Thread by @AndrewBWatt

Sam is right. Again. Duh.

https://twitter.com/sfreynolds/status/1320802316681940992

If you're going to start with anything Plato and you're an astrologer, you might consider starting with the dialogue called the *Timaeus*. First of all it's short, and second of all it's incomplete. And third, it's going to raise all sorts of _QUESTIONS_

Why the *Timaeus*, though? Well, it does have part of the Atlantis story; it also has Plato's creation of the cosmos, and its division and subdivision into parts by mathematics, and its rotation by means of "the same" and "the different" — that is, primary and secondary motion.

We're so used to thinking of creation as divided into six days, that it's a little jarring to encounter a mythic creator who creates the universe by divisions into eighths and sixty-fourths; or who creates time by instituting motion: "motion of the same" & "motion of the other"

or who further creates time by giving "motion of the same" dominion; but grants "motion of the other" the power of changing seasons... by subdivision of its motion in seven places in the heavens, governed by ratios of 3 to 2.

And the Creator here, is only done making the SOUL of the Universe: smooth, spherical, and perfect. Now comes the corporeal body: created second, and united center to center with the soul.

The soul of the cosmos is invisible in *Timaeus*, but the corporeal world is subject to time (because time is an essential component of the soul).

But the Platonic cosmos here is a living being: vast, unknowable by mortals, living and moving, with time an essential component of its being, of its soul; and the seven stars/planets of astrology are soul-expressions of the cosmos.

Here, the stars are set in the sky not as fixed bodies, but as immortals souls riding in chariots. Informed by the creator as to the nature of the Cosmos as a whole, they ride slowly and deliberately along their courses on the common surface between mortal and the divine.

These immortal beings are granted the power to shape the elements in creation to bring forth all the animal beings, to be less-divine than the gods and mortal-enough for creation.

And mortals partake of the nature of these divine stars in their souls, but their bodies are mortal — at their dissolution, they return to the stars that made them, or are reborn in other forms (there's some serious sexism in here)

The *Timaeus* goes on to unpack how the elements work: what shapes they are (rather like D&D dice, actually, aka The Platonic Solids), and how they transform into one another; there's something like the law of the conservation of matter here.

After consideration of how the elements are experienced by the senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch, Plato's characters go on to discuss how these elements play out in the construction of the mortal body, and its diseases and weaknesses.

e.g.,, color is a kind of fire, radiating from the surface of matter as the creatures within that matter, their souls, use various kinds of fire to digest specific foods, or grind surfaces of earth against one another to transform earth to water and air (releasing its fire).

This plays out in a discussion of the heart, the 'channels cut through the body as through a garden, to distribute moisture', the lungs, and the interplay of the lungs with the mass of air; and the interplay of the guts with the components of food; and the way that we

It's been a few years since my reading group met to discuss the *Timaeus*; however, we were struck by the degree to which Plato's cosmology (its sexism and classism only slightly abated, alas) remains the unexamined cosmology of astrology.

And if you've only encountered *Genesis/Bereshit* as an ancient creation myth, you might take the time to download, say, the Project Gutenberg *Timaeus* and work your way through it. There's LOTS to disagree with, lots to ponder, lots to puzzle about.

But it's powerful to encounter a cosmology that's 2500 years old and yet contains the seeds of one's astrology practice as an essential component of its conception of time. Put *Timaeus* on your "to read" pile, and get to it eventually.

... but Plato's *Timaeus* will wind up challenging your ideas about cosmology, and invite you to ask big questions about how astrology works, what souls are, and how they're formed, and why the 'elements' of earth, air, fire and water aren't just metaphorical.

*Timaeus* is mostly an easy read, in terms of the words on the page. But it's not an easy cosmology to get inside, even though an astrologer might might find they've been living in Plato's unexamined cosmos for their entire career.