The Zodiacs’ spin, unlike clockworks, evolves spiraling, creating a new moment… every moment. No two moments/conditions ex-ist more than once. As God is One, all Creation is Once.

The tropical Zodiac is our anchor in the physical, it pertains to psychological constructions, personality expression and concrete actions. It is through the experiences provided by the Tropical Zodiac that, like plants, we wake and sleep as living breathing creatures. The Sidereal Zodiac is our anchor in the transcendant/spiritual, the Essential emanation that the space cleared by calmer or meditative states lets express: the Higher Self. Integrating the lesson of the Higher Self into life experiences can be challenging if one obstinately refuses to do so, by blindness, lack of Faith and fear, excessive attachment to Form (popularly called ‘materialism’, a rather crude ‘understanding’ of this plane). In many ways when we her/sense our inner child, we are connecting to our Sidereal chart.