Stars

I never really cared what my zodiac sign was before today. I didn’t think they had much use apart from looking up your daily horoscope or as a response to a pickup line from the 70’s. And I’m still not convinced that my birth date has that much to do with my personality or who I should date. But the journey was more interesting than I imagined.

First I'll start by telling you that I'm a Libra. I actually had to go look that up. For those of you who, like me, are astrological novices, a Libra is someone born between September 23 through October 22, and the symbol that represents this signs is the scales. Then I had to figure out what all of that meant.

According several websites, and numerous Pinterest posts, Libra is the sign of harmony and strives for balance. Seems accurate so far.

Libras are known for good taste, elegance and charm. Well, thank you...

They naturally want to live in partnership with others and issues of social justice are very important to them. They hope that all parties in a conflict will be satisfied and tend to understand both sides witch make them natural mediators. Interesting how similar that sounds to the Myers-Briggs INFJ, the Advocate. And the Enneagrams Ones.

The Advocate has a "deep sense of idealism and integrity" and are "troubled by injustice."

"Ones are conscientious and ethical, with a strong sense of right and wrong. They are teachers, crusaders, and advocates for change."

At this point I'm still a firm believer in the Myers-Briggs and Enneagram abilities for more accurately determining personality because I know not all INFJs are Libras, nor are all Enneagram Ones Libras, but it does make me sit back and say, "Hmmm."

Additionally, I found a lot of information discussing whether or not the zodiac signs are actually still accurate. The new idea spouses that because the zodiac was developed over 2,500 years ago, and since your sign is determined by which constellations the sun passes through on the day you were born, and since the earth's axis moves in a precession (it wobbles), then the constellations we see in our night sky differ than those seen by those who first developed it. They also add a 13th sign, called Ophiuchus, which they say was a constellation missed in the original zodiac.

I'm not particularly invested one way or the other. Do with this information what you will. I still don't think it has a lot to do with personality and I don't think it has anything to do with my day. Horoscopes predicting your day based on the “movement” of the stars makes as much sense to me as Da Vinci's paintings holding secrets about the life of Jesus.

The thing that I found most interesting was the origins of astrology. Typically astrology is considered a non-science while astronomy is considered real science. The Ancient Greeks used the constellations as their calendar. When the sun appeared in Aries it was the first day of spring and then the rest of the year was marked, from that point forward, around which constellation the sun was passing through.

Thorough our history we have studied the stars. Stars have marked our days and seasons before we had calendars. Stars have been used for navigation before we had the compass or sextant. In the Bible it was by the study of the stars that wise men from the east discovered the time and place in which Jesus would be born. Sir Isaac Newton combined math and the motion of the planets to basically discover gravity.

We are a people obsessed with stars. When something is great we give it five stars. When someone is famous we call them a star. And why not, our lives literally revolve around our star, the sun, without which we wouldn't last a day (which we couldn't actually have without the sun).