What's My Sign?
In the last 48 hours, the story about your astrology sign being "wrong" has gone viral. Yesterday, four different TV stations contacted me. One of them came to my apartment in Vancouver, I did two radio interviews, and two newspaper interviews -- one with Calgary and one with Santa Rosa, California. I even got a query from Hearst Publications in Florida. My In-Box was packed for two days with questions about this. So -- here is the scoop.
The article by US astronomer Parke Kunkle is nothing that astrologers have not already known since before the time of Christ.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidereal_astrology
Over the last several thousand years , the cosmos has shifted, and the constellations in the sky no longer line up with the dates of the zodiac sign. Astrologers know this. Astrologers have always known this.
Because of this, two different schools of astrology have developed - one school, which is the most popular in the West, is the traditional school that is based on the zodiac, which is not constellation based. (Yes, I know art work for the constellations is often used, but so is a smiley face for the Moon.) This is Tropical astrology.
The other astrology "school" that is based on the current constellations in the sky is called Sidereal Astrology. This is commonly used in India.
In the beginning of my entertaining, informative and witty book You and Your Future, I state that I don't even believe the planets affect us anyway! It's all about mathematics, and the interpretation of these mathematical cycles.
Therefore, please relax. You are still your sign.
To me this is an apt illustration of what the famous mathematician and physicist, Sir Isaac Newton said when criticized by astronomer Edmond Halley for being an astrologer, he replied, "Sir, I have studied the subject. You have not."
Love to all --
Georgia
Below is an excerpt from the front page article from the Press Democrat in California.
Astrologist (sic) Georgia Nicols -- who writes The Press Democrat's horoscope -- woke up Friday to two television stations clamoring for interviews and more than 300 e-mails filling her inbox, all with variations on the same bewildering question: "What's my sign -- really?"
The source of the confusion wasn't hard to track. It all stems from an recent Minneapolis Star Tribune story that quoted a local astronomer pointing out that the signs of the Zodiac no longer align with the constellations they describe.
That sparked a global media tizzy by suggesting the Zodiac calendar was seemingly in need of a major adjustment.
"I am getting e-mails from virtually all over the world", said Nicols, a Canadian whose horoscope appears across North America. "It makes me see how attached people are to their signs."
"This is not new to astrologers", Nicols said, "Astrologers have known about this since before the time of Christ." For millennia there have been two zodiacs, she said. In western cultures, astrologers typically follow the tropical zodiac, which is fixed to the seasons. In eastern cultures, particularly in India, astrologers use the sidereal zodiac based on constellations. The two have progressively shifted away from each other.
All the Star Tribune article did was point out that someone born under one sign in tropical astrology may be under another sign under the sidereal variation, Nicols said.
Practiced properly, astrologists (sic) using either method should arrive at the same conclusions, Nicols said. "Good astrology deals in truth", she said.
p.s. Why the inclusion of my little "sics"? Because the correct term is astrologer, not astrologist.
