Left and right are not symmetrical, not qualitatively. On the morning of the vernal equinox, the sun rises due east. Then, for three months until the summer solstice — in the northern hemisphere, at least, whence comes all Mesopotamian, Nile Valley, and Mediterranean culture, not to mention Chinese, Indian, and Mesoamerican — the point of sunrise migrates leftward along the horizon. When the sunrise travels to the left like this (that is, to the north), the days get longer, the weather becomes hot, and plants thrive.
At the summer solstice, the sunrise reaches its northern limit and turns back, moving then to the right along the horizon. In three months’ time, the span of three moons, the sunrise is back where it was, due east — the autumnal equinox.
Not stopping there, the sunrise continues rightward for three months until the winter solstice. When the sunrise travels rightward like this (that is, to the south), the days get shorter, the nights longer; the weather becomes cold, plants die, and wool grows thick.
At the winter solstice, the sunrise reaches its southern limit and again reverses course. Having been traveling rightward for six months, it turns and travels leftward for six months. After the first three, it’s back at the vernal equinox, due east.
“Then God said, ‘Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven for illumination to divide day from night. Let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years. Let them be for illumination in the firmament of heaven to give light on the earth.’ And it was so. Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also” (Gen. 1:14–16).
The moon and the stars help measure out this circuit of the sun. The phases of the moon operate on a 29½-day cycle, accustoming us men to a monthly schedule (women don’t need the help, but appreciate the heavenly empathy). This monthly schedule influences the twelve-part division of the solar year I’ve described, marked out by the equinoxes and solstices as four segments of three months each. Then the fixed pattern of the stars provide a background with which to identify these twelve months. In the ancient world (before the precession of the equinoxes, discussion of which I will forego for now), the constellation of stars that rose just to the left of due east came to be identified as the bull Taurus. Taurus rose from this position on the horizon on a daily basis. The First Book of Enoch calls such a position a hole or opening, alternately translated as a ‘portal’ (my preference) or a ‘gate’.1 The rate of the stars’ orbit differs from the sun such that the sun overlaps Taurus for only one month of the year. When the sun passes Taurus, it enters the next constellation, which rises from the next portal, Gemini. A month later, the sunrise enters the far left portal, and the sun overlaps with Cancer. When the sunrise turns back after the solstice, it traverses the same far left portal in reverse, but now the sun overlaps with Leo. Tracing back through the portals, the sun finds a different constellation in each. The zodiac is a ring through which the sun passes on a yearly basis, but on a daily basis, the whole sequence of constellations rises on the eastern horizon, oscillating back and forth, two constellations for each of the six portals, according to the two sides of the ring.
This will be easier to see visually than by description. Let me see what size gif Substack will allow.
Hm. Maybe we should go with some diagrams. The following chart shows how the zodiac moves through time, with the constellations in the positions where they were originally observed. Imagine each constellation rising on the eastern horizon in this order. The center line is due east; vertically, the six columns comprise the six portals. Cancer and Leo enter through the northernmost portal (on the left), and Capricorn and Aquarius enter through the southernmost (on the right).
That’s the complete 12-month cycle; after Aries, Taurus appears again, and the pattern repeats. Copy and paste this chart over and over in a vertical line and get a sense of its daily repetitions. Tilt your head to the right, moreover, and you can see this pattern is a negative sine wave. A sine wave is just a circle drawn in time. Remove the dimension of time, and you can imagine the pattern as a circle.
Now, I opened by saying right and left are not qualitatively symmetrical. That’s because — taking for granted our material dependence on the sun, and thus our orientation towards the sunrise (the orient) — north and south to the left and right yield two vastly different experiences. Geo-graphically, there is a sense that north means cold and south means hot. Those meanings correspond only to earth, however. Heaven is the reverse. Ourano-graphically, north means hot, and south means cold — on account of the path of the sun along the horizon (heaven and earth are chiastic reflections of each other). So when the light that rules the heavens moves leftward, it descends down to earth, visiting it and warming it, causing it to respond with great fertility. But when it moves rightward, it ascends up away from the earth, abandoning it to the cold, leaving it to pass through a type of death — or, since the sun always comes back, let’s say ‘a rejuvenating sleep’.
Now, believe it or not, that’s all just background for what I briefly wanted to say about the Twelve Prophets of the Old Testament (a.k.a. the ‘Minor’ Prophets). Together they comprise a single book (originally a scroll, later a codex), and their order serves as one example of how these heavenly patterns observed in nature are reflected in the written word as it coalesced in Scripture. For the sun, moon, and stars are created for marking time. As such, they can also serve as the patterns of narrative. How many stories are there that follow the seasons of the year? Or the cycle of a day? Countless. All of them? I don’t know, but a whole lot. Here’s a scriptural example.
The Twelve Prophets are arranged — in the ancient version of the Bible transmitted to us by its translators into Greek — in four groups of three. The first trio were all prophets from before the fall of Samaria and the Northern Kingdom to Assyria, and they prophesied thereof. They are Hosea, Amos, and Micah. (The order in the Masoretic text used by most English Bibles is not the same.) The third trio, meanwhile, came after that but preceded the fall of Jerusalem and the Southern Kingdom to Babylon, and they prophesied thereof. They are Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah. These two trios correspond to the seasons of spring and autumn, respectively. In the spring, the sunrise moves from due east leftward to a northern limit, and so Hosea, Amos, and Micah look towards the time when the wrath of God ever so graciously visits the Northern Kingdom, a time here symbolically represented by the summer solstice. At the opposite time of year, in autumn, the sunrise moves from due east rightward to a southern limit, and so Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah look towards the time when, by means of abandonment, the wrath of God befalls the Southern Kingdom, a time here symbolically represented by the winter solstice.
The fourth trio, meanwhile, represent a return from the ‘rejuvenating sleep’ of the winter solstice. Accordingly, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi are all post-exilic prophets, preaching about, during, or after the return to the Holy Land from Babylonian captivity. Solomon’s Temple at Jerusalem having long been reduced to rubble in their time, these prophets rightly correspond to the winter months leading up to the vernal equinox — which equinox from this perspective symbolizes the rebuilding of the temple and restoration of the Law.
That leaves us with the second trio, Joel, Obadiah, and Jonah, which all have a perennial character. That is to say, none of these prophecies contain within them any specific historical indicators.2 This relative timelessness suits them for the summer months which present a symbolic image of eternal life in paradise, where the lifegiving fruits of repentance are always ripe for the picking.
Now, I know where the inquiring mind goes next, wanting to match symbolically the spirit of each prophet with the appropriate astrological sign. I can see the possibility of that perhaps. For one thing it would require we forget the false knowledge of astrology as it has developed and is popularly known, but in the original ancient mythology the promise of meaning is rich, if the endeavor to discover it arduous. It’s more than I can cover in one Substack post, though.
For now I can just invite you to look at the pattern of the Twelve Prophets and contemplate it as a yearly cycle as measured by the heavens. The first trio (spring) plots the demise of the apostate northern tribes (at the summer solstice); the second trio (summer) yields us eternal images of repentance and mercy (unto the autumnal equinox); the third trio (autumn) traces the descent and destruction of Judah and Jerusalem (at the winter solstice); and the fourth trio (winter) brings us back from exile and to a new beginning (at the vernal equinox).
N.B. I recently found a separate example of this dodecadic pattern in the twelve sexual sins punishable by death at Leviticus 20:10–21. It works a bit differently and is an interesting variation on the theme. You can look closely at what I found here.
The Book of Heavenly Luminaries in 1 Enoch (ch. 72–82) is recommended for an ancient account of what I’m trying to describe here. Enoch got his celestial knowledge from the Archangel Uriel. Admittedly, some might find that more reliable than an internet scribe who has stared too long at Stellarium on his computer.
The events described in the Book of Jonah (which is purely a story, unique among the Twelve Prophets) occur in the general era when Nineveh was thriving, thus before the ascent of Babylon. True, a prophet named Jonah son of Amittai (cf. Jonah 1:1) briefly appears in the historical record at 4 Kingdoms (2 Kings) 14:25 — and he broadly fits the description of our Prophet Jonah in that he speaks in favor of an unrighteous, vengeful king — but within the Book of Jonah itself there is no such specific historical setting.