The 28 lunar mansions · 12th of 28
Al-Ṣarfa الصرفة
The changer. A theme of change and turning: one season gives way to the next.
- Its stars
- Denebola (β Leonis), the tip of the Lion's tail
- Where it lies
- 21°26′ Leo to 4°17′ Virgo, as Baghdad counted it
- How often
- The Moon passes through about every 27⅓ days and stays roughly a day
- Next visit
- Calculating…
Born with the Moon in Al-Ṣarfa
You are a person of seasons. Al-Ṣarfa, 'the changer', marks the turn from one season to the next, and you are good at knowing when a chapter has ended.
Gifts
Adaptability, renewal, a sense of timing
Watch for
Restlessness when life is calm
A theme your life returns to. Change is your recurring theme. You often reinvent yourself, and each turn tends to leave you wiser.
A night in Al-Ṣarfa
The astrologers of Baghdad chose the night for a task by the Moon's mansion. For Al-Ṣarfa the old lists say:
Good for
- building
- marriage
- new clothes
- farming and harvest
Better left for another night
- sea voyages
- hiring staff
A thought for the night I let go of one habit that no longer serves me.
The readings are modern, drawn from each station's traditional name and meaning. They describe tendencies, not events, and are offered for reflection and fun.
Sources
- Al-Bīrūnī, The Book of Instruction in the Elements of the Art of Astrology (1029), the chapter on the lunar mansions. Translated by R. Ramsay Wright (1934).
- Picatrix (Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm), Book I, chapter 4: the 28 mansions and the works begun in each.
- Ibn Abī l-Rijāl (Haly Abenragel), The Distinguished Book on the Judgements of the Stars, Book VII: elections by the Moon's mansion.
- Star identifications follow Paul Kunitzsch, Untersuchungen zur Sternnomenklatur der Araber (1961), and the usual modern lists.
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