Planetary hour widget and alarm
Planetary hour family of widgets display current hour on your device home screen as well as a planetary weekday with sunrise/sunset. Both widgets are FREE.
The family to planetary hour widgets consists of two individual widgets:
- Planetary Hour and
- Planetary Weekday.
Two points before diving into widgets activation and usage…
Detailed knowledge behind planetary hours and planetary days is unfolded in the multi-part article “What is Planetary Hours”. It is an impressive and beautiful ancient wisdom well worth your reading time!
For those who are into the practice of mindfulness. At the very end of this article we shall talk about using planetary hours alarm for the purposes of mindfulness and keeping the thread of active awareness throughout the day.
How to add the widgets
Follow these steps to add the widgets to your device home screen:
- Long tap anywhere on the screen.
- Once the icons began to shake tap on the “+” icon in one of top corners of the screen to bring up the widget selector.
- In the widget selector scroll down to “Time Nomad”.
- Add a widget and repeat the steps to add another widget…
Before the widgets can display useful information they need to be configured. When first installed, the widgets aren’t aware of your device geographic location. Scroll down to “How to configure widgets” section of this page that explains the process.
But firstly let’s look at the widgets themselves…
Planetary Hour widget
Each planetary hour comes with its own colour scheme and a corresponding pictogram of the ruling planetary sphere.
Information displayed by the widget:
- Current hour pictogram
- Duration of the hour, including relevant sunrise or sunset icon
- Preceding and succeeding planetary hours
- A countdown timer of the remaining current hour duration
Each hour comes with its own colour scheme that is designed to pass the flavour of corresponding planetary energy. The planets have been traditionally assigned certain colours and that helps to deepen the feeling of each unfolding hour.
Planetary Weekday widget
Each of seven weekdays relates to its ruling planetary sphere. The “Planetary Weekday” widget follows the cycle of days that constitute the traditional week:
| Day 1 | Sunday is the day of the Sun |
| Day 2 | Monday is the day of the Moon |
| Day 3 | Tuesday is the day of Mars |
| Day 4 | Wednesday is the day of Mercury |
| Day 5 | Thursday is the day of Jupiter |
| Day 6 | Friday is the day of Venus |
| Day 7 | Saturday is the day of Saturn |
Why the days were named this way and their correspondence to the planetary hours is covered in the article “What is Planetary Hours, part 2”.
Information displayed by the widget:
- Numeric value of the day
- Ruling planetary sphere of the day
- The hour of sunrise
- The hour of transit — the planetary hour that begins when the Sun crosses the midheaven line
- The hour of sunset
Similarly to the Planetary Hour widget, each planetary day is represented by its own colour that reflects the energies of the ruling planetary sphere.
A combination of the number, the colour and the planetary sphere is a powerful way to tune into the energies behind each day of the week.
How to configure widgets – geographic location
Planetary hour calculations depend on knowledge of current geographic location, specifically its coordinate expressed as latitude and longitude. The widgets need to obtain user permissions to access that information.
Widgets configuration can be accessed through the Time Nomad application.
In the app’s right side menu tap on the “Activate widgets” (if present) or alternatively tap on the “Widgets” under the announcements menu (top right corner) as illustrated above.
The widgets offer two methods of obtaining current geographic location:
- automatic
- manual
Automatic is the easiest “set and forget” method. When user permissions are prompted, choose to allow Time Nomad access to the device geographic location by using the “When in Use” option. There will also be the second prompt on the home screen that will request similar permission for the Time Nomad widgets. Allow it as well.
And if for some reason a mistake has been made or permissions need to be adjusted, simply go to the Settings app, scroll down to Time Nomad and change “Location” permission. For a smooth widget operation recommended location setting is “While Using the App or Widgets”.
The manual configuration is great for situations when the device can’t access its current location or that is not desirable due to the user privacy concerns.
If that’s the case, set manual location by entering its name and picking the most relevant matching result. Note that Maps access is required for the search to work.
“My location has changed, what should I do?”
It is important to remember that planetary hours depend on the time of sunrise and sunset. That time doesn’t change significantly as long as the device stays within a rather large area approximating boundaries of a major metropolitan city. There’s no need to update the location if you are travelling within a radius of about 100–150 km (70–100 miles) as sunrise/sunset difference will be negligible and won’t affect planetary hours in a meaningful way.
Suppose the device has travelled far enough and sunrise/sunset changed by more than a minute or two…
If the automatic location has been enabled then the device will take care of updating the widgets. Nothing to do in this case.
If, on the other hand, a significant change of location has happened and the widgets are in the “manual” location mode, then simply open Time Nomad and use the “Widgets” configuration screen to update the location to its nearest Maps equivalent. Again, it doesn’t have to be super precise, any landmark within 100 km (70 miles) is good enough.
How to configure widgets – planetary hour alarm notifications
The Planetary Hour widget can be configured to produce three kinds of notifications:
- audio tune for each planetary hour accompanied by a voice speaking the name of the planet
- audio tune for each planetary hour (coming soon)
- text notification specifying the hour and its duration (coming soon)
Notifications can be configured in the Time Nomad app using the “Widgets” as described in the previous chapter about configuring geographic location.
Scroll down to the “Planetary Hour” where you can set:
- preferred kind of notifications and/or alarm, and
- the earliest and the latest times of the day when notifications or alarm can be produced.
Use planetary hours alarm for enhanced mindfulness
Being aware of each planetary hour is a great way to remain mindful throughout the day. Each planetary hour comes with its own energies and flavour of consciousness — tune into its unfoldment as each planetary hour alarm sounded or notification arrives. This creates a living thread of mindfulness throughout the waking time of the day.
Here’s some advice as to how the widgets can facilitate mindfulness.
Start from being aware of each day of the week. What are the qualities of its ruling planetary sphere that speak to you? What do you find difficult about that day and its planetary energy?
Keep awareness of days as a 1-to-7 numeric sequence beginning with each Sunday which is traditionally the first day of the week because the Sun is the ruler of all planets.
Dynamics of each day reflect energies of the corresponding planetary sphere. Mindfulness increases as you learn to tell one day from another by introducing this fine cosmological level of awareness.
Once you’ve learned to recognise the flavour of the day, start noticing the flow of hours throughout the day. Each planetary day begins at sunrise and finishes at sunset. Planetary hours alarm helps to separate the day into twelve segments, using most fitting energies of each planet as it is announced to surf through the hour by being mindful of its unique quality of time.
This simple method takes time and practice but gradually you will begin noticing how your energy flows become more “in sync” with the fundamental nature of flow of time. Have a smooth sailing through time!