Zodiacal releasing

The life divided into chapters, each ruled by a sign and its planet, released from the Lot of Fortune or the Lot of Spirit.

What it is

Zodiacal releasing is the most detailed timing method in Valens's Anthology. It takes a starting point — the Lot of Spirit for the doings of the life, the Lot of Fortune for the body and its fortunes — and lets the time run out from that sign through the signs in order, each sign holding the reins for a number of years fixed by its ruler.

The periods are the planets' minor years:

• Aries and Scorpio (Mars): 15 years
• Taurus and Libra (Venus): 8 years
• Gemini and Virgo (Mercury): 20 years
• Cancer (the Moon): 25 years
• Leo (the Sun): 19 years
• Sagittarius and Pisces (Jupiter): 12 years
• Capricorn (Saturn): 27 years
• Aquarius (Saturn): 30 years

So a life released from the Lot of Spirit in Leo spends its first nineteen years under Leo and the Sun, then twenty under Virgo and Mercury, then eight under Libra and Venus, and on around the wheel.

Levels within levels

Each of those general periods is subdivided by the same rule at a finer scale. The second level runs the same sequence of signs inside the general period, each sign taking as many months as its ruler has years; the third level does it again in days, and the fourth in hours. A single date in a life therefore sits under four rulers at once, and the reading weighs them together: the general period for the chapter, the second level for the year's colour, the finer ones for the week.

The loosing of the bond

When a level completes its circuit and would return to the sign it started in, it does not: it jumps to the opposite sign and continues from there. Valens calls this the loosing of the bond, and marks it as a turning point — the life changes register, often abruptly, when the releasing crosses to the other side of the chart.

Peak periods and the angles from Fortune

The releasing is read against the Lot of Fortune. When the sign of a period is the tenth from Fortune the native is at a peak of activity and recognition; the first, fourth and seventh from Fortune are also strong. Periods whose sign holds a benefic, or whose ruler is well placed in the birth chart, are the good chapters; periods handed to a malefic contrary to sect are the hard ones. Valens's own examples turn on exactly these: which sign holds the time, where it stands from Fortune, and who is in it.

How Occult Astrology shows it

The Zodiacal releasing section computes all four levels from both lots for the whole life, marks peak periods and loosings of the bond, and shows the rulers active on the day you open the chart. The reading names the current chapter and where it stands from Fortune.

Read next: the Lot of Fortune, annual profections, the simpler yearly timing, or all the techniques.