Transits in prime vertical longitude
Posted: Sun May 26, 2024 11:36 am
[Another thread raised the question of transits in prime vertical longitude. This is identical to the question of interfacing any two charts by PVL, as in synastry. I'm moving the answer here to start its own thread. After my original answer, I'll spot check a few examples.]
There has been no work done on the question of transits in prime vertical longitude because the math is unsurmountable by almost everyone (it's overwhelmingly labor-intensive for me) and we have no software to do the job for us. Since we haven't done any testing, we don't know whether they work or not.
I can conceive of three different scenarios which, based on pure theory, deserve to be examined. They are dramatically different. If they're all valid, astrological life gets insanely complicated except we would probably usually ignore two of them because they deal with brief minutes-long periods in the course of a single day. We already tend to ignore things like that (e.g., when natal or transiting planets cross angles - the easiest to check - or when mundane aspects by transiting planets are formed and vanish in the course of the day). Let's go through these three scenarios.
The important part of the first two is understanding that PVL positions exist within the mathematical context of a specific space-time intersection - a specific orientation of horizon, meridian, and PVL at a specific point in time. This is easy with a single wheel (a single chart), since the single chart. However, for a second set of planets - such as transits - we have to orient the second set's positions within the horizon-meridian-PVL-time framework of the first wheel. One of the biggest considerations is precession.
SCENARIO 1: Transit positions within a natal framework. The simplest answer to "What do we mean by transits in PVL" is the motion of transiting planets within the framework of a natal chart. This means that the transiting positions have to be precessed back to the natal epoch (with its specific horizon and VP), new equatorial coordinates derived, and then these positioned within the horizon, meridian, and prime vertical of the location and moment of birth. For one moment in time, this is easy by computer and demanding without a computer: Precess the longitude to the earlier date, convert ecliptical to equatorial coordinates, use these equatorial coordinates to calculate prime vertical longitude within the H-M-PV of the birth moment and place. (This is the reverse of what TM does for natal planets in the framework of a return chart.)
It's easy by computer for a snapshot moment in time. However, for something ongoing, like a list of transits for the month, one has to have a tactic. I'm guessing that, in 24 hours, these PVL positions usually will shift about as much as planets shift in longitude, so they can be linearly interpolated. No biggie.
This is the simplest scenario and perhaps what you meant. I should also mention in all of these that there will be significantly different outcomes with natal and local charts, so the number of factors doubles (each has to be addressed separately).
SCENARIO 2: Natal positions within a transit framework. But if Scenario 1 is true and valid, why not the opposite? Our natal planets seem to operate within the transient mundane framework, e.g., within the passing angles. (My natal Venus crossed Nadir just now as the power came back on and I confirmed that everything I had written in this post had been saved.) If that works, then why wouldn't everything else about our natal planets moving about in the shifting current-time mundane framework also apply?
This would mean that the mundane relationships between natal planets would shift constantly during the day, forming and separating from various mundane aspects we might never suspect (much the way that parans of natal planets come to the angles then move away: parans are special case examples of PV aspects). And these continually changing mundane placements and relationships of natal planets would be in ever-shifting PV aspect with the transiting planets, which would go through their own shifts throughout the day. - It's complicated, even if the concept is simple.
SCENARIO 3. Is there a "mundoscope zodiac"? I use the term "mundoscope zodiac" mostly tongue-in-cheek, picking it because geometric design of the mundane sphere is theoretically identical to that of the celestial sphere (just oriented differently, with different equators and poles). What I really mean is: Does the mundoscope framework have persistence in and of itself, independent of any celestial positioning of anything in the chart?
That is: If you have a planet precisely on Midheaven at birth, does every passing planet that rises, culminates, sets, and anticulminates form a mundane conjunction, opposition, and square with it? And the same with any places off the angles? - To get this idea, set the mundoscope of your birth chart side by side with the mundoscope of an event chart.
This one is at least easy to test for specific events. I'll probably do a bit of that before I'm through here.
MATHEMATICAL SOLUTIONS: Mike Nelson was on his way to overcoming the calculation problems of most of these matters. In fact, he might have already coded the solution. He spoke of finishing specific parts. It's really the same thing Time Matters already does with solunars, where the mundoscope positions of the natal planets are calculated within the local-temporal context of the return chart.
When Mike N and I began to discuss synastry tools, we touched on what is essentially this same problem: Does each person's chart within the framework of another person's chart work mundanely as well as ecliptically? If I put my planets inside my wife's natal time-place prime vertical framework, would we get different aspects that are comparably important to the ecliptical ones? (I have opinions, but no data to back or dispute them.)
Mike's solution was simple: He saw TMSA containing a simple feature whereby any two calculated charts could be melded this way, any one chart viewed within the mundane framework of any other calculated chart. I think he'd already finished this - perhaps not the buttons to call it up etc. The essential method is already there in the solar and lunar return code. It's just a matter of creating a UI that asks for the two charts to merge and (ideally) let's you flip between which is primary and which secondary (which is context and which is content).
Having the calculating tools available to everybody is the real way to resolve these questions.
There has been no work done on the question of transits in prime vertical longitude because the math is unsurmountable by almost everyone (it's overwhelmingly labor-intensive for me) and we have no software to do the job for us. Since we haven't done any testing, we don't know whether they work or not.
I can conceive of three different scenarios which, based on pure theory, deserve to be examined. They are dramatically different. If they're all valid, astrological life gets insanely complicated except we would probably usually ignore two of them because they deal with brief minutes-long periods in the course of a single day. We already tend to ignore things like that (e.g., when natal or transiting planets cross angles - the easiest to check - or when mundane aspects by transiting planets are formed and vanish in the course of the day). Let's go through these three scenarios.
The important part of the first two is understanding that PVL positions exist within the mathematical context of a specific space-time intersection - a specific orientation of horizon, meridian, and PVL at a specific point in time. This is easy with a single wheel (a single chart), since the single chart. However, for a second set of planets - such as transits - we have to orient the second set's positions within the horizon-meridian-PVL-time framework of the first wheel. One of the biggest considerations is precession.
SCENARIO 1: Transit positions within a natal framework. The simplest answer to "What do we mean by transits in PVL" is the motion of transiting planets within the framework of a natal chart. This means that the transiting positions have to be precessed back to the natal epoch (with its specific horizon and VP), new equatorial coordinates derived, and then these positioned within the horizon, meridian, and prime vertical of the location and moment of birth. For one moment in time, this is easy by computer and demanding without a computer: Precess the longitude to the earlier date, convert ecliptical to equatorial coordinates, use these equatorial coordinates to calculate prime vertical longitude within the H-M-PV of the birth moment and place. (This is the reverse of what TM does for natal planets in the framework of a return chart.)
It's easy by computer for a snapshot moment in time. However, for something ongoing, like a list of transits for the month, one has to have a tactic. I'm guessing that, in 24 hours, these PVL positions usually will shift about as much as planets shift in longitude, so they can be linearly interpolated. No biggie.
This is the simplest scenario and perhaps what you meant. I should also mention in all of these that there will be significantly different outcomes with natal and local charts, so the number of factors doubles (each has to be addressed separately).
SCENARIO 2: Natal positions within a transit framework. But if Scenario 1 is true and valid, why not the opposite? Our natal planets seem to operate within the transient mundane framework, e.g., within the passing angles. (My natal Venus crossed Nadir just now as the power came back on and I confirmed that everything I had written in this post had been saved.) If that works, then why wouldn't everything else about our natal planets moving about in the shifting current-time mundane framework also apply?
This would mean that the mundane relationships between natal planets would shift constantly during the day, forming and separating from various mundane aspects we might never suspect (much the way that parans of natal planets come to the angles then move away: parans are special case examples of PV aspects). And these continually changing mundane placements and relationships of natal planets would be in ever-shifting PV aspect with the transiting planets, which would go through their own shifts throughout the day. - It's complicated, even if the concept is simple.
SCENARIO 3. Is there a "mundoscope zodiac"? I use the term "mundoscope zodiac" mostly tongue-in-cheek, picking it because geometric design of the mundane sphere is theoretically identical to that of the celestial sphere (just oriented differently, with different equators and poles). What I really mean is: Does the mundoscope framework have persistence in and of itself, independent of any celestial positioning of anything in the chart?
That is: If you have a planet precisely on Midheaven at birth, does every passing planet that rises, culminates, sets, and anticulminates form a mundane conjunction, opposition, and square with it? And the same with any places off the angles? - To get this idea, set the mundoscope of your birth chart side by side with the mundoscope of an event chart.
This one is at least easy to test for specific events. I'll probably do a bit of that before I'm through here.
MATHEMATICAL SOLUTIONS: Mike Nelson was on his way to overcoming the calculation problems of most of these matters. In fact, he might have already coded the solution. He spoke of finishing specific parts. It's really the same thing Time Matters already does with solunars, where the mundoscope positions of the natal planets are calculated within the local-temporal context of the return chart.
When Mike N and I began to discuss synastry tools, we touched on what is essentially this same problem: Does each person's chart within the framework of another person's chart work mundanely as well as ecliptically? If I put my planets inside my wife's natal time-place prime vertical framework, would we get different aspects that are comparably important to the ecliptical ones? (I have opinions, but no data to back or dispute them.)
Mike's solution was simple: He saw TMSA containing a simple feature whereby any two calculated charts could be melded this way, any one chart viewed within the mundane framework of any other calculated chart. I think he'd already finished this - perhaps not the buttons to call it up etc. The essential method is already there in the solar and lunar return code. It's just a matter of creating a UI that asks for the two charts to merge and (ideally) let's you flip between which is primary and which secondary (which is context and which is content).
Having the calculating tools available to everybody is the real way to resolve these questions.