This is weird... about sun signs

ravenest

Ahhhhh, a breath of fresh air Lillie ... thank you.

yes I agree, astrotechs aside, this is what a LOT of people see and feel quiet ripped off when they find this is not the case.

In lots of systems of belief (we will call it 'primative astronomy' so as not to offend anyone), people believe that individuals were stars, then they incarnated, lived on earth, then returned to the stars / star.

It's nice to look up there and say, that's my star!

There is a magical system where this is worked and one attempts to learn as much as one can about ones 'own star' and eventually travel to it in you 'body of light'. What fun!

Another example here in Australia with the indigenous people is that a group of people (sort of like a tribe but not a tribe here) will claim descent froma star, eg, Uncle Link, a Bundgulung elder pointed to venus one night and said to me ; "That's where we come from - we are the Morning Star people."

Old habits die hard I guess (and may these ones never die).

WE could further postulate that when the Sun is in front of a certain star/s that energy is chanelled to earth like the Sun is acting as a lense, conversly one can check the ASTRONOMY at the time of birth and see what star is closest to or behind the Sun and develop a relationship to that star or constellation.
 

Minderwiz

And what if there are no stars behind the Sun at the moment of birth? Remember there are gaps, sometimes quite large, between constellations :) That being said there are 50 - 100 stars that are considered Astrologically significant and one of these on the Ascendant would be considered quite significant.

'Most people may believe that Astrology only relates to Sun signs, or that character is solely a function of Sun signs but this is not now and never was the case (except in newspaper columns). A person's character is influenced only to a relatively small extent by the Sun (both by sign and House) but also depends on the Moon and other planets (by sign and house). Other important factors are Ascendant and MC, and for some Astrologers, other point in the horoscope.

People are not one dimensional, they are complex. Trying to reduce everyone to a Sun sign stereotype will of course produce serious anomolies

This might be a 'techie' answer but for all practicing Astrologers, whether sidereal or tropical, whether vedic or western it happens to be the case.

edited to add:

The ancient Greeks appeared to know about precession, its nothing new for Astrologers. The majority of Western Astrologers followed the tradition based on the tropical zodiac. The confusing thing is that they kepr the SIGN of Aries as the first sign in the tropical zodiac, no matter what the sidereal position. The Indian Astrologers opted to go with the sidereal zodiac and this, together with important cultural differences has led to a divergence between the two traditions.
 

Lillie

If the constellations aren't the stars, then are the planets the planets?
Is the jupiter in my chart some imaginary thing that I can't understand, or is it the planet I see in the sky?
 

ravenest

Minderwiz said:
And what if there are no stars behind the Sun at the moment of birth?

If you read the post I did say; " what star is closest to or behind the Sun ".

And of course it all depends on how powerful the telescope is ;) (i.e. actually LOOKING at the stars - not a chart).

(And yet again to avoid confusion; The Sun position can be assertained by a programme such as Dance of the Planets or the US Navy site [cant remember the name of site], the co-ordinates marked and then real observation can be made of the co-ordinates. I realise one cannot look through a telescope at the Sun and see the stars behind it.)
 

Minderwiz

It depends what you mean by 'closest' - Are you simply taking the nearest star, no matter how far away or do you have some limit in mind. Given the universe is three dimensional how would you measure closeness?


How would you determine the meaning or effect of such a star should you find one that fits your criteria? Astrological tradition has some 50 or more stars that are seen as Astrologically relevant. Bernadette Brady includes 60 stars in her book. However clearly there are far more stars on the Ecliptic. A fourth century text actually enumerated 1022 stars on the Ecliptic and as you point out the telescope opens the field to many more.

How do you derive any Astrological information for such a large number of objects and how can it be meaningful?

I'm not saying it is impossible to do this but I'd like to know how you would approach the issue.
 

ravenest

ravenest said:
... (we will call it 'primative astronomy' so as not to offend anyone), .

I deliberatly wrote this to try to make the point clear , again confusion
and in the same post, and note caps ;

"one can check the ASTRONOMY at the time of birth "

I think you have an issue?

Try this http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/libers/liber963.pdf

esp p. 5
 

Crystal17

TheBip said:
I actually found this application on facebook, and followed links to the actual website this is found on.

(from http://www.livescience.com/widgets/birthday.html) Your astrological sign was determined by the position of constellations 2200 years ago. Over time, Earth has tilted on its axis changing these positions...and maybe even your astrological sign! Let the science of Astronomy explain the phenomenon of precession, which caused this shift.

http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/your-astronomical-sign.html

http://www.livescience.com/widgets/birthday.html

According to this site, Im a Pisces, not an Aries. I just looked up info about Pisces, and it fits me much better than Aries does!

haha, i dont know how accurate that thing is. im also an aries and it suggested that im really a pisces but i definietly fit the aries description much better than i fit the pisces description *lol* besides, since we were born waaay after the earth was knocked from its axis, wouldnt the sign ( which isnt our "real" sign) be our "real" sign, anyway?
 

ravenest

It wont really matter as western astrology is about what season or time of year you were born (and planet aspects etc) not the stars (except Sun).

I ve been focusing on Stella and constellational influence but it seems a bit much for 'astrologers'.

I think my point still stands that the majority of people (and most deffinitions) think astrology is about the stars - wrongly or rightly.
 

Minderwiz

Ravenest,

the only issue I have is that you seem to think I'm having a go at you when I'm not.

I quite accept that you used the word 'Astronomy' to avoid issues that we have discussed before, it seems fully reasonable statement to me and I certainly don't challenge it. I also did not believe that you meant the star had to be exactly behind the Sun. However that led to my question about the fairly large expanses of the ecliptic where no star is close to the Sun. You reiterated your point about the star being close and I asked you how close? Which seems a reasonable question. In a 2D zodiacal circle do you mean within a degree, five degrees, 10 degrees? I'm genuinely interested.

In the same post you stated '

WE could further postulate that when the Sun is in front of a certain star/s that energy is chanelled to earth like the Sun is acting as a lense,'

I was intrigued about the nature of the energy - how you would interpret it and pointed out that Astrologers have a rather limited set of stars in regular use that have been typecast as providing a type of energy. This is not to imply that other stars don't do that.

Given the myriad of stars are we talking about providing standard interpretations or do you mean a sort of 'adopt a star' process where the person assigns a meaning to the star that he or she finds appropriate for them? I don't see anything wrong with such a process but I want to understand clearly what you mean.

I fully accept that you are not dealing with conventional Astrology in this post but you do seem to imply that there is a relationship of some sort.

I liked your reference to the morning star people (though here we are dealing with the planet Venus as you pointed out). There is certainly evidence that past civilisations saw links between them and constellations (though not necessarily an Astrological one) through myths.

You mighr like to read the introduction to Bernadette Brady's book on fixed stars. It provides quite an interesting explanation of the links between mythology and the precession of the equinoxes and one that I think would appeal to your 'magical' take on the world.

Lillie,

Yes the planets are indeed the planets that you see in the sky, all that differs is the system for plotting their position. The tropical zodiac plots them relative to the equinoxes and the sidereal system plots them with reference to a point in physical space. Astronomers have yet another system for plotting planet positions as they no longer use the physical constellations.

In Astrology it is the planets that are the main influences on our lives, no matter what reference system is used.
 

memries

All those year I thought I was a miserable Scorpio now to find out I am a Libra which is a much kinder personality. I guess I was always a bit of both and knew it somehow that I was not the true vindictive Scorpio.