the lemniscate

I was meditating on the infinity symbol (the lemniscate) today and realized it may be a symbol for binary star system...

A sample radial light curve from the DDO Binary Star Program,
which has now resolved the orbits of 50 systems
(abscissa is phase, ordinate is velocity in km/s).

www.astro.utoronto.ca/ DDO/Doings/oct01/

Solar Analema. The position of the sun.

ZEITGEIST, INFINITY SYMBOL & THE SUN

All the wisdom of the ages is self-contained within the fundamental tenets of astrological practice. The study of Hermetic literature reveals the Universal Laws and through a study of symbolism, numerology and geometry one can begin to see the pattern running through all of creation.

As an astrologer I never dismiss coincidences. They are messages arriving via the unconscious. They are invisible threads that are trying to help us determine natures laws, patterns and harmony. Recently I have had a run of synchronicities and I'm quite baffled as to where they may be leading. I would like to discuss here how these 'coincidences' might fit together - although I freely admit it would take a much greater mind than I possess to make any practical sense of what is being brought to my door.

Firstly let me tell you that from a young age I have doodled spirals and the symbol for infinity and pondered on the meaning of them. Recently I read that the infinity symbol (above) is of unknown origin. This came to my notice within days of seeing the film Zeitgeist and writing about it in my previous post.

Those of you who have yet to see this not-for- profit movie may at this point like to read my previous post and perhaps then go on to view Part One of the movie*. Having done so (and ensure you have a comfortable seat because it is 20 minutes of compelling viewing) please contemplate the next image on this page, that 'coincidentally' also came to my attention this week.

This is an image known as theAnalemma - a time lapse photograph of the annual passage of the Sun over Earth - rising to its highest declination North and then moving on down to its lowest declination South (from the Equator) as seen from a static position on Earth. In other words this is a visual depiction of the path of the Sun and the Solstice points. The curvature shows the Solstices - one of which we meet now 20th thru 23rd December 2007 as the Sun appears to stand still at 23.26 degrees of Southern declination. The other turning point occurs at the Summer Solstice in June.

It is important to know however that the visual turning point (Zeitgeist viewers take note) occurs on 25th December - Christmas Day. This is the date that day length visibly starts to change. To the ancients, who carefully tracked the daily position of any visible planet - but most especially the life-giving Sun - this symbol of time would surely have been noted. I'm sure archaeologists will have found regular occurrences of its appearance on cave walls and wood carvings as well as in Temples and other record and time-keeping artifacts. To my eyes it seems obvious that this is where the symbol for infinity must have arisen - infinity being a never ending factor (loop) of time and space.

It also seems clear to me that there would be some correspondence on Earth to this heavenly shape which looks like a figure 8 because the Sun was held in such reverence and worshipped as a God.

Obviously we know of the lines of the Tropics which match the solstices but surely our ancestors would have paid these latitudes and this symbol very special attention.

Let's have a recap on 'The Tropics'......The highest declination North of the Sun marks what we call the Tropic of Cancer around the Earth's sphere. The opposite declination marks the Tropic of Capricorn. If your astronomy and geography is not up to scratch, imagine holding a pen to a ball about halfway up from its midline and then turning the ball to trace a line around its circumference. The pen point would represent the Sun's position on the days it reaches its highest declination North and the ball would be the Earth. The same can be repeated for the other Tropic.

If you then stuck a map around the ball and squashed it out flat you would get a line from left to right. Here we can see this on a flat map of the globe. The line is always at 23 degrees and 26 minutes of latitude North and South, matching the Sun's highest declination at the Solstices. Therefore this red line is effectively the 'line of Christmas' projected onto the turning globe and is known as The Tropic of Capricorn


It would indeed be fascinating to see what Temples and artifacts lie in locations at this exact latitude (and those of the Tropic of Cancer The line of Easter.

LEMNISCATE
The proper name for the infinity symbol is known as the Lemniscus. How intriguing then that in anatomy this term is used for:
'A bundle of nerve fibers ascending from sensory nuclei in the spinal cord and the rhombencephalon to the thalamus'. This is the part of the body which amongst other things senses vibration.

In mathematics it refers to several things most well known being theLemniscate of Bernoulli from the family of Cassini Curves, and theLemniscate of Gerono and you might like to meditate on this applet hereInterestingly the philosophers Goethe and Steiner both lectured extensively on the properties of the Lemniscate

Those of you who are less of a 'connect-the-dots' and 'no coincidences' type mind may have completely lost me now. For others all this information will be resonating strongly. What is the link between the sign in the heavens of the path of the Sun and its correspondence to terrestrial life and the mysteries of our existence? Let's continue to look. The infinity sign resembles the number 8. This number has always held occult significance. It relates to the sign of Scorpio, it is the number of pathways in the Buddhist faith, it is the atomic number of oxygen and in physics is known as a magic number ......

Surfing around the Internet I found this:

The number 8 represents infinity. It has the profile of the Mobius strip. In fact the Mobius strip -- a distorted one -- is a circle - The symbol of completion and wholeness. However the figure 8 contains 2 circles therefore 8 represents a completion, like the circle, but on a new level, or another octaves, an end and a beginning. The number of days in a week is 7, but the 8th day, say a Monday, is the beginning of a new week. In nature every 8th wave arriving at the the sea shore is bigger than the rest. In the same way, in music, the 8th note is another octave.

8 hertz, very interestingly, is the brainwave frequency healers and mystics most tune into. Furthermore, 8 hertz isSchumann's Resonance~the frequency of earth (earth vibration). Humans cannot survive without it. Astronauts need a 8 htz generator to maintain health. Life depends on that frequency, otherwise we would not buzz. It's a common alpha frequency meditators frequency slip into for so called 'expanded consciousness' .

8 also ties in closely with DNA groupings 8x8=64. 8x8=64 squares of the I-ching, and the 8x8=64 squares of a chess board (that represent the Universe.)

This continues to illicit synchronous connections because we have already seen that in anatomy the Lemnisci is the seat of vibration. Additionally, before finding this, I had never heard of a Mobius Strip but upon looking it up I see that it has correlations to the shape of interlocking DNA strands.

'Curiouser and curiouser' said Alice in Wonderland. Are the secrets of life and time locked up in the figure 8? Certainly without our Sun tracing this shape, life as we know it would not exist.

It is also possible that linear time was not even a concept familiar to our very ancient ancestors in the way we would automatically presume. All that they were probably aware of was cyclical time. The constant cycles of nature and the heavens.

As Pluto moves into Capricorn, our understanding of the nature of time is set to be transformed. I recently said that I believe this will come about as a result of the Particle Accelerator tests at Cern (see my previous post) I was therefore fascinated to find repeated references on the Internet to the Lemniscate, Enrico Fermi and methods of splitting the atom!

Whilst Physicists come at the problem from their own perspectiveAstrologers have always known that Science and Spirituality are closer than they have ever been and all 'roads' are leading to the same knowledge, albeit via a different route.

Nature laws and cycles, documented in esoteric and alchemical literature, contain the key that will one day unlock to the door of the temple of knowledge and reveal the mysteries of life. In my next post I will look at the some more symbols associated with the Sun/Earth correspondences.

Meanwhile you may like to visit my main blog Collaborate With Fate

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* Zeitgeist The Movie is in three parts onYou Tube. The entire 20 minute section of Part one can be seen by going here and pushing the movie player forward to start at 10 mins. You don't need to see the introduction or part 2 or 3
My thanks to someone called Jonz for this information on the number 8.
Images are from a fabulous site about Analemma phenomenon