Made with Tripod.com

NATURAL RHYTHMS CONSULTING

Spirits

HOME
PROFILE
SERVICES
SUN
MOON
MERCURY
VENUS & MARS
BRIDGING
POETRY
PUBLICATIONS
SKY LARKS
SPIRITS

Spirit of Aquarius
aquarius.jpg
© 2010 Elizabeth Rozan All Rights Reserved

Spirits of the Zodiac

This month:  Aquarius  
A rabbit or a pitcher?


There are many intellectual approaches to the subject of Astrology, and many mysteries still surround it. I have been working on ways of interpreting the signs of the Zodiac. What do they really mean?

T
he Earth, like all planets in our Solar System, travels around the Sun.  The path of travel around the Sun  is the ecliptic plane, also called the Zodiac.  While it is the Sun that is fixed, from the geocentric perspective, it appears that the Sun is moving around the Earth.  Hence language has evolved to place the Sun in various positions along the 360 degrees of the Zodiac. 

So emblazoned on the human psyche, the zodiacal archetypes have held  fast.
The Zodiac comes from Greek and Latin words meaning “circle of animals”.   The 360 degree circle around the Sun divides into twelve equal zones of celestial longitude in Chaldean astronomy. The Zodiacal path is a convenience, an ancient positioning device. How does one enter the circle?  There are many possible starting points--the South declination point at 0 Capricorn, the Cross-Quarter Day of Samhain at 15 Scorpio, or the the Sidereal Zodiac with its starting point against a fixed constellation and its varied ayanamsa, 25-30 degrees earlier than Tropical, are some.

In Western Tropical  Astrology, the starting point is tied to the seasons;  the beginning is the Vernal Equinox (0 degrees of Aries). 

Though not all animals, the Spirits of  the  Zodiac speak through the celestial coordinate system where the ecliptic (the apparent path of the Sun) serves as latitude, and the apparent position on the Sun at Vernal Equinox is the starting point for longitude.  From Aries to  Pisces, the Sun apparently travels, giving us season and angular light, and a natural rhythm that is astounding.

Although astrology is far more complex than the simple Sun sign placement, the Zodiacal path is where the movement of all the planets occurs.  It is along this path that we can grasp the shifting relationships of this movement, day to day, month to month, season to season.