venicebard
Yeah, one need consider the relation of these two orientations: that with north up, where most people point, and that with cancer north and north ‘towards the center of the earth’. The latter (used for the houses) is affixed on the sun's course for north and south, as you say, with spring equinox east like sunrise: it is oriented like the beast on all fours and must have to do with the shamanic journey.
The astrologer and the shaman actually perform identical tasks, but by different methods: traveling the astral realm to retrieve power to affect the here-and-now. The twist is, that the ‘animal’ faces east while the zodiac symbol ultimately faces the horizon without, which could be east-or-west-or-in-between but is symbolized by west (i.e. ‘limit’).
I have always suspected the zodiac of having a sense in which it faces east in spite of ‘out’ being west—east being the worldly orientation, I guess, since we travel east with earth’s crust. This sense would consist in the fact that ‘departure outward from up’ (taurus) and ‘approach to down from without’ (virgo) are both on the triad pointing east—as if the round were twisted into 3 rounds and went N-E-S-W-N-E-S-W-N-E-S-W(-N). One can deduce from this that the first lesser round would be the thinker’s, the second the doer’s, the third the knower’s. Thus thinker’s east is turned outward, aligned with that of the doer whose body draws it eastward, this being the state explored further by the horoscope (the houses)... whilst knower remains oriented with east turned within (the anti-cosmic viewpoint). Makes sense to me. (That was a joke, not because it doesn’t but because I may be the only one to whom it does.)
Just thinking out loud, sorry.
The astrologer and the shaman actually perform identical tasks, but by different methods: traveling the astral realm to retrieve power to affect the here-and-now. The twist is, that the ‘animal’ faces east while the zodiac symbol ultimately faces the horizon without, which could be east-or-west-or-in-between but is symbolized by west (i.e. ‘limit’).
I have always suspected the zodiac of having a sense in which it faces east in spite of ‘out’ being west—east being the worldly orientation, I guess, since we travel east with earth’s crust. This sense would consist in the fact that ‘departure outward from up’ (taurus) and ‘approach to down from without’ (virgo) are both on the triad pointing east—as if the round were twisted into 3 rounds and went N-E-S-W-N-E-S-W-N-E-S-W(-N). One can deduce from this that the first lesser round would be the thinker’s, the second the doer’s, the third the knower’s. Thus thinker’s east is turned outward, aligned with that of the doer whose body draws it eastward, this being the state explored further by the horoscope (the houses)... whilst knower remains oriented with east turned within (the anti-cosmic viewpoint). Makes sense to me. (That was a joke, not because it doesn’t but because I may be the only one to whom it does.)
Just thinking out loud, sorry.