*whoosh* the sound of it going right over my head!
Sorry. I got too complicated in my last post.
Basically, there are two major zodiacs, Tropical, the one almost every Western astrologer uses, and Sidereal, used mainly by Vedic astrologers from India.
A zodiac is an imaginary ring of pictures in the sky based on the constellations the Sun passes through.
These constellation pictures, which are imagined out of the stars which our ancestors connected with imaginary lines (...like the Big Dipper) are called Signs in Astrology.
Zero degrees Aries is the starting point of both zodiacs.
In the Tropical zodiac Zero Aries is, as of today, 24.5 degrees different in reference to the actual starting point of the constellation Aries in the sky.
This is best illustrated by the two example charts below.
The Tropical chart has the Sun at 16:47 degrees Aries, which would make this person an Aries.
The Sidereal chart has the Sun at 21:54 degrees Pisces, which would make the same person a Pisces.
So, which one is correct?
The difference is that the Tropical zodiac is started always on March 21st (approx.) of the year, because this is when the path of the Sun crosses the Equator on its 'journey north'. We see it getting higher and higher in the sky as Spring and Summer progess.
But with the Sidereal zodiac, the starting point of Aries is the actual constellation which, because of the tilt in the Earth's axis, seems to move backward through the Tropical zodiac, and is now at approximately 5 degrees Pisces.
So again, which one of these charts is correct, the one where this person is an Aries, or the one where this person is a Pisces?
This is the first part of the dilemma, which I had set aside years ago when I began actually practicing Astrology and forgot about. I simply always used the Tropical zodiac out of habit because it was tradition. Neither is better/worse or more/less accurate.
Doing
VindurNott's chart in Sidereal brought this discrepancy back to mind.
The second part is that the nice neat 30 degree Signs of both zodiacs do not reflect the actual size of the constellations these Signs refer to.
As example the zodiac Sign Scorpio on the chart is a 30 degree part of the circle, just like all the rest of the Signs, but the actual constellation in the sky is only 7 to 8 degrees wide.
Virgo is another good example because instead of the 30 degree section in the zodiac, Virgo the constellation is almost 44 degrees in width. It actually cover part of the zodiac Signs Leo and Libra.
The yellow and white chart in my long post above shows the zodiac Sign size compared with the actual constellation size. Each day is a degree because the Sun travels a degree each day (...actually 58 minutes).
The zodiac we are all familiar with is an arbitrary simplified construction of 12 - 30 degree sections of a circle merely for convenience sake. It was developed first by the Babylonians and passed down through the Greeks, Egyptians, and Arabic world to where we are now.
Because of recent translations of old cuniform tablets and some Greek writings, we know that our ancestors used the constellations for their astrology, not the artificial zodiac.
So my dilemma remains that because of the uncertainty of the zodiac Signs and the relative size of the actual constellations, anything I say in a chart delineation is suspect.
In fact, anything any astrologer says when using these zodiacs is suspect.
I will say right here that
I am not disproving Astrology, I am only illuminating certain aspects of it which need addressing and possible exclusion.
I have not ruled out the Planets nor the Ascendant/Descendant line or the Medium Coeli/Imum Coeli line. These two lines are still valid, but should not have a Sign designation. The Ascendant is the point formed on the circle by the Horizon at the time of one's birth. This is a mathematical point. Similr to the M.C., as it is the measurable highest point of the Sun's arc during the day of one's birth.
Anyhow, I hope this simplifies my former post and everyone can see why I must pause and contemplate this before continuing.
I've always been very interested in astrology but never got beyond the basics (sun,moon). Thank you!
eace: