Luckily, I appealed to Raziel to help me make sense of that fuzzy image and, because he's such a great guy, he came through big time. When all was done I was very pleased with how the article turned out. Little did I know at the time that somewhere in an old work laid the piece of information that would've made me have an instant epiphany had I came across it while struggling with the article. But I'm uncultured so I had no idea of what that book contained haha.
Until recently! Book III of Liber Astronomiae has a small yet very interesting chapter, Chapter IX. Thanks to my reader Nacho who's got the Spanish translation I came across this two paragraph chapter. In itself, it is quite insignificant and merely discusses things any astrology enthusiast can observe by studying the charts. Its title, however, and one of the phrases it contains represent the very essence of my article.
"That the planets go against the Firmament, meaning against the Primum Mobile" is the title. The text says that all the planets go against the Firmament except when retrograde, while the two luminaries don't experience retrograde. "But Caput and Cauda Draconis go against the movement of the planets" is part of the aforementioned phrase, the part that counts.
One thing I'm having a hard time comprehending is why the source mentioned the Firmament and the Primum Mobile together while implying they're one and the same. Ptolemy's model of the cosmos clearly distinguished between the former, the heaven of the fixed stars (and thus zodiac), and the latter, basically God. There is yet another thing I was having issues understanding since the aforementioned phrase continues with "meaning against the [natural] succession of the signs". Another part of a phrase states "that due to their own movement the planets go against the Firmament (except when retrograde)". But then the planets do go in the order of the signs when experiencing direct motion and the text tells us as much, "from Aries to Taurus, from Taurus to Gemini [...]".
Since there is no reference to the daily heavenly movement based on an earthbound perspective, meaning the signs and planets appearing to move across our sky (against the natural order of the signs), I take it the text meant to say the planets go according to the order of the signs except when retrograde, while Caput and Cauda Draconis go against it.
But why bring in the Primum Mobile? If memory serves, I've come across a text that mentioned the ancients' philosophical perspective on the Primum Mobile and ideas that arose of it having a slight, unperceived movement although I have no idea whether that movement was considered clockwise or counterclockwise. Yet at the same time, the Primum Mobile was considered the "unmoved mover", that which dictates everything in motion.
But anyway, my take on this, irrespective of any possible translation error and the likes, is that the signs follow that order for a purpose and the planets move through the signs in that order for the same purpose. That is to generate complexity for us humans living in the physical world and, I would personally add, that order and movement go against any theoretical movement of the Primum Mobile, no matter how infinitesimal that may be.
The planets go with the flow in regards to the Primum Mobile when they experience retrograde movement for that is when their energies are felt more within ourselves, meaning our microcosm. If we'd consider our microcosm as being the way it is due to divine will, each individual microcosm being a reflection of the Creator in its entirety, then any energy of a retrograde planet within the natal chart can be thought of as making us be more in tune with what the divine will wants from us.
The only energies that flow in tune with the divine will are those of the nodes, since most of the time they're retrograde. That doesn't mean the signs and the planets have somehow rebelled against that will, but that they were specifically made to operate as they do for a reason. That reason is to perpetuate life in the physical, but since our spiritual purpose is to transcend the physical and return to the divine, both the signs and the planets will generate much needed resistance in our paths because only an idiot would expect that path to be easy. The path would slowly elevate us (or not) through learning from experiences and those experiences come from the way the planets and signs move.
The nodes, however, show us that path from a horizontal perspective. By this I mean they show us what the divine wants from us within this lifetime. If we look at our natal chart we see planetary placements and aspects that both favor and hinder us from making use of the energies of the nodal axis. Each of those energies generate more or less complex circumstances that allow us to access the energies of the nodes and go with the flow towards where life leads us. More than often we are left with the choice of either going with the flow or otherwise and that choice is being imposed unto us by either external or internal circumstances. The external ones are generated by transits that also interact with our natal chart and are the internal ones as well.
Through constant experiences of encountering and dealing with various circumstances, that usually have certain common patterns irrespective of whether we are aware of them or not, spiritual growth is achieved. That growth is constantly being generated so long as we keep experiencing circumstances and choosing which path to take whenever that happens.
Now, if you add this to the article I've written in Asteria 2 then I'm sure you'll be getting a better understanding of what I wrote in there, as well as why I've written it in that manner.
I've had an epiphany about this while under the influence of a mystical experience inducing herb. The nodes move around the zodiac according the precession of the equinoxes and are thus in tune with the changing of larger eras. I'm talking of the Platonic year which considers the revolution of our entire solar system around the center of the galaxy. Given the galaxy is the physical representative of the Firmament's energies and what makes it exist and function the way it does is basically the Primum Mobile (God), it this becomes a no brainer to realize the nodes (our path in life) move in tune to those superlative influences.
The planets within our solar system thus become the Gnostic archons that, although seem to move against those higher influences, are nevertheless in tune with them as well, as their apparent movement against them provides the necessary tensions that generate the complexity of our material existence and the challenges our souls need to face in order to learn valuable lessons within this earthly existence.
Therefore it's as if the nodal axis represents something akin to God's will in your daily lives and the planets themselves are akin to the archons the gnostics used to talk about, forces that test and sometimes impede us from following that will.
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