The deeper I get into alchemy, the more I look at components of electional astrology, correspondences and alignments. Here’s how things shake down for my Yule vigil over Friday night into Saturday.
From sunset to sunrise can be (almost perfectly) broken into nine equal time portions. I apply an alchemical framework to those divisions, something I first learned as part of a ritualized community but I don’t work with just seven alchemy phases anymore because I feel the classical seven is a good metaphor for teaching but actually incomplete for genuine magickal workings. I fee the practitioner is able to be more effective by performing Multiplication and Projection after Coagulation, and before cycling back to Calcination. I like to see how the planetary hours flow when compared to the framework and I look for alignments, what I think of as significant power points, those are the moments that might be appropriate for ritual what-not.
The actual moment of winter solstice is 2:23pm Pacific time. According to alchemical astrology, Friday is attuned to Congelation and has active/positive energy, and Saturday is not only a Full Moon but it’s attuned to Fixation and is also active/positive, more so than Friday. This is where stuff I've been doing more internally since Samhain comes out and becomes external work. This is when the seed of Projectio from Samhain, which was been planted in the fresh black Nigredo and has been undergoing Mortificatio and Putreficatio in the six weeks since will now have heated enough to ignite, and move into the phase of Calcination.
Christmas has come. The God is in the egg. I have prepared a rug for my God, an expensive red rug from the land of morning. He shall be surrounded by the shimmer of magnificence of his Eastern land. I am the mother, the simple maiden, who gave birth and did not know how. I am the careful father, who protected the maiden. I am the shepherd, who received the message as he guarded his herd at night on the dark fields. - Carl Jung, artwork and writing from, THE RED BOOK
All of the below times were calculated by a person in Seattle, WA. Your timings will vary. When I mark out points of significance, I'm indicating a point that can be used to start, a point that could be the peak in the middle, or a point which could be chosen as a finish. It all depends on what you are trying to accomplish.
2:13pm - Moon planetary house starts
2:23pm - the Winter Solstice
2:55pm - Saturn planetary hour starts
3:37pm - Jupiter planetary hour starts
4:19pm, Mars planetary hour starts
4:20pm - sunset in Seattle and the beginning of the Calcination phase. Something about a Mars hour colliding with 4:20 reminds me of the 4 of Swords from the Tarot of the Silicon Dawn where the two figures are sitting out the fight for a moment to smoke a pipe together.
5:37pm - Sun planetary hour starts
6:04pm - Dissolution
6:55pm - Venus planetary hour starts
7:48 pm - Separation
8:13pm - Mercury planetary hour starts
9:31 - Moon planetary hour starts
9:32pm - Conjunction - here we have another alignment, where the Moon hour and Conjunctio work come together. Alchemically, Conjunction aligns with Venus, the heart and the completion of the Lesser Work. The Moon in alchemy is Distillation. How can you work with Moon and Venus energies, to both refine and combine?
10:49pm - Saturn planetary hour starts
11:16pm - Fermentation
12:07am - Jupiter planetary hour starts
1:00am - Distillation
1:25am - Mars planetary hour starts
2:43am - Sun planetary hour starts
2:44am - Coagulation - in alchemy, Coagula is the Sun and the completion of the Great Work, so about a quarter to three in the morning by my reckoning and ritual is double Sun and may be one of the most potent moments of the night.
4:01am - Venus planetary hour starts
4:28am - Multiplication
5:19am - Mercury planetary hour starts
6:12am - Projection
7:55am - Saturn planetary hour begins Saturday
7:55am - sunrise in Seattle - And with one final alignment, the vigil ends right as a hour of Saturn which starts Saturday begins. Stay up or plotz as you need.
8:37am - Jupiter planetary hour starts
9:19am - Mars planetary hour starts
9:49am - Full Moon - bonus. You can work this energy now or tonight.
10:01am - Sun planetary hour starts
What I find really interesting is that I wrote out the alchemical phases on paper first, then marked which points would break the nine into three equal chunks and when I added the planetary hours, they aligned with the start, the two division points and the end. That’s part of why I opted to share this.