Chronos — Hellenistic school
Loosing of the Bond
Drawn from Vettius Valens' Zodiacal Releasing, this Hellenistic technique identifies the dates when a cycle reaches maturity and transforms. Enter your details to locate these passages.
What is the Loosing of the Bond?
Zodiacal Releasing is a Hellenistic astrology technique that unfolds, from a Lot (a calculated position in the chart, here the Lot of Spirit), a chronology of nested periods: each period bears the name of a sign and covers a duration fixed for that sign, from the broadest level (decades) to the finest (weeks).
A Loosing of the Bond— literally “the breaking of the bond” — designates the moment when this chronology, after traveling through the 12 signs in order, jumps to the opposite sign instead of continuing naturally. This jump traditionally marks a more pronounced turning point than an ordinary transition between two consecutive signs — hence the common use of the term to designate this technique’s “life turning points.”
How the dates are calculated
From your birth chart, the engine calculates the position of the Lot of Spirit(Ascendant, Sun, and Moon, a formula sensitive to day or night birth), then unfolds the chronology of periods sign by sign according to the technique’s reference durations — 211 years total across the full cycle of 12 signs.
Every time a sub-sequence completes its round of the 12 signs without its parent period ending, the engine applies the jump to the opposite sign and marks the following period as a Loosing of the Bond — the page displays these transitions in order, with their date and the age reached.
Frequently asked questions
- What is Zodiacal Releasing in Hellenistic astrology?
- A dating technique from Hellenistic astrology (Vettius Valens, 2nd century), which unfolds a chronology of nested periods from a calculated point of the chart — a Lot, often the Lot of Spirit or the Lot of Fortune. Each period bears the name of a sign and lasts a number of years fixed for that sign; the periods nest across four levels, from the broadest (decades) to the finest (weeks).
- What exactly is a Loosing of the Bond?
- When a sub-sequence of periods has traveled through all 12 signs without its parent (higher-level) period ending, it "jumps" to the sign opposite the one it started from instead of continuing in natural order. This jump — the Loosing of the Bond — traditionally marks a more pronounced change of trajectory than an ordinary transition between two signs.
- Why the Lot of Spirit rather than the Lot of Fortune?
- Both Lots give a valid ZR chronology. The Lot of Spirit is traditionally read as the cycle of action, mind, and career trajectory; the Lot of Fortune, that of the body, circumstances, and material resources. The calculator above uses the Lot of Spirit by default — the engine also calculates the Lot of Fortune internally, for a future extension of the display.
- What does the calculation depend on (date, time, place of birth)?
- Both Lots are calculated from the position of the Sun, the Moon, and the Ascendant. The Ascendant requires a reliable birth time — without it, the Lot's position isn't exact and the resulting chronology isn't usable.
- Is the calculation reliable over an entire lifetime?
- The engine faithfully carries the reference algorithm (durations per sign, level jump, angularity) over a 100-year horizon from birth. Confidence in the date of a Loosing of the Bond is therefore the same as that of the initial astronomical calculation of the Lots — the difficulty of this technique lies in its interpretation, never in the precision of the date itself.