The signs of the zodiac, also called the fixed signs, are positions in the sky which form a backdrop against which the planets, sun and moon appear to move. Most of the planets are within the same orbit so so they appear to move along a belt of constellations which from our perspective on this spinning earth, seems to arise in the East, when you’re in the northern hemisphere, it seems to go over the south sky and back down in the West. When you’re in the southern hemisphere, it seems to go over the Northern sky, but it still rises in the East and sets in the West. Obviously, it doesn’t actually do any rising or setting, that’s actually the spinning of the Earth upon its axis making it appear so.
We often talk about the zodiac signs as having a personality because we most commonly talk about the zodiac in terms of the impact they have on the sun, which symbolises the raw self / the ego, when it is in that sign at the birth of the individual in question.
Signs and the days the Sun is considered to be in that sign
Aries (20th March – 19th April) – 31 days
Taurus (20th April – 20th May) – 31 days
Gemini (21st May – 21st June) – 32 days
Cancer (22nd June – 22nd July) – 31 days
Leo (23rd July – 22nd August) – 31 days
Virgo (23rd August – 21st September) – 30 days
Libra (22nd September – 23rd October) – 31 days
Scorpio (23rd October – 21st November) – 30 days
Saggitarius (22nd November – 21st December) – 30 days
Capricorn (22nd December – 19th January) – 29 days
Aquarius (20th January – 18th February) – 30 days
Pisces (19th February – 19th March) – 28-29 days
Exercise
I always found learning astrology a bit wishy-washy with definitions and therefore hard to learn, but it lacked precision or accuracy. What you learned from one author seemed to be invalidated by the next author. The truth is, I was seeking a level of mastery of astrology when I was just a beginner. You need to accept that to begin with you will just get a vague impression of each sign, but to make it easier to remember, I suggest the following exercise.
Assuming you have an account with Facebook with friends on it. Click on the Birthdays link on the left menu, you might need to expand the menu depending on what platform you’re on. Scroll down past the recent birthdays to “upcoming birthdays” There should be groups for each month right up to a year’s time. Flick through the list above and try to write down 3 people for each zodiac sign whose personalities you know well. As you read through the descriptions of the zodiac signs notice which attributes fit your social media friends.
Some friends will not fit the adjectives. Even if Astrology were totally accurate, and I will maintain that it isn’t, then we are only considering the zodiacal sign that the sun appeared to be in during their birth. We are not considering the 6 other main “planets”. The sun is very important, as it is one of the brightest lights in the sky its role in astrology is significant, but it isn’t the only one. Jung would associate the sun with the ego, but remember that in Freud’s psychodynamic model, there are the ego, superego and the id all competing for dominance and in Jung’s model, there were even more parts.
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