Astrology: A Celestial Affair - by Chris Mitchell
Millions of people read their horoscopes every day in the newspaper, to discover that they, along with half a billion other people, are about to receive exciting news from abroad, or find love in an unlikely place. We know, logically, that this must be nonsense - that a newspaper horoscope can't possibly be correct for one twelfth of the world's population - but we still keep reading them because, deep down, we know that there is something in astrology, but can't quite put our finger on it.
Partly, this is because stereotypes usually have a grain of truth in them - "the British are reserved", "the Japanese are polite"; in astrology, we have "Capricorns are hard working", "Leos like to be the centre of attention". Clearly, this isn't always true - you'll find Leos who are shy and retiring, and lazy Capricorns - but it's true often enough for it to resonate with us as a set of general observations. And for most people, that's as far as astrology goes - an entertaining way of popping people into one of a dozen neat boxes.
However, there's much more to it than this. Astrology works by looking at where all the heavenly bodies were at the moment you were born, but newspaper horoscopes work by looking at just one of these, the Sun. The Sun sign does tell us something about you, but it's very general - it would be like a chef telling you that the dish you were going to be served had wheat as its main ingredient; it would give you some information, but you still wouldn't know whether you were going to be served pasta, bread or cake. Real astrology gives you list of all the ingredients - and works on the basis that the patterns in the heavens are imprinted on you the very second you take your first breath. This pattern is called your "birth chart", and is like a fingerprint - it's unique to you. Someone born at the same time as you in a different city will have a different chart; and two babies born in the same hospital ward ten minutes apart will have different charts.
Diagram 1: a person's birth chart
This diagram shows the birth chart for Albert Einstein. The symbols around the edge of the chart are the zodiac symbols. The symbols inside the chart are an assortment of planets and asteroids.Most people who follow a pagan-oriented path have respect for astrology, but are put off by the fact that it appears complicated, or mathematical. This is a great pity, because neither is true. Birth charts are strange looking things, with lots of curious symbols and numbers on them (see diagram 1) which gives the impression of being complicated and mathematical. It's also true that, a decade or two ago, you would have needed to have some mathematical ability, and an hour or two to spare, to do the calculations required to draw an astrological chart - but anyone who logs on to Astro Groups already has access to a computer, which can whip up a chart and do the nasty mathematical stuff in less time than it takes to perform the simplest of rituals! As for those curious symbols - well, they may look complicated, but there are only a handful of them, and learning what they mean is great fun. Mystic Wicks even has its own free astrology class in the Circle of Teaching, where you can work entirely at your own pace.
So let's take a look at the absolute basics. Pretty much everyone knows what their "zodiac sign" is - but what is a zodiac? And what exactly are Aries and Sagittarius? If you go outside tonight and look at the stars - assuming it isn't cloudy - will you recognise any of them? For thousands of years, we've played a "join the dots" game with the countless stars in the sky and tried to make patterns out of them. Some are more obvious than others. Most people will recognise the Plough (also called the Big Dipper, or the Great Bear) - it looks rather like a saucepan to our modern eyes, although the ancients saw the saucepan handle as the tail of a bear, and the pan as her body (there are extra stars representing her legs). Many of us will also recognise Orion the hunter with his famous "belt". These groups of stars are called "constellations", and there are 88 of these recognised by astronomers. Twelve of these constellations are called "the zodiac signs" and have names you probably recognise - Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces - although I've yet to meet an Aries who can actually recognise the constellation of Aries in the night sky!
It's difficult for those of us who live in cities in these light-polluted times to appreciate just how awe-inspiring the night sky is; those of you who live in rural areas already understand this! To the ancients, the sky was the place where most of the gods lived, and the patterns of the stars were messages from the gods to humanity. Our ancestors were reassured by regular patterns - phases of the Moon, the seasons, the fact that some constellations appeared only in winter and others only in summer - it meant the heavens were running well, and there was nothing to worry about. Sometimes something would come along and disrupt this nice neat order - the Babylonians were obsessed with looking for comets in the sky, which were seen as bad omens; and all ancient cultures have feared eclipses of the Sun, where the Sun gets blocked out for a few minutes. Many cultures assumed this was because a dragon was eating the Sun, and to scare the dragon away they would bang loud drums and make lots of noise. This always worked, and the Sun reappeared after a short period!
Other than these rare events, the ancients were particularly interested in a bunch of unruly stars that didn't obey the usual rules - the "planets". Cast your mind back to 2003. In the night sky you could see a very bright red object every night for several months. If you looked carefully, you would notice that every night the object appeared in roughly the same place, but was shifting slightly against the backdrop of stars night after night. Then in August it seemed to slow down and start moving backward against the backdrop of the stars. This was very mystifying behaviour to the ancients - the stars moved in nice regular ways, but these "wandering stars" shuffled backwards and forwards (the word "planet" comes from the Greek for "wanderer"). They soon realised what was going on - these planets were obviously gods in the sky, going about their business. The bright red one was the colour of blood, so was the god of war, Mars. The lovely bright beautiful planet that is always seen close to the Sun in the morning or evening is the consort of the Sun, the goddess of love, Venus. The very small fast moving one near the Sun was the messenger god, Mercury. The big bright star that moved very slowly must be a long way away, and must be huge because he's so bright - so he's the king of the gods, Jupiter. And the dim slow-moving star, as far away from the Sun as you can get, must be the cold, dark star of death - Saturn, the grim reaper.
Diagram 2: constellations and planets
If you watch the path the Sun takes through the sky during the day, you'll see it rise vaguely in the east in the morning, move high in the sky to the south around noon, then set somewhere in the west in the evening. To the ancient mind, this was the Sun God driving his chariot through the sky along a clearly defined path. If you look at the same part of the sky at night, that's where you'll see the planets and the Moon. You'll never see the Moon in the middle of the Big Dipper, or underneath Orion - it sticks pretty much to the same road that the Sun God drives along during the day. So do the other planets -Saturn, Mars and all the others stick to pretty much the same path as the Sun god drives along - a sort of celestial Interstate Highway (see diagram 2).
So now the ancients understood what was going on. Although there were lots of patterns in the sky, there were seven gods controlling it all - the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn - and they all stuck pretty much to a special "road of the gods" to do their business. When something important happened - the kingdom was attacked, or a princess was born - the wise starwatchers would see what the gods were doing and note whether the omens were good or bad. If Mars was rising and Jupiter was high in the sky, the war god was bringing good luck. If Saturn was hanging overhead, the kingdom would fall. To be able to note where the planets were, the ancients divided this "road of the gods" into twelve equal segments, and named each segment after the pattern of stars behind it. Most of these patterns looked like animals, so these special constellations were called the "circle of animals" or "zodiac" (our word "zoo" comes from the same Greek root). So now astrologers had a useful way of stating where things were when an important event happened - Mars was in Leo, the Moon in Capricorn and so on. Of course, some important events happened during the hours of daylight, when the astrologers couldn't see the stars - but they were clever enough to work out where the planets, Sun and Moon would be if you could see them. The Sun, of course, is so bright that it blots out the stars - but they're still there. When someone looks at their newspaper horoscope and says "I'm a Taurus", what they mean is that the Sun was on that segment of the celestial highway called Taurus. At the same time, of course, their Moon would be somewhere else on that highway, so would Mercury, Venus and all the other planets. The newspaper horoscope would ignore that - but an astrologer wouldn't.
And this is how it works right to this day. When you were born, these "gods of the sky" were in the heavens still doing their business after thousands of years. You may not have been able to see them (it may have been daylight, or they may not have been visible from your location), but they imprinted their energy onto you, the newborn babe, when you took your first breath; and that imprint is your own personal unique birthchart. Whatever your spiritual path, your birthchart represents a divine kiss, a true gift of the gods. Understand it, and you will know yourself!
© 2006 Chris Mitchell - all rights reserved
