Starting with the Basics

The Firdaria Diaries is a new weekly blog which will feature two traditional predictive techniques called profection and firdaria. It aims to examine life from the perspective of these two methods starting with adulthood at 18 years of age and moving forwards three years at a time, to the mature age of 72 years. These two methods will work for you regardless of whether your Sun is in Gemini, or Pisces or Virgo, or any of the other twelve zodiac signs. They work simply because we all share in some universal things – things like day and night, and birthdays once a year.

The first blog in this series is The Basics, a starting point that you can refer back to as we move together through the twelve house system of profections, and the division of years and months which make up the Firdaria.

Profections: Moving Forward One Year at a Time Through The Chart

The term ‘profection’ means ‘to move forwards’ and the technique is easy to follow if you know some basic information about astrology.

An astrology chart comprises of twelve segments known as houses and each house represents a different focus on life. A brief summary of the house meanings is included in the Table below. The concept behind profections is that with each new birthday, we move forwards through one of these twelve spaces and a new theme becomes important in our lives for the next year, that is, from one birthday to the next.

The themes are repeated at twelve year intervals as the following diagram shows with birth occurring at the first house and the years counted from there in an anti-clockwise direction. The ages are not identical to the house numbers as we begin life at ‘birth’, not at the first birthday.

The four segments which carry the prohibition symbol (red circle-backslash) are houses which gain no light from the Ascendant.

If you are not used to this idea the symbol can look ominous, especially when you read the names given to them by the ancient Greek and Latin astrologers, but really they are warning signs that things come ‘out of the blue’ in these particular years.

These four houses are known as difficult areas in our lives and the next image shows the names translated from Greek, but inherited from Egyptian mythology. House numbers two and eight are called the two Gates of Hell because the Sun is in peril when it is dying in the west and about to ‘fall’ into the Underworld at the eighth house placement. The Sun is also vulnerable at the second house because it is coming out of the Underworld and about to be born at the eastern horizon. Houses six  and twelve are considered to be troublesome because we often don’t see their issues arising until they are upon us and we don’t have time to prepare ourselves for a quick change in fortune – usually from good to ‘interesting’ years or ‘challenging’ years. 

The Wheel shows the march of birthdays from one to the next, and how they relate to the twelve houses in an astrology chart. The following Table lists the themes for each of our years and how they play out will depend on which planet becomes The Lord of the Year. To work this out you will need to know what time you were born as this will give you a Rising Sign (known as the Ascendant). If you are aware of your Ascendant sign then each sign after is given to one house and the sign on this house will be ruled by one of the seven original planets. This planet is called The Lord of the Year.

Saturn-ruled years are consecutive years as Saturn rules both Capricorn and Aquarius and these two years are usually pretty tough with themes of restriction, responsibility, integrity, and hard work involved with the year. On the other hand, the year leading into Saturn and the one directly after Saturn’s two years are Jupiter-ruled years and these are generally a little easier, bringing advantage or unexpected opportunities when you least expect it. In theory, Jupiter gives you the opportunity with Sagittarius, but you have to work hard for little return through the Capricorn and Aquarius years (Saturn-ruled). If you are persistent, authentic, and faithful to your cause during these years, Jupiter – through Pisces – is supposed to reward you with bounty after the hard times.

Don’t worry if you don’t know your exact birth time – this system can still work for you – it just works better when you know which planet is pulling the strings. If you know something about astrology, you will need to use the whole sign system for each year, that is, a new sign for each year, not a double-up sign for consecutive houses.

Each year presents a different zodiac sign, and a different theme taken from the house meanings, and these themes change with a new age and a new purpose when the number turns over and a new year begins for you at your birthday.

As our starting point is about turning  the ‘legal-adult’ age of 18 years I am going to start the houses from the seventh house of relationships. The first house is usually used to begin the sequence of the houses, but as it is linked to the multiples of twelve – that is, birth, 12, 24, 36, 48, 60 and 72 – its theme of new beginnings is not going to apply for the eighteen year old.

Firdaria: Time Periods Belonging to the Planets

The second part of Diaries looks at an ancient method of prediction known as Firdaria which states that two planets act together as joint governors over a period of time that doesn’t always change automatically at the birthday. The only information you need to know to work with firdaria is whether you were born during the daytime or the night-time.

The planets follow each other in what is known as The Chaldean Order, from Saturn at the highest point to the Moon which is the first circle after Earth.

If you are born during the daytime your firdaria pattern will begin with the Sun. If you are a night birth, your firdaria begins at the Moon.

Each week we will look at which of the planets are working during the year, when they change from one to another, and what you might expect from this change in governorship.  I will give you the relevant Firdaria period for each of the three years in each blog post but if you want to know more on Firdaria, a full description can be found in my second book, A Tiny Universe’s Companion, which is available for purchase through the link on my Home page.

The Firdaria Table below lists the ages and change in planetary guardian from one to the next and daytime births can be seen on the left-hand side of the Table with night-time or nocturnal births on the right-hand side. The change-over time is different for day or night and they begin and end at different ages of life.

These larger numbers of years are broken down further into sub-periods and two planets will rule a number of months together. Sometimes these planets are compatible, and sometimes they are natural enemies. It is important to understand the relationship they have with each other as this will affect the type of impact they have over their allotted passage of time.

The Firdaria Diaries will look at the change in major (or long-term) lords at significant birthdays, depending on your status as a day or night birth, as well as notifying you when the smaller monthly periods begin and end as they rarely occur on a birthday date.

That’s about all you need to know for now, although there may be a need to add more information as we go along, or to stop at some point and summarize a number of years, or a particular Firdaria period.

Good luck with your journey and I hope you find The Firdaria Diaries interesting, informative, and fun to explore both in the present, as well as looking back at past ages, dates and events to examine your focus earlier in life to see which planets were in charge at the time.