Firdaria: the Persian periods of life

Astrologers have always wanted to know not only what a chart promises but when. One old answer is to hand the years of a life to the planets in turn, so that for a stretch of time one planet's voice is the loudest. Techniques like this are called time-lord systems. You may have met one already in the annual profection, which gives each year to one planet (Annual profections).

The firdaria are another, working on a larger scale: chapters of seven to thirteen years rather than single years. The word comes from Persian firdār, "period", and the system reached the Arabic astrologers from Sasanian Persia. Abū Maʿshar set it down in his work on the revolutions of nativities, and through Guido Bonatti it became standard in medieval Europe, where it was called the alfridaria.

The periods

Each planet, and each of the Moon's two nodes, has a fixed number of years:

Together they make seventy-five years. After that the sequence starts again from the beginning.

Day or night decides where you start

You need to know one thing about your chart: was the Sun above the horizon when you were born (a day chart) or below it (a night chart)? This is the same distinction of sect that decides the Part of Fortune (Sect: day and night charts).

• Born by day, you start with the Sun and go round in the order of the table: Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, North Node, South Node.
• Born by night, you start with the Moon and continue round the same circle from there: Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars — then, in Abū Maʿshar's arrangement, the North and South Nodes — and finally Sun, Venus, Mercury.

Not every author agrees about the nodes in a night chart. Some, Bonatti among them, keep them at the very end. The two versions are identical for the first thirty-nine years and differ after that, so if you are older than thirty-nine and born at night, it is worth knowing which one a source uses.

Seasons within the chapters

Each planet's period is divided into seven equal sub-periods. The first belongs to the planet itself; the rest follow the old order of the planets from the slowest to the fastest — Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon — wrapping round to begin again until all seven have had a turn.

So Mars's seven years divide neatly into seven single years: Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter. The Moon's nine years divide into seven pieces of about fifteen and a half months: Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury.

The nodes' short periods are not subdivided.

A worked example

Take someone born by day in 1990. In 2026 they are thirty-six.

• Sun, ages 0–10; Venus, 10–18; Mercury, 18–31; Moon, 31–40. At thirty-six they are in the Moon's period.
• They are five years into it. The Moon's nine years are cut into sevenths of about 1.29 years: Moon (31–32.3), Saturn (32.3–33.6), Jupiter (33.6–34.9), Mars (34.9–36.1), Sun (36.1–37.4), and so on.

So at thirty-six this person is in the Moon–Mars stretch, moving into Moon–Sun a little after their birthday. Someone born by night the same year would be in a very different place: Moon 0–9, Saturn 9–20, Jupiter 20–32, then Mars, ages 32–39.

How it was read

The period lord describes the broad weather of the chapter. Its condition in the birth chart — its sign, its house, its dignity, its aspects — is read as the tone of those years and the matters they bring forward. A strong, well-placed Jupiter tends to make its twelve years a time of growth, support and wider horizons; a Saturn in difficulty may ask for patience, structure and the slow building of something that lasts. The houses the planet rules matter too: a period lord that rules your tenth house may bring work and reputation to the front.

The sub-period lord gives the season within the chapter, and the two are read together. What matters is how they relate in the birth chart: whether they are in aspect, whether one is in the other's sign, whether they are friendly or at odds. A Venus season inside a Saturn chapter, where the two are in a good aspect, was read very differently from the same pairing with the two in hard opposition.

The nodes are short and were read as a kind of turning. The North Node's three years were often taken as a time of increase, the South Node's two as a time of release; but they rule no signs, so they were judged by the planets that rule the signs they fall in.

Using it alongside other methods

The medieval astrologers never used the firdaria on their own. They read them alongside the annual profection and the solar return (Solar returns), and gave weight to a theme when two or three of these agreed. A firdār tells you whose voice is loudest for a stretch of years; the profection says which planet takes the lead this year; the solar return says how this particular year is set up. When all three point the same way, the old authors spoke with more confidence.

If you try it on your own life, look back as well as forward. Find the boundaries between your chapters and ask whether they fell near real changes. Some people find the fit striking; others find it loose. Either way it is a way of asking good questions about a stretch of years — which is the most any timing method can honestly offer. The periods incline; you still live them.

Next, the great conjunctions: the twenty-year meetings of Jupiter and Saturn, and the long rhythm the old astrologers saw in them.