Ali Mostofi - Iranian Astrologer and Current Affairs Commentator.

Iranians like their cousins in India believed in Cosmology, and our mathematics developed so that we could see beyond the immediate surroundings.  We measured everything.  And so we created the greatest calendar and managed to track the movement of Earth better than any other.

There are many things in life which you can give a cause and effect, simple logical answers to.  There are those that you can't logically explain with the five senses you have.  The Ancient Iranians chose Iran, as its mountains allowed to them to see a lot, and the qanats allowed them to measure the exact distance and from reflection of the Moon, the path of the Moon.  They could see Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.  They of course knew a lot about the Sun and the Moon.  They realised that certain things in life took a long time to work out, and some things took less time.  The allocated seven spheres of activity.  Each one was allocated to one of the planets, the Moon and Sun.  That is why moods and feelings are associated with the Moon, whilst social changes and challenges are related to Saturn.  Some people thought that some things never happened and blamed Saturn for it, and the word Satan comes from that.  The calendar was created and each of the planets, the Moon and the Sun was given a relationship to each month.

I had to give this basic Astrological introduction, so that you can understand, Haftseen or Haftsin, Chaharshanbehsoori and Nowrooz. Each of the months of the year play a great part of the birth growth death and rebirth cycle.  The last month or Esfand is responsible for a lot more than people know.  It is all about creating the ground work for a new start.

Out with the old

So what do we, or you as a person need to do, so that you can be new and alive?  That newness is very key to being alive.  Iranians were probably the first existentialists ever.  They believed that we should live for today, be alive.  Be in the now.  Act.  Don't think too much about the past or the future.  Act and Live Now.

They knew that Spring time is when things grow and life become more abundant.  So they knew that they needed to prepare for it.  As part of this "Spring cleaning" we Iranians did the "Spring cleaning" before Spring began.  Right now every Iranian is digging deep into all of this year's mess in the house and chucking things out.  Now when it comes to your life, you need to sit down and reflect on what you are going to deal with.  Fear is our biggest problem.  So the energy associated with the Esfand or Pisces or the 12th house, is the Unyou, or the part of you not in your face to put it in modern speak.  You have to face all the stuff still lingering in your mind, and clean it out.  So how do we do it?

How can you take care of some serious crap that is not going away?  Not polite language but it is necessary to put it that way.  You could do it yourself.  Or you could light up something hot like a fire and jump over it.  And that is what Chaharshanbehsoori is all about.  Face the darkness in your life.  It could be the mullahs.  It could be that question you were going to ask someone.  Think about it, look at the Fire, and jump over it.  The Fire will burn out the crap in your mind and leave you with the courage to face it and overcome it.  That is what Zardieh Man Azto, Sorkhieh To Azman means.  It means I piss in you and you fire me up.  Well not really but as piss is yellow ... (oh shut up Ali, you were doing well and you balls it all up - idiot)

Anyway, where was I?  Oh yeah one other thing you need to know.

Haftseen: The Magnificient Seven

As you can gather by now the number seven is linked to the planets plus Moon and Sun, which link to the elements plus plants, animals and humans.  What we Iranians do in the beginning of Spring, is to be in union with all that is part of our Life.  These seven aspects are the basic seven aspects of our life.  So you ask, "ok but what's with the "seen" or "sin" bit of Haftseen/Haftsin?  Well like most difficult questions, it relates to how Iranian Astrology was literally distilled by modern Zoroastrians and Ferdowsi.  It is all about the fact that "religion" does not like Astrology.  Well the Hindus do, and ancient Iranians were like the Hindus, but the Christians, Moslems, liked to kill the likes of me.  Still do, if I land in Iran.  Sad, but that is the situation, and that is why I am non-violent and have been the biggest mouth for it since 1979.  Woops I diverge.  Ok, the S comes from Amesha Sepanta.  The Iranians literally removed the Amesha bit and left us with just the S.  Later they even put the Koran on a table full of nature's representations.  The meaning got through no matter what.