Learning the Signs

Learning the Signs

Most of you reading this probably already know what most of the signs mean, just from exposure to Sun sign astrology, and picking up on the way the zodiac signs are used in the day-to-day astrological jargon you hear about town. Most of you probably know that Sun sign Cancers are homebodies, but I would be willing to bet that only a few of you know why Cancer is a homebody or where in the world that notion came from. In addition to giving you all the traditional phrases and keywords (which is the way many people learn astrology), I will also point out how all of these keywords and concepts fit together—where they came from. You can decide which is the most useful for you

Different Sun Signs

Different Sun Signs

So what we are saying here is that the Sun sign astrology we read in the newspapers, and that folks talk about, amounts to nothing more than a difference in birthdays; the Earth was in a different part of its annual orbit. This is what separates you from me, and if this seems like a small difference, it just may be all the difference in the world. After all, human beings are mostly similar. If some alien race came from outer space and sorted us out, the fact that I am a Cancer Sun sign and you are a Libra is probably not going to even register on their radar screen. But for us humans, these little differences can mean a lot. Again, this may be all the difference in the world.

What's Your Sun Sign?

What's Your Sun Sign?

Our Sun sign is the zodiac sign for our birthday. I was born July 18, so I am the zodiac sign Cancer. My Sun sign is Cancer. And all that means is that on the day of my birth, if we walked out and looked at the Sun, it would be in the Tropical sign Cancer. Note, that I did not say it was in the constellation Cancer, but we will get to that down the road a piece. For now, it is important that we understand that whatever sign the Sun was in on our birthday is our Sun sign, which is the basis of the horoscopes we read in newspapers.

What Is the Zodiac?

What Is the Zodiac?

This is simple. The zodiac is nothing more than the path the Earth takes around the Sun in the course of one year’s orbit. This annual orbital path takes the Earth through a sky filled with stars and constellations of stars. The particular set or band of constellations the Earth passes through are the 12 familiar constellations and signs of the zodiac, thus the term, “the band of the zodiac.”

Cycle of the Signs

Cycle of the Signs

The 12 signs of the zodiac form a wheel, each sign being an equal 30 degrees, and one sign following another. These are the signs of the zodiac, upon which most of modern (and ancient) astrology is based. Most of us understand when friends call out things like, “No wonder, she’s a Scorpio!” or “Watch our for him, he’s got the Moon in Aries!” I am sure we all have a different take on these, but you get the drift. We will get into what all of this zodiac talk means. but before that happens, it will help to understand something about where these 12 signs came from. What is the zodiac?