|
The beauty of the 12 Constellations
The word "zodiac" means "circle of animals," and the name refers to the means taken by ancient astronomers to identify its various parts. Selecting stars that could be connected by lines to give a rude representation of some appropriate figure, they established twelve of these. The original signs, traced out this way in star patterns, are known as the "constellations" or collectively as the "natural zodiac," and they are seldom used in astrology. The reason is that the astronomical point which is taken as the zodiac¡¯s beginning has a very slow clockwise movement in the skies. This is known as the "precession of the equinoxes," and it is sometimes used to define the great "ages" of human history. In the more than two thousand years since the zodiacal signs were established, the star-patterns which still name them are found about a whole sign out of position. This fact, not understood by opponents of astrology, is often cited as evidence of its supposed "unscientific basis."
|
