A few years ago, I stumbled upon the use of planetary days and hours quite accidentally through a flash of intuition. At the time, I was heavily researching the work behind Project Hindsight and had recently attended a seminar in Melbourne led by Chris Brennan on Ancient Hellenistic Astrology. I had heard of the ancient use of planetary days and hours mainly in herbalism, medical astrology and alchemy but had never really explored it myself.

It was around the same time that I became very allergic to bee stings which was a bit of a problem because I was managing around 30 hives and had a little side hustle as a honey producer at the time. My anaphylactic reactions saw me in hospital several times and I nearly had to give up beekeeping altogether. Devastated and desperate, I thought I would try out the use of planetary hours with the harvesting of honey. The ancients seem to have relied on harvesting herbs at the  planetary hour of the herbs’ corresponding planet for maximum potency and efficacy. So with this in mind and my attempts to exhaust all possible solutions, I found out that the bees corresponded to the Sun, while honey belonged to Venus, and I only started opening my hives during these specific times.

Fast forward to today, I follow planetary hours like you would a normal clock, I have a strong appreciation for ‘kairos’ (the right time) and an insatiable thirst for knowledge around astrology’s intersection with alchemy. Best of all, I’ve never been stung during my beekeeping duties ever since opening the hives on the Sun and Venus’ hours and I have an abundant flow of the most incredible Solar and Venusian honey. Even though I’ve heavily scaled back my beekeeping gig, my die-hard honey bear clients still refuse to buy honey anywhere else, and, I’ve now started to stockpile honey and wax batches of good Venus and Solar elections (times) for use in talismanic products, alchemical spagyric preparations and ceremonial purposes.

The key transmutation I experienced during this discovery was moving from astrology as a mental mode of study, to embodying astrology into every facet of my living experience. Today, I not only grow and harvest according to planetary hours, I also practice planetary devotion and magic which incorporates planetary hours and I plan most of my days’ activities around this technique.

I have seen planetary hours work well with most of life’s activities like raising children, running businesses, organising events, etc. and I believe that just as the herb’s essences are maximised when they’re harvested in their hour, so are our personal lives when we operate under the right time and influences of corresponding planets.

I’d love to share my love of planetary hours with you and hope to see you at this talk at Seven Sisters this weekend.

As above, so below,

Shu