Living Sky Astrology

Chapter 2

Origins of Mathematics

The Ancients had studied the night sky for thousands of years.  They learned that cyclic angular formations between planets were synchronized with the drama and pathos unfolding here on Earth.  Some cycles were readily predictable, like those of the Sun and Moon.

But the other planets moved in ways that seemed impossible to predict back then.  They seemed to speed up, slow down, and even change directions in the sky.

Johannes Kepler is the scientist who devised the mathematical laws of motion that explain all the mysterious deviations in the movement of the planets.  For this task he was sent to become an apprentice to Tycho Brahe, legendary Astrologer to the King of Holland.

Tycho Brahe lived and worked in his castle on a tiny island in the North Sea.  Every cloudless night he climbed to the roof of a specially constructed round stone tower and looked deeply into the dark sky.  In a time before telescopes, he had devoted his life to the faithful nightly collection of planetary positions.

Tycho's contribution made it possible for Kepler to construct a predictable record of cyclic motion of the known planets of that era, of which Saturn was the outermost.

The book of daily planetary positions, based on the methods of predictability evolved by Kepler and Brahe, is called an ephemeris.

These ephemera are so accurate that planetary positions thousands of years in the future (and past) can be known today, with precision.

(Click here for Chapter 3 - Revolution)

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