The new zodiac
Sat, July 16, 2011 at 4:09PM People keep asking me about the "new zodiac"... the below is from Steven Forrest's website:
About That Pesky News Mishap...
Every two or three years it seems that some scientist will announce the "discovery" that astrologers have gotten their signs wrong and that all you Virgos have actually been Leos all along. The latest episode also involved the insertion of Ophiuchus into the mix - that some of you Sagittarians are actually Ophiucans. Now, this could be worth a little confusion - I'd love to see ten Sagittarians competing over who could best say "Ophiuchus" three times fast, all the while drinking tequila. The prize would go to the one who managed to do it without uttering a familiar expletive which begins with the letter "f."
Here's the truth of it: don't worry, all you Virgos can remain Virgos and there are no Ophiucans among us at all.
There are two things going on here. The first one has to do with this notion that we have gotten our signs wrong. Western astrology is based on the seasons, not the constellations -- Equinoxes and Solstices, not stars. What we call "Aries" starts with where the Sun is on the first day of Spring. That point drifts gradually along the track of the zodiacal constellations, passing through all of them every 26,000 year or so. It is true that not every "Aries" was born with the Sun in that constellation. No problem; the constellation has nothing to do with it. It did, once, many, many years ago. But then the astrologer-astronomers noticed this drift, called the Precession of the Equinoxes, and began to correct for it.
What about Ophiuchus? Well, the familiar constellations were basically folklore, without formal boundaries or definitions until fairly recently. In 1929 and 1930, the International Astronomical Union nailed it all down officially, drawing lines around the constellations, eliminating some - and adding some new territory to the old constellation Ophiuchus which now overlapped the ecliptic. Thus did Ophiucus, for the first time in history, become "the thirteenth sign." Suffice to say that these are same idiots who more recently delivered the brilliant notion that Pluto is no longer a planet.
So Virgos are Virgos and Ophiucans are unicorns, and that's all you need to know.
-Steven