What sort of astrological cycles or events might be recorded by a system of astrological notation such as I have proposed as an account of Voynichese?
What phenomena was the notation made to note?
As a general proposition, the answer to this must be: risings, settings and culminations.
These are the central events in any system of astrology. The traditional square chart of the heavens is designed to show exactly this information: what celestial bodies are rising, setting or culminating (on the 'Angles', as they say)?
This is an altogether structural matter and so it is very safe to assume that our author took some note of risings, settings and culminations.
This is also to say that the critical points for our author - and traditionally - are therefore the cusps and the midpoints. The cusps mark risings and settings. The midpoints are points of culmination.
The relevant "event" is when a celestial body cusps = enters a region of the heavens. When Jupiter enters - reaches the cusp, 0 deg. - of Sagittarius, for example. Or a decanate or any other meaningful unit.
The other event is when a celestial body culminates. It reaches a maximum, a midpoint. This can be a cusp - the cusp of Aries is the midpoint between longest night and longest day.
This too is a structural matter. It is entirely implicit in, integral to, zodiacal symbolism such as we find in the manuscript.
We can assume with some certainty, therefore, that our author/astrologer would be interested in risings, setting, culminations, cusps and midpoints, because these things are integral to astrological cosmology in general.
I do not know of any astrological system, east or west, where this is not the case.
This is not to say that this is indeed what we find recorded in the Voynich, but it is to say any astrological observer will be noting these phenomena. There may be other more important events worth recording, though.
The most notable of them would be eclipses. In that case, our author will be recording soli-lunar relationships over a long period of time.
Or transits. Or meteor cycles. Or a host of other celestial events outside risings, settings and culminations. Risings, settings and culminations are regular cycles. The sun is perfectly regular. There are no variables to record.
There are, however, irregular events, and these may be much more notable. Let us mention retrogradation, for example, and thus the nodes.
* * *
In regards astrological herbalism, two events are usually outstanding: the germination of a seed and the time at which the herbalist collects the specimen.
The latter is especially important - especially for collectors of wild herbs rather than gardeners.
There are deemed to be times when the powers of the herbs are strongest, and this is the prospitious time at which to collect it. The moment of digging it from the soil, or picking its leaves, or dividing its roots - the point of sundering - are the moments of astrological significance.
I assume our manuscript concerns correspondences between (terrestrial) herbs (more correctly, botany) and celestial bodies (stars), cycles or events.
On the basis of such correspondences the herbalist/pharmacologist proposes capturing, extracting, the celestial powers manifest in the herbs.
What astrological cycles assist with this is the question?
* * *
In Western astrological herbalism generally the relevant matter is the cycles of the planets. Herbs are ruled by planets and manifest that planet's powers. The herbalist will note the rising, settings and culminations of the relevant planet.
Should he wish to harvest a herb of Mars, he will wait until Mars is rising in the east or culminating overhead, or perhaps reaching the cusp of a Fire Sign, this being the prospitious moment.
But there is no obvious sign of the planets in the Voynich ms. They are conspicuously missing. Or perhaps they are there but in an entirely unfamiliar presentation?
There are, in any case, no diagrams obviously about the planets. There are numerous diagrams of the sun and moon and fixed stars. None of the planets.
It would appear that the Voynich is unusual in this vital respect. It is not a planetary herbalism, but rather solar (or soli-lunar.)
By my account, the work has been inspired by, extracted from, the Canones of Ptolemy and specifically the Helios miniature in that work.
Botany belongs to Helios. Plants follow the sun. There are no (immediate) planetary attributions: all plants belong to Helios, all plants are ruled by Sol.
* * *
This only allows divisions by season and night and day, and zodiac signs, although these might present critical events.
For example, some herbs might be harvested at dawn, others at midnight.
Some herbs might belong to, say, Gemini and are harvested when the sun is in Gemini.
And in the seasons, herbs might be harvested at the equinox, or at the half-quarter days, or the solstices, or other days regarded as important in the sun's annual course.
None of these require any great calculation or detailed records though, least of all a unique system of notation.
There are no variables in an entirely sun-based (Helios) system. The sun's motions are fixed - except long cycles such as the precession of the equinoxes. But the cycles of epochs are unlikely to be relevant to the harvesting of herbs on a daily basis.
* * *
Thus sun-based systems inevitably invoke the moon. It is the moon and soli-lunar cycles that introduce variability.
If the Sun is Sameness, the Moon is Difference, as the Platonists, raised on the Timaeus, would say.
From the illustrations and diagrams we can be confident in saying that the moon features in the Voynich system and that the cosmology appears to be soli-lunar.
Not planetary. Solar in the first instance, and soli-lunar in the second.
There is a profusion of variable cycles, and irregular events, worth recording once we introduce the Moon. The eclipses, as already mentioned, and more generally the Dragon Cycle of the lunar nodes are especially important.
There is also the knotty problem of Easter, which in our historical period was an acute point of tension between the Latin and Orthodox calendars and so is suggested by historical context but is not matched by overtly religious imagery of any kind.
These present much more noteworthy cycles and events and are much more likely to be the content of our author's notation system.
It is, all the same, essentially solar, and belongs to Helios. The cosmology is solar and the herbalism belongs to Helios. The nymphs belong to Helios too. It is the cycles of the sun that are central.
This is the overhwhelming impression of the work: it is unusually solar.
* * *
There is another way of going about an astrological herbalism, quite the reverse of that outlined above.
This is where the herbalist (harvester) seeks to divine celestial influences from the particular specimen. The imprint of the heavens is diagnosed from the morphology of the plant.
The herbalist will dig up a particular plant, for instance, and then examine the roots and growth patterns of the specimen and infer from that the influences of the sun (or other celestial cycles.)
The example of this that we know in modern times is the study of tree rings - dendrochronology.
From tree rings we can establish how many cycles of the sun the plant has seen and the distinct differences between those cycles.
There is a mode of astrological herbalism that extends this idea (unscientifically) to other aspects of plant morphology.
It supposes that astrological events are recorded in plant growth.
In modern dendrochronology, of course, we can discern past weather events and cycles from plant growth - we must remember than in the early Renmaissance context weather events are assumed to correspond to and be caused by astrological events.
We look at tree rings and detect a drought year in the past. The medieval man will attribute it to some stellar conjunction or other astrological event at the time.
When we say meteorological, we are at the same time saying astrological.
Plant growth is obviously shaped by meteorological conditions but it is understood by our author that these are caused by astrological events.
A plant shaped by drought might be said to be marked by an afflicted Jupiter. We would explain it without reference to the heavens.
* * *
The example we see conspicuously in the Voynich illustrations is crossed roots. This is the signature of the solstice - the point at which the sun turns and changes direction.
Some plants have this as a quite typical feature, but it also it occurs irregularly in plants. If the plant is uprooted and we find the roots crossed unexpectedly and unusually, we see the imprint of the solstice. This plant has taken the imprint of the solstice.
Roots are especially amenable to this type of divination. The idea is that the roots follow the stars. From the roots of plants we can detect the influence of the stars. In a sense, the roots are a map of the heavens.
Thus too the stems and other parts of the plant. From the stem and its leaf nodes we can tell how the plant has followed the sun from station to station, cusp to cusp.
Irregularities might indicate intervening celestial events.
Plants, it is assumed, are sensitive to the heavens.
We examine specific plants looking for tell-tale signatures of celestial cycles and events.
(The idea is not altogether lost in some areas of organic farming and forestry, at least anecdotally. I have met an old forestry man who told me - very earnestly - that eclipses and the moon's nodes can ruin otherwise straight-growing timber plantations.)
It is not a case of going out to find a plant ruled by Mars at a time when Mars is culminating or rising.
More important is to find a plant with the signature of Mars such as roots that fold back and turn retrograde in a pattern like that of Mars, for example.
It may or may not be a plant "ruled by Mars" in the correspondences of traditional astrology.
The crossed-roots pattern is a mark of the solstice in any plant.
In a fully solar rendering of such a system the plant morphology follows the sun - plants are of Helios - but the sun is sensitive to all the configurations of the heavens and mediates them to the plant.
As the plant follows the sun - in its root growth or stem and leaf and flower growth - it deviates here and there in sympathy with the whole heavens. Certain events will be marked in the patterns of the plant growth.
This, I propose, is how the Voynich herbal astrology might work, rather than in the usual manner.
The text, then, is like a reading of tree rings, if you like, but fully astrological.
Our author collects herbs and keeps a record of the astrological (primarily solar) configurations he detects in its morphology.
At the advanced level, such a system will cater for the supposed imprint of more esoteric soli-lunar cycles such as the Lunar Nodes.
In theory, there is no celestial (solar-mediated) event that does not have an imprint in a plant, according to its nature, and a seasoned herbalist or student of the matter will be acaquainted with the more subtle and occult cycles - he will know what to look for, it is his expertise.
* * *
I assume the relevant astrological events are indicated in the circles.
In the centre of the manuscript is a collection of pages bearing circular diagrams. I refer to this section collectively as the APPARATUS.
It is clear (to me) that the manuscript consists of two bodies (corpora) of material. (This is reflected in Currier A and B.)
But between them intervenes a collection of circular diagrams, perhaps in a systematic sequence. This is the Apparatus of the document.
I assume that the circles are made to be consulted in some way.
It is also clear that they are astrological and in some cases meteorological in nature. Like everything in the Voynich, though, they are all enigmatic and the systems and cycles they record is unclear.
All the same, this is where we must look.
If the text is made in some form of astrological or similar notation, and is based on the cycles of the YEAR, exactly what cycles and what astrological events are being recorded? They are likely set out for us in the circles.
Here is a brief overview of this material:
First, let us begin with the last of them, a beautifully symmetrical and detailed circle on f86v4. which is either lunar or soli-lunar judging by the face in the centre.
Importantly, though, there are exactly 72 markers, alternating (blue) dark and light, around the outer edge. This is a circle of 72. The astrological math implied is 72 x 5 = 360 and 18 x 4 = 72.
This illuminates a problem in the first of the circles, on f57v.
an obviously important diagram, it shows four sets of glyphs arranged in a wheel and in the centre four figures apparently facing in the four directions, or indicating seasons or times of day.
There seem to be only 17 glyphs in each of the four sets, which is astrologically incoherent. but one of the glyphs is bipartite, a gallows with an additional ribbon attached. It is possible to read this as two glyphs, and it seems to occupy two spaces. this then would be 18 x 4 = 72 with each of the 72 spaces counting as 5 deg.
It is admittedly ambiguous, but the reading of 18 is confirmed by another circle, that on f67v.
Here we see an 18-armed sunburst but two of them merge, and on the outer ring is a division of 17.
The ambiguity of 17 and 18 seems to be deliberate, but there is a basic system of 72 x 5, 18 x 4, which are coherent astrological numbers.
The first of the grouped circle diagrams is the most straightforward, f67r1. It is a solar design with divisions of 12 and 24. It concerns the DAY.
The second is the rubricated page showing twelve sun or moons? If the preceding circle concerned the DAY, this concerns the MONTH.
The next is f67r2. This shows a division of 8 and appears to be ELEMENTAL.
After this come three pages depicting fixed stars with sun and moon. The last of them seems to depict the Pleaides.
Next is a circle with 16 blue fans.
Then one with an 8 petalled flower that mastches a later disagram depicting an 8 pointed star.
On page f68v3 we find a remarkable depiction of an 8-armed spiral, apparently COSMOGONIC.
After this are a set of three diagrams that appear to be meteorological.
Then come the zodiac signs.
And finally are two (incomplete?) pages that seem to concern the four seasons.
What do all of these circles indicate? What cycles are of interest to our author? For the mapping and notation of what cycles has our author invented Voynichese?
We will turn to analysis of these circles in forthcoming posts.
R.B.
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