Hi lovely humans,
I’m so excited to share with you my latest project: the Cycles of Time podcast!
After writing an article here every new and full moon for the past year, I was inspired to deepen into my relationship with the cycle of the cosmos in another format: audio!
Cycles of Time is a weekly horoscope podcast that gives insights into the current energies here on Earth as we make our yearly revolution around the sun. In each episode, I’ll be synthesizing myth and meaning from around the world to help you root into the present moment as the seasons change.
The ancient systems of astrology, the I Ching, the medicine wheel, the wheel of the year, and the Daoist 5 element cycle are all circular calendars: cycles of time. Join us in an engaging weekly exploration that links together the cosmos, the seasons on earth, and your life. (Follow along on Instagram at: @cyclesoftimepodcast!)
I will be sending out a weekly newsletter here with the audio recording, a written transcript, and bonuses of related visuals. It’ll be in your inbox each Monday morning with a forecast for the week ahead. Listen by clicking the audio player at the top of the page and read the transcript here, or you can find it and subscribe anywhere you listen to Podcasts!
Thanks so much for listening, forwarding it along to a friend who might like it, and sharing your comments and ideas with me! This is a labor of love, my brain spilling out into the airwaves, and it’s definitely a collaboration with all of you- and the universe :)
A Visual Diagram of What I mean by the Cycles of Time
Cycles of Time Podcast is an exploration of the wheel of the year and our relationship with the seasons, from cultures and perspectives around the globe 🌏🌞🌎.
To make it easier to understand, I made a diagram to show the interconnections between some of these incredible wisdom traditions!
The center of it is the 4 directions of the Medicine Wheel, the black/white/yellow/red circle in the middle of the diagram. Medicine Wheels can be traced back to ancient Siberia, and have been used throughout European and Indigenous North American traditions.
The next ring is the Taoist Wuxing Cycle, which traces time through the 5 elements of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. (Earth is considered a transitionary element between each of the 4 seasons, and also represents the time of late summer).
The third ring is the Pagan wheel of the year, which breaks the year down into the celebration of 8 holy days: the 2 solstices, the 2 equinoxes, and the 4 cross-quarter days.
The fourth ring out is the wheel of the Tropical Zodiac, which originated in Mesopotamia around 4,000 BC. The order of the signs is flipped horizontally from how you normally see them on a birth chart, so that it lines up with the directions of the Medicine Wheel, the Wuxing cycle, and the other systems. Aries, the first sign of the Zodiac, is displayed here on the right side of the wheel, representing the east and Spring Equinox.
The outer numbered ring, right inside the markers for the solstices and equinoxes, is the wheel of the year from the perspective of the I Ching, the ancient Chinese Book of Changes. These 64 numbers represent the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching, and also correspond with the 64 Gates of the Human Design and Gene Keys systems. This order of the hexagrams/numbers is called the Fuxi sequence, dating back to 3000 BC.
A circle has no start or ending point, but I recommend starting with the time of year we’re in, Spring, on the right side of the wheel, and going clockwise through the seasons from there.
In addition to the podcast, I’m going to start offering personal Cycles of Time chart readings soon- follow me here or on Instagram for updates on that!
I hope this visual aid helps you see the interconnections of all of these beautiful philosophies that span space and time! Happy Spring 🌱💓
Pilot Episode Transcript: The Wheel of the Year… Welcome to Cycles of Time Podcast
INTRO
Hello, and welcome to Cycles of Time, your weekly guide to what’s happening here on Earth as we make our revolutionary journey around the sun. For time immemorial, our human ancestors have created myths and meanings to help us adapt and thrive as seasons change. Join me each week to explore the intersections of these ancient cycles, from the indigenous medicine wheel to the Pagan wheel of the year, the babylonian and Greek Zodiac to the iching, the ancient Chinese book of Changes. I’m your host, Alison Dale, and this- is the Cycles of Time Podcast.
Hello everyone! Thank you for joining me for the pilot episode of the Cycles of Time Podcast! I’m so excited to start this project, which has been incubating as a seed in my brain for many years as I’ve dived deeper and deeper into multidimensional studies of our precious planet Earth and her many seasons.
This first episode will give you an introduction to the who, what, /’lmand why behind the podcast. The second episode will be the first of the weekly horoscopes, where I’ll give you information and guidance on our current place within the wheel of the year, from a multi-cultural perspective.
I am intentionally beginning this podcast on the Spring Equinox here in the northern hemisphere, which is the time when I personally celebrate the new year. Celebrating on January 1 with the times square ball drop and a bottle of champagne never made much sense to me in my body. It’s kinda weird to begin anew in the dead cold of winter when all I want to do is cozy up by the fire or sleep!
Spring Equinox happens on March 20 or 21 each year. it’s the moment in the year that is halfway between the summer and winter solstices, when the day and night are equal length, when the sun crosses the celestial equator going north. In the Tropical or western Zodiac, Spring Equinox signifies the beginning of Aries Season, and the beginning of the astrological new year. Aries is symbolized by a glyph that looks like ram horns, bursting into a new season. The glyph also looks to me like a dicot sprout coming out of the earth, a symbol of spring. After a slow, inward, winter, I feel spring in the air- and in my body.
I’m starting this podcast because I’ve fallen in love with tracking ancient human stories along with the turning of the earth. It connects me deeply to both space and time, to my ancestors and to the environments that I live in.
For the vast majority of human history, all of our calendars were cyclical, and were based on seasons and planetary cycles. The calendar we use today, the Gregorian calendar, divided time up outside of the natural cycles, based on the will of powerful men and pragmatics for tax collection. The older I get, the less the Gregorian calendar makes any sense to me! I still use it, of course, to be able to communicate with other people for daily scheduling, but as far as holidays and ceremonies, I have returned to using the natural cycles of the earth, sun, and moon.
Over the past year, I have been writing a blog on substack every new and full moon. This project helped me build a deep relationship with the signs of the zodiac, the seasons and the stories. It was a truly enriching project, so much fun for me to see how the moon and stars related to what was happening in my personal life and the collective throughout the year. You can read it and subscribe at astrosomatics.substack.com, which is also where I’ll be sending out transcripts of this podcast going forward!
As I’ve been writing astrosomatics, I also started studying the medicine wheel, practicing qigong, and learning more about human design and the i ching, All of these ancient, circular systems that hold so much beauty, so much wisdom, and so many interconnections, and I decided to start this podcast as a way to learn and teach about them!
The cycles of time hold such great wisdom- and I’ll give you some examples of what I mean by cycles of time.
Throughout human history, different peoples have divided up the great wheel of the year in different ways, and many of these practices and philosophies are emerging again today after being pushed down and discredited by the powers that be. It feels like there is a renaissance of ancient wisdom coming to the surface today as we collectively awaken to the universal truths of our place within the larger universe, and zoom out a bit from the stories we have been fed under colonialism and the predominant modern patriarchal culture.
Recently, I have met many people that are paying reverence to the cycles in their daily lives. I know a lot of folks who celebrate the Solstice and the Equinoxes, live by the seasons, and are tapping into holidays that their European ancestors celebrated, such as Beltane which is aka mayday, Samhain, aka halloween, and Yule, aka christmas. The wheel of the year is a cycle of time.
I have met many people who are learning from the wisdom of the medicine wheel, which is a beautiful unified synthesis of the 4 directions, the 4 seasons, and the 4 stages of life created by people Indigenous to North America, Europe and Siberia. The medicine wheel embodies the Four Directions, as well as Father Sky, Mother Earth, and Spirit Tree—all of which symbolize dimensions of a healthy and vibrant life. In New Mexico, where I’m from, the state flag is the Zia symbol, another incredible indigenous symbol that resembles the sun. The symbol is 4 lines emanating out from each side of a circle, again representing the four cardinal directions, the four seasons of the year, the four stages of life, and also the four sacred obligations one must develop in the culture of the people of the zia pueblo: a strong body, a clear mind, a pure spirit, and a devotion to the welfare of others. The medicine wheel and the zia symbol are cycles of time.
I have been studying qigong with a couple of wonderful local teachers, and through them have learned about the ancient Daoist Wu Xing cycle, a 5-stage mythology of the seasons and the life cycle through the elements of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. This cycle shows the ever changing and interconnected nature of everything on earth, from the basic elements to the seasons to the cycles of life. The 5 element philosophy is a cycle of time.
We all know about the harvest moon, and it is becoming more common for full moons to be talked about by their Indigenous names- the Wolf Moon, the Snow moon. are generalized names that have been popularized by the Farmer’s Almanac, among others. In reality, there are hundreds and thousands of indigenous names each of the 13 full moons of the year, varying by language and geographical region, each relating to the habits of the flora and fauna during that season. The yearly knowing of the 13 moons is a cycle of time.
I also know many folks who are deeply immersed in Human Design and the Gene Keys, which are relatively new methodologies that are fusions of astrology, the I Ching, the Hindu-Brahman Chakra system, and quantum physics. I have studied these systems as well, and despite some initial skepticism, I have found that they benefit my life in practice. I am especially intrigued by how they have unveiled wisdoms from the I Ching, the Book of Changes, to a huge new audience.
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The I Ching is one of the oldest recorded divination systems in the world, dating back to 4000 bc and before. it’s composed of 64 hexagrams, which are symbolic contemplations about living in harmony with the earth and all her beings, including our human neighbors. In Human Design and the Gene Keys, the Fuxi sequence of the iChing (dating back to around 3000 bc) has been transposed onto the wheel of the year, so that 1-2 hexagrams or “gates” correspond to one of the 52 Gregorian weeks. The Iching, too, is a cycle of time.
As all of these cycles have been revealed to me, my artist’s brain couldn’t help but make a mandala of the union of them all in my mind’s eye. The 4 points of the medicine wheel, the 5 elements of the Wu Xing cycle, the 8 holy days of the Pagan wheel of the year, the 12 signs of the zodiac, the 13 moons of the year, the 64 hexagrams/gates of the I Ching, all superimposed around a circle. The circle, of course, is the path of the earth around the sun each year, and each of these ancient methodologies is a breakdown of that year into meaningful parts.
A visual aid is clutch here, so I encourage you to check out the image on the cycles of time podcast website to see it in perspective, how each of these beautiful systems interrelates to eachother.!
Of course, there are many more ways of breaking down the cycles of time, but over the course of this podcast I’ll be focusing on these.
I also want to mention that will be coming from a northern-hemisphere perspective, as this is where the majority of these systems have been born out of, but I’m very curious about studying cycles from an equitorial and Southern Hemisphere perspective in the future!
The cycle of time is infinite, but by learning about it through these various lenses and mythological breakdowns, our relationship with Mother Earth, our home environments, our neighbors, our ancestors and ourselves can deepen and blossom.
So... Now that I’ve talked a bit about what the cycles of time are, I’ll let you know a little about me and my deeper why for starting this podcast.
- I’m an artist, writer, entrepreneur, and a somatic breathwork guide, and a consulting astrologer I’ve been studying and practicing astrology for over a decade. I love astrology because it’s a body of knowledge that dates back 4000 years to ancient Mesopotamia, tracing its history through Egypt, Greece, and Rome, and into it’s modern-day renaissance- it’s so cool to see how many people are interested in deepening their relationship with the planets and stars and human mytholgies today!
I think astrology is beautiful because it ties our place among the other planets and stars to the stories and history of our ancestors. the more I learned about the myths and symbols of this specific language, the more interested I become in living in harmony with the Earth’s seasons- and the more interested I became in other stories of the cycles of time from around the globe.
After living most of my adult life in big cities, throwing art shows and starting businesses and meeting a ton of incredible people, in early 2020 I moved back to the land I grew up in. Currently known as Santa Fe, New Mexico, the high mountain desert where I was born is the traditional home of the Tewa and Tanos people, the Dine and the Anasazi. As a kid, I spent a lot of time visiting the pueblos they built, most of which are centered around a kiva, a round ceremonial building used for both ritual and monitoring the cycles of the cosmos. From an early age, these buildings gave me me idea that a circle was the way time worked- not a straight line. The high altitude and lack of air and light pollution also gave me amazing access to the night sky, and some of my best memories are of watching brilliant meteor showers from my trampoline and rooftop each summer with friends and family. When I left home for New Orleans and then San Francisco at age 18, I missed the constellations and planets like I missed my cats and dogs!
After years of hustle and hard work in urban environments, I had a baby, and decided to move back to New Mexico to be near my parents. I named my daughter Tala, which means Star in Tagalog, and who is the goddess of the Morning and The Evening Star- aka Venus- in the ancient Philippines, where her father’s ancestors are from. I didn’t realize how much of a reunion I would have with the night sky when I came home to the desert, but witnessing my 1 year old notice the phases of the moon and name the Big Dipper as one of her first words just made my heart explode. My little star-girl showing me the truth of our inherent connection to the cosmos above. I had studied astrology as a hobby for a few years already, and as the pandemic lockdown gave me time to immerse myself in the stories of antiquity and the science of the planetary movements. Being in relationship with the stars and planets again, after almost 20 years away, felt like a homecoming to myself.
I have studied with several great teachers, in many modes of astrology- evolutionary, Hellenistic, traditional, modern. I don’t believe that any one investigation is more “right” or better than any other. It honestly just gives me a lot of hope that so many people are paying attention to how their bodies and minds are affected by the seasons caused by the revolution of the earth around the sun, and also the interwoven dances of our closest celestial neighbors, the planets.
There is a lot of technicality within such a long-standing investigation, but it’s definitely more of an art form than a science. I consider astrology as an art of living, a way of tapping into the wisdom of the ancients about this rapidly changing planet as we spiral through space. I believe this perspective is needed so much at this point in time, a time when many of us feel like we are spiraling out of control.
Another beautiful homecoming I felt when I returned to the high desert was a reconnection with distinct seasons. Santa Fe is at 7000 feet elevation, so though we are in the Southern Part of the United States, we experience distinct changes in climate between Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. Springs are brisk and windy, summers are hot, with temps in the 80s and 90s, autumns are crisp and filled with golden leaves of cottonwoods and aspens, and winters are freezing and often snowy. While living in humid and warm New Orleans and then the Mediterranean climes of the San Francisco Bay Area, I missed the distinct seasons of New Mexico.
When I came home and began to deepen into studies of the Zodiac, I also began to deepen my relationship with the seasons, too. In doing so, I noticed how profound the signs of the Zodiac were in their lessons for living in tune with the changing weather of the year. I like to consider myself an ecological astrologer, as I love to find reminders in the myths of the Zodiac of what is happening in the lives of plants and animals within the wheel of the year. I am a student and practicioner of astro-herbalism, a practice that explores the commonalities between the stars above and the earth below.
Remembering and giving attention to the wisdom of cycles has become an obsession for me, an act of reverence for the people who have come before me and the environments that I live within. My place within my neighborhood, city, state, and country are my personal environments, just as our planet’s place within our solar system, galaxy, and universe are my transpersonal environments. Are of these relations with place and time affect me, and tie my experiences to other people’s experiences within this life. To me, this is so simple, and so profound.
There is no beginning or end, per se, but this week is my New Year- the coming of spring. In episode 2, I’ll be talking about the direction of Spring in the medicine wheel, as well as the spring equinox, known as Imbolc in the Pagan wheel of the year. It is the first day of the season of the sign of the Ram, Aries, and we are early in the season of the Wood element In the Daoist Wu Xing cycle. This week contains the full moon in Libra, also known as the _ moon. In the iChing sequence, we are moving through gate 25, the gate of innocence.
This is a powerful week of beginnings, and I wish you all a very happy new year! This week is jam packed with myth and meaning for this current moment in the cycle of time, and I’m excited to share with you. This week includes a Pagan holiday, a full moon, and an entrance into a new season, so it happens to be extra dense, but know that not every week will be quite as full.
I’m by no means an expert on these systems, and am first to admit that I’ll be along for the ride with you all as we explore the cycle of this year In real time In addition to these weekly forecasts, I look forward to having guests on the podcast who are involved with these cycles in various ways, from elders to teachers to practitioners. Please let me know if you’d like to be a part of this project as it evolves!.
I’ll be offering personal readings using the Cycles of Time framework, where we meet one on one to dive into symbolism, stories, and synthesis for your personal chart. I love working one on one with people, and am really excited to offer this cross-dimensional perspective as an intro to all of these systems.
For those who are interested, here is my Cycles of time chart, as an example!
: I was born in early September when the sun was in the part of the sky known as Virgo. I’m an early fall baby, corresponding with the West, the color black, the earth, the evening, and the adult phase of life in the Indigenous medicine wheel. In the Daoist 5 element philosophy, I was born in the transition time from Fire to Metal, in the element of earth.
In the corresponding yearly cycle of the Iching, which is used in Human Design and Gene Keys, I was born when the sun was in hexagram or “gate” 64. This is the final chapter of the book of changes, which is called “Before Completion”. It is known as the gate of confusion or imagination. This gate symbolizes the power of the human mind to make sense of chaos through the infinite potential of our imagination. In the human design bodygraph, gate is in the head or crown chakra. Reching up into space to balance out all the earth energy in other systems.
This is the placement of the sun in my birth chart, through a multi-cultural and multi-historical perspective of the cycles of time. Of course, we exist in relationship to the moon, stars, planets, asteroids, and beyond, which are all fun to look at in a chart reading! What I love about all of these cyclic systems is that they are holistic- we all are made up of the entire circle- we each contain energies from all 12 signs, all 64 gates, all 5 elements.
If we have a luminary or a planet in one of these areas when we are born, we may have more focus on those energies in this lifetime, but the whole circle of there. For example, I have my moon in the sign of libra, my sun in virgo, and my rising, venus, and mars in Leo, so these mythologies and archetypes feel relevant to my life. But all signs of the zodiac are part of my experience.
I hope that by tracking the cycles throughout the course of a full year will help me- and you all build a new understanding and deeper relationship with each of the breakdowns of time, so you can decide where you want to dive deeper. You may want to listen carefully on weeks where we’re talking about signs, gates, moons, and seasons that are relevant to your birth chart!
Really excited- its my first podcast, so I look forward to seeing what emerges. I had a college radio show in New Orleans about 20 years ago, and loved sending vibraqtions out into the airwaves, so really look forward to connecting with new folks and new ideas through this channel.
Thanks for being here, for your curiosity and interest! I’ll see you next time as we dive into Week 1 of the wheel of the year: Spring Arrives.
Exciting news: I started a podcast!