CHAPTER TWO
Planetary Cycles - 3

When Does A Uranus Cycle Begin?
The 10,000 year period includes 120 Uranus cycles, plus one extra period of nearly 84 years which can be considered significantly as a "seed-period" linking two 10,000 year cycles. It would have about the same meaning as the above mentioned Pythagorean comma in music — i.e. the amount by which a cyclic series of 12 fifths is greater than 7 octaves. Indeed Uranus can be related symbolically to the musical interval of the fifth (C to G), because this interval is the foundation of the process of "modulation" from one tonality to another. Likewise Uranus represents essentially the power enabling man to ascend from one level of consciousness to the next: that is, to experience a true metamorphosis. Astrologers know well how closely the transits of Uranus over the Sun, the Moon, the four Angles, etc. of a natal chart relate to crisis of changes which (if all goes well!) enable the person to reach a new level of consciousness. Thus in the 10,000 year cycle, Uranus' periods constitute, as it were, the minute hand of the clock of evolution on this Earth.
      Uranus moves every seven years into a new sign of the zodiac — and the seven-year cycle is probably the most important period in the unfoldment of a thinking individual person. Four such cycles (or 28 years) mark the length of the three great periods of a human life having reached the stage of at least relative individualization; and today we are fast approaching the time when we shall see the life-span of a fully developed individual averaging 84 years, a complete revolution of Uranus around the Sun.
      The typical Great Cycle of Uranus encompasses thus about 1005 years and witnesses 144 times the passage of Uranus into a new zodiacal sign; and we recall the use of this number 144 in Biblical symbolism. An analysis of this 1005 year cycle will reveal very interesting and historically relevant connections between the beginning of each of the 12 periods and important changes in the process of civilization.
      However the problem we are facing here, as in all similar cyclic measuring, is how to select a valid starting point for the cycle. Two logical possibilities can be considered:

(1) the 84 year long Uranus cycle could be said to begin when Uranus passes from South to North declination. This corresponds to what happens at the spring equinox, when the Sun crosses the celestial equator moving northward — and this crossing marks the beginning of the astrological year, and of various calendars past and present. Such a passage into North declination by Uranus occurs theoretically around the time this planet has longitude 0° (i.e. Aries 0°). However, while the passage of the Sun from south to north declination is clear-cut and happens only once every yearly cycle, the crossing of the celestial equator by planets such as Uranus, Neptune and Pluto gives rise to an ambiguous situation. The planet oscillates back and forth from south to north, then to south again and north declination. This occurs also, in reverse order, when the planet moves from north to south declination; so that, for instance, Uranus will move from south to north declination at the end of March 1969 while it is retrograding in Libra after having moved from north to south declination late in October 1968.
      This produces such an ambiguous situation that it seems far more sensible to use, for the purpose of a broad study of the Uranus cycle the time when Uranus reaches only once every cycle Aries 0° by heliocentric measurement. This happened for the last time in the spring 1927. This was the time of Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic. U. S. marines had just landed in Nicaragua and in China. French Premier Briand's activities were aiming at a European Federation, while in Germany Hitler was gradually building a strong Nazi organization. Pluto was officially discovered in 1929-1930.

(2) The Uranus cycle begins when the planet reaches its North Node (heliocentric), moving from a South to a North latitude. Uranus' North Node is at present at about 13°50' Gemini; and according to recent ephemerides moving forward at the rate of 18 seconds of arc per year, which means half a degree per century. (Old astronomical works gave different figures and suggested periods during which some of the planets' nodes were retrograde. Hindu treatises speak of planetary nodes cycles lasting several hundred of thousand years).
      The last heliocentric passage of Uranus over its North Node occurred most significantly on July 20, 1945, four days after the first atomic explosion in Alamagordo, N. M. which indeed ushered in a new era — for better or for worse. The previous crossing of the ecliptic from South to North declination occurred in June, 1861 just after the inauguration of Lincoln and the start of the Civil War — also the beginning of modern Italy as a kingdom under Victor-Emmanuel, the Mexican Expedition by France, England and Spain, and important events in China and Japan. Another crossing occurred in 1777 during the War of Independence; and in 1693, 1609 and 1526.