So you think you’re a Sagittarius, right? Or an Aquarius? Well, think again. According to the horoscopes, I’m supposed to be a Virgo. Yet there’s absolutely no doubt that I’m a Leo. I’ve seen it for myself.
The idea of assigning attributes to star constellations was developed by the ancient Greeks in the second century B.C. Regardless of how you feel about astrology these days, you can’t help but admire what the Greeks were up to. It was obvious to them, for example, that the wind’s direction had a major influence on the weather and that the moon’s location had a major influence on tides. So the Greeks made the logical supposition that the location of the sun, too, must have an influence on the natural order of things.
Central to this supposition was the belief that the Earth was at the center of the universe, with the sun moving month by month across the fixed background of the heavens. In order to track the sun’s movement, the Greeks mapped the stars and organized the ones on the sun’s path into the constellations of the zodiac. They then assigned each of these “sun signs” a specific range of dates on the calendar, giving birth to the idea of an individual being a “Libra” or a “Capricorn” based on which constellation the sun was in on their date of birth. These dates are still printed in the newspapers today.
But here’s the rub. The earth’s rotation is not perfectly regular. Think of a toy top spinning on a table. If you spin the top just so, you can get it to spin perfectly in place, with no wobble around its axis. But more often than not, despite your best efforts, the spin has a slight wobble in it, causing the top to wander around slightly as it spins on the table.
The same is true of the Earth’s axis: it has a slight wobble, called a procession, which is causing the sun to appear to lag, ever so slowly, as it travels across the zodiac through the seasons. This lag is about one degree of sky every 72 years. Because the Greeks mapped the sky more than 2,200 years ago, and because each sign of the zodiac is roughly 30 degrees across, the net effect is that the Greek calendar is now ahead by nearly 31 degrees – a complete sign.
You can check this for yourself. The first morning of Vermont’s hunting season last month happened to feature a perfectly clear, moonless sky. When I trudged outside before dawn, Sirius the dog dominated the sky in the southwest, with Orion, his companion, close at hand. To the north, the big dipper was balanced precariously on its handle, with the handle “arcing towards Arcturus and spiking towards Spica” on the horizon. Spica is the brightest star in Virgo, meaning that Virgo was just on the horizon, only a few dozen degrees ahead of the rising sun. It was easy to see, therefore, that the sun was going to rise two hours later in the sign that follows Virgo, namely Libra.
November 12th? Libra? Just so. The astrology page in the newspaper says the sun should be rising in Scorpio – ahead by a month.
This news probably won’t cause you to stop checking your horoscope, assuming you’ve been checking yours in the first place. Few people take the signs seriously these days, and not just because the sun no longer rises where the astrological calendar say it does. More of an issue is that we now believe that the Earth is not at the center of the universe, and neither is the sun. Rather than being the focus of cosmic attention, our Earth appears to be one among many billions of other stars and planets.
But you can still check your true “sun sign” for yourself. On or about your birthday, choose a clear dawn. Situate yourself so that you can see the distant horizon (not just a nearby hill or ridge) to the east. Two hours before sunrise, note the constellation that is just above the rising sun. That’s the zodiac sign that precedes your true birth sign.
This is much easier to do at this time of year than in the summer because cold winter air is usually much clearer than warm summer air, because twilight is shorter now than in the summer, and because two hours before sunrise is much more likely to find you already awake. (You summer birthday people may want to check a winter sign instead.)
While you’re out there, keep an eye out for the Geminid meteor shower, centered overhead in the constellation Gemini, which is one of the winter’s most spectacular displays and peaks in the second week of December.
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