Sun causing confusion…
Today marks the first day of Spring, it is March 21 right? Well not quite; Spring actually started yesterday which has to do with the moment that the sun ‘reached’ the equator on its way North. This phenomenon is called Vernal equinox, you can read more on this in my blogpost from a couple of years ago.
Pretty confusing as we have been told from our youth that Spring starts on March 21…well, fasten your seat belts, there is more sun-related confusion…read on!
We are all born with a certain zodiac sign, right? This sign is determined by the constellation the sun was ‘in’ on the day you are born. The initial zodiac signs were based on the positions of constellations relative to the calendar, as observed by the Babylonians, but…they no longer correspond to the dates they appear today! (This is due to the moon’s gravitational pull in the past millenniums, the Earth ‘wobbling’ around its axis, creating about a one-month bump in the stars’ alignment).
This effectively means that the correct signs of the Zodiac are:
Capricorn: Jan. 20-Feb. 16.
Aquarius: Feb. 16-March 11.
Pisces: March 11-April 18.
Aries: April 18-May 13.
Taurus: May 13-June 21.
Gemini: June 21-July 20.
Cancer: July 20-Aug. 10.
Leo: Aug. 10-Sept. 16.
Virgo: Sept. 16-Oct. 30.
Libra: Oct. 30-Nov. 23.
Scorpio: Nov. 23-29.
Ophiuchus: Nov. 29-Dec. 17. (Yeah, this one is new — read all about the Ophiuchus way of life here)
Sagittarius: Dec. 17-Jan. 20.
Uhhhh…WTF?!? Uhh, is *that* the reason that most of my horoscopes have been plain wrong?? 🙂
Well, no need to panic!!
First read the ‘no your zodiac sign hasn’t changed’ article which explains that while this zodiac sign-change *is* true, it only affects the sidereal zodiac (which is fixed to constellations and is followed more in the East). The western astrology uses the so-called tropical zodiac (based on seasons) and that means that your zodiac sign did not change…pfewwwww! 🙂
