10 or 12: A Solar Society

My Father used a phrase that used to drive me nuts when I was a kid. When you asked him to tell you "how many" of something there were, he would usually answer by saying "Ten or Twelve" in order to indicate that there were "more than a few."This is what happens when you have a Father who doesn't have a crumb of Virgo in his chart. Everything's a poetic phrase that trips off the tongue and plays with the head. He was a genius but his vagueness when speaking was really bad for helping with math homework. He literally reduced me to tears explaining Sin and Cosine.

Anyways, I just found some interesting coincidences between using the number 11 in Astrology. And like my Father's brain, 11 doesn't always mean 11. It often means around 11, or, in my Father's terms, "10 or 12." It's also very accurate as humans literally struggle to blend these two numbers in society. 10 is sort of the number of the real world. We have 10 fingers to work with and build things. Our money is based on 10. The number of 12 is considered Holy as it combines 3 with 4. The Astrological Wheel is 360 degrees, a multiple of 12. Twelve is used for counting. In some methods of numerology, 11 and 22 are considered the most powerful numbers.

I'm first going to point out the association between the number 11 (or "10 or 12") is associated with the Sun. It pops up a lot in this regard in Modern "Human" society. You can't build societies of such massive scale without a good strong Ego. (I know nothing about Science and I'm getting information from Wikipedia and I'm pretty good at jumping to conclusions so if there's inaccuracy here please let me know.)

First, there's supposedly a multiple of 33 in the Solar Return Chart Cycles. I tried to test this out and it didn't work for me, but supposedly the Sun in the Solar Return Chart returns to its natal house position at Age 33. This would indicate a new phase of self expression in life that sort of builds on the old phase. 33 is a multiple of 11. Dante wrote his Divine Comedy when he was 33 so I always want this cycle to work.

Next, there are 22 chromosomes in the human body, plus the X and Y chromosomes which determine Sex. That's how the Scientists spell it out, if I've got it right. 22 + 2. They sort of talk in that "10 or 12" lingo.

22 years are a Sunspot Cycle (of repeating geomagnetic and solar wind activity). The Sun's magnetic field reverses or rebegins a new pattern that repeats and looks like Butterfly's wings on a graph. Explained here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle. Scientists agree there is a real influence of the Sun spot cycle that plays out on Earth. I wonder why Astrologers don't. The Sun Spot Cycles of the last century have been occurring every 10.5 years rather than every 11 years so they don't follow a rigid 11 year cycle (don't know where I read that).

Does this show that Human existence, at least Modern Western Society, is more hooked in naturally in some way to the Sun's influence? Should Astrologers be paying more attention to these cycles? It certainly explains our need to express ourselves and to build Empires and to let men dominate even though they keep screwing up.

In ancient mythology there is usually a trend that one finds that the Sun Gods slowly arise in prominence as the most significant God in the culture. From this a Humanistic sort of attitude develops in the people who eventually lose a strong sense of the Divine presence because they have so much confidence in the Will of Man.

Out of all the constellations that were observed in the night sky, Apollo was the Greek Sun God who represented the Light. His presence eventually gave way to Christianity's Jesus. Guess this kind of makes sense. You can't build during the night when there's no light. It's interesting how the spirituality that usually comes with night time eventually worked its way into the Gods who represent Daytime or "Light." Did the Chinese do this, relate Buddha to a planet????? I don't know.

Then I looked up the Elements in Chemistry. As of 2007 there were 118.

The Classical elements are what Astrology uses. 4 Elements: Earth, Wind, Fire, Water. Astrology combines these with the 3 Qualities: Cardinal, Fixed, Mutable. This multiplies out into a straight 12. That makes for easy math but also seems a bit rigid for interpretation purposes. Astrologers also haven't changed with the times either.

The History of Chemistry shows how these basic philosophical ways of categorizing the World are constantly evolving as new discoveries are made. Funny, just a Monotheism becomes acceptable, it is found that the Universe is composed of more and more "Rulers". (They are rulers because they are pure substances and can't be broken down into smaller pieces.)

The Elements are rooted in the thinking of more ancient cultures from Egypt, India and Asia, but Wikipedia takes them back to Plato. In the Timaeus (360 BCE), Plato says that everything in the world is either Organic or Inorganic and is composed of 4 basic shapes that coincide with the 4 Elements:

Tetrahedron (Fire)
Octahedron (Air)
Icosahedron (Water)
Cube (Earth

Aristotle added a 5th element "Quintessence" which is supposed to represent the Heavens.

So then there was an Arabian Chemist, Geber (real name: Jabir ibn-Hayyan), who reduced everything metals down to two elements, sulphur and mercury. From this 3 basic principles were derived. It's interesting how they correspond to the Astrological Qualities of Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable. They are:

Sulphur - Flammability/Combustion (Cardinal?)
Mercury - Volatility (Mutable?)
Salt - Stability (Fixed?)

Later, Europeans began to play with these combinations. Paracelcus (b. 1493, Switzerland). Paracelcus combined the two 4 elements with the 3 qualities. This introduces the idea that everything has an inner and an outer existence.

Johann Becker (b. 1635, Germany) used Air, Water, 3 types of earth which are kind of interesting:

1) Mercurial element (fluidity/volatility)
2) terra lapida - Solidifying element (fusibility/binding quality)
3) terra pinguis fatty element (oily & combusitble properties)

In 1661, Robert Boyle (b. 1627, Ireland/Englad) said that there were more than just 4 Classical Elements.

The 1st Modern List of Chemical Elements made by Antoine Lavoissier (b. 1743, France) contained 33 elements. That's a multiple of 11. It's also the number of the Solar Return Repeat Cycle.

More people added to that number. In 1818, Jons Jakob Berzelius listed 49 Elements.

In 1869, Dmitri Mendeleev list 66 elements. Another multiple of 11 and also of 33.

As of 2007 there are 118 Elements in the Periodic Table.