Cycle

• Cycle is associated with Moon.

  The moon’s phases are a countable return. Calendars that follow them are lunar; they are not therefore a theology of rebirth.

  associated with · interpretive · documented

• Cycle is associated with Sun.

  The year is a solar return in places that count by solstice and harvest. Egyptian daily solar hope is a different cycle, with a night road.

  associated with · interpretive · documented

• Cycle contains Season.

  Seasons are one way a year is quartered. Not every tradition quarters the year the same way.

  contains · interpretive · documented

• Cycle is connected to Time.

  A cycle is time that can be expected to come back. Linear aging and a circling year can share a life without being one metaphysics.

  connected to · interpretive · culturally specific

• Cycle is associated with Rebirth.

  Rebirth stories borrow the language of return. A year coming back is not the same claim as a justified dead going forth by day.

  associated with · interpretive · speculative

• Rebirth is associated with Cycle.

  A year that returns and a dead person who goes forth are both returns. They should not be captioned as one cycle.

  associated with · interpretive · speculative

Alchemy

• Cycle is associated with Alchemy.

  Alchemical writing treats a work that returns on itself. The cycle is a laboratory claim, not the moon’s phases.

  from Tabula Smaragdina (Emerald Tablet), medieval Latin tradition (Arabic antecedents)

  associated with · partially sourced · culturally specific

Chinese tradition

• Cycle appears in Chinese tradition.

  Wilhelm’s Yijing reads hexagram situations as turnable cycles of change. A named cycle in that classic’s grammar, not the residual yijing→cycle pointer alone and not a calendar dump.

  from Richard Wilhelm / Cary F. Baynes (translation) · I Ching (Yijing), Wilhelm 1924; Baynes English 1950

  appears in · sourced · documented

Daoism

• Yijing is associated with Cycle.

  Hexagrams are read as situations that can turn. The turning is the book’s own grammar of change.

  from Richard Wilhelm / Cary F. Baynes (translation) · I Ching (Yijing), Wilhelm 1924; Baynes English 1950

  associated with · partially sourced · historically uncertain

Astrology

• Saturn is associated with Cycle.

  A slow planet marks long returns. Hellenistic astrology’s Saturn is a delay inside cycles of the seven, not a farmer’s season.

  from Claudius Ptolemy · Tetrabiblos, c. 150 CE

  associated with · partially sourced · documented