Matthew Quellas on Quotidians

[Jim Eshelman]

Steve posted this over a decade ago, and it's mostly lost down in obscure old threads. I thought it should be more visible and easily accessible. Matthew spent years minutely watching and cataloging effects of quotidian systems - it was his obsession - and, before his death, wrote notes that were circulated around the early Internet. I recommend these for your consideration in cutting through the confusion around quotidians.

Not many siderealists are seriously working with quotidians, yet it's a rich field to see if our "assumptions" are based in actual experience. I generally look at transiting planets on quotidian angles as "opportunities" or "outlets" as well as a particular type of stimulus.

When you're working with quotidians, watch particularly for parans, planets crossing the angles together at the same Local Sidereal Time (LST) for a given day. Parans involving =only= natal planets, like natal Jupiter rising as natal Moon culminates, will not be as "event indicating" as parans involving natals or progressed planets with transiting planets. The "natals only" angular crossings and parans are what have been going on year after year at about the same time (date) every year. Natals with progressed, or natals with transiting, or progressed with transiting are "out of the ordinary" year after year influences. This is particularly true with the Natal Quotidian.

The Solar Quotidian is different. As natal planets are brought to the angles throughout the year, there is a different time base. It won't be the same date each year as with the Natal Quotidian (NQ). So depending on reinforcing transit or SR planet activity, natals to SQ angles can be more important.

As a general rule:
Unless there is a paran involving natal, progressed, SR planets, with quotidian-angular transiting planets, don't expect a significant incident to manifest. One planet angular by itself may or may not be meaningful. It depends on what else is going on. Is it being transited?

Natal planets are fairly clear, I think: that's what we're born with; they map our habitual response patterns. Secondary progressed planets are, theoretically, still a part of ourselves, but are more ephemeral, more transitory. They represent, perhaps, stages of unfolding character. The progressed Moon, particularly, is highly reflective of whatever it is aspecting; often progressed Moon to natal planet X produces results similar to a =transit by planet X=. Sort of a flip- flop of what one would expect.

[Jim Eshelman]

Wow, what a bit of astrological serendipity. I just noticed that I posted the above article with transiting Saturn 0°00' from Matthew's natal Ascendant. (Zero minutes!) That only happens one in 21,600 random chances.

He died July 11, 2014 in Atwater Village, Los Angeles (34N07'41" 118W16'00" for his home). At noon that day:

12°23' Aqu - t Neptune
27°06' Sag - L Asc
27°38' Pis - r Mars
28°00' Virgo - t Mars
28°14' Pis - t Eris
28°41' Gem - r Moon
28°38' Pis - SSR MC

There were impressive suggestions that transits to Solar Arc directions might be valid (not decisive since he had d MC sq r Saturn 0°01' regardless):

21°46' Lib - t Saturn
22°22' Ari - d Asc

3°43' Leo - r Mercury
4°11' Aqu - d MC
4°12' Tau - r Saturn
5°00' Leo - d Jupiter

Better than the directions, though, are the solunars. In particular, take his SSR from nearly a year earlier (already hinted at above):

27°38' Pis - r Mars (MC -0°48')
28°38' Pis - SSR MC
28°41' Gem - r Moon
0°10' Can - t Mars

8°23' Can - SSR Asc
10°39' Can - r Pluto (Asc -0°26')
11°22' Lib - t Saturn

This, of course, makes his natal Mars-Pluto form a 0°22' mundane square along with t Mars to r Moon-Mars plus Saturn (barely) angular square his Pluto.

[Jim Eshelman]

For some reason (the current Mercury-Jupiter-Saturn T-square bracketing my Jupiter-Uranus?) I felt prompted this morning to digest Matthew's summary above. It is an important piece of work as it stands, summarizing decades of his experience: I encourage everyone to read it as he wrote it to get his nuances. Still, to encourage more work in this direction, I will distill it to a few simple rules.

• GENERAL RULE: Watch especially for co-angularities (parans) that include at least one transiting planet. A single angular planet may or may not be meaningful: For a significant event, look for at least two concurrent crossings, at least one of which is a transit. [Otherwise, there may be a clear psychological effect, but less likely an event. - JAE]
• SNQ (natal quotidian) angles are responsive to natal, progressed, and transiting planets. SQ (SSR quotidian) angles are responsive to natal, SSR, and transiting planets. [Implied but not explicitly stated above. - JAE]
• "Out of the ordinary" influences come from co-angularities of natal + transiting, or progressed + transiting, or even natal + progressed or SSR planets.
• Especially in the SNQ, co-angularities involving only natal planets are not as likely to show an event as those of natal or progressed planets with a transiting planet. (SNQ natal-only crossings occur every year on the same date.)
• The SQ is different. Natal planets come to angles on different calendar days and have unique aspects to SSR planets each year. These are more distinctive than in the SNQ, especially when a transiting planet is also involved or a natal-SSR combination comes to the angles.

• Natal planets are what we're born with: They map our habitual response patterns.
• Secondary progressed planets are theoretically still a part of ourselves, but more ephemeral or transitory; perhaps they represent stages of unfolding character.
• Progressed Moon particularly is highly reflective of whatever it aspects. Often progressed Moon to a natal planet produces results similar to a transit by that planet (a flip-flop of what one would expect).
• Transiting planets on Q angles are opportunities or outlets, or a particular type of stimulus.

One important clarification: Matthew felt quotidian crossings (whether of natal, progressed, solar, or transiting planets) should be calculated mundanely. Through the '70s through '90s, we all thought this and, in pre-computer times, we went through enormous work calculating this. Matthew continued with this enormous work (but computer-assisted) until his death. However, when I did my initial deep dive into Sidereal mundane astrology on this site, I was surprised to see that quotidian contacts were more exact ecliptically. This was a real surprise! Though I have looked at them ecliptically for more than a decade now (and, if asked my opinion would unhesitantly say they work best ecliptically), I ultimately consider this an undecided issue that needs much further work. One day we hopefully will have features in Time Matters to allow anyone to generate quotidian crossing lists both ecliptically and mundanely and compare them, but there is no easy way for most people to do that today. (That's why we're building better tools.) For the summarized points above, I have paraphrased parans as co-angularities to avoid confusion and allow Matthew's underlying teaching to come out regardless of whether one ultimately thinks these crossings should be done ecliptically or mundanely.