Fashionably Late Ophiuchus

I recieved word this morning that astrology has suddenly changed.  Evidently, that thirteenth constilation - Ophiuchus - that didn't get invited to the zodiac mixer party two thousand years ago is suddenly being recognized as a sign you can be born under.  This means that it's getting itself squeezed into the year making everyone else's sign smaller and pushed over slightly.  So, if you've been a Libra all this time, now you're probably a Virgo.

The list is as follows:

Capricorn: Jan. 20-Feb. 16. 
Aquarius: Feb. 16-March 11. 
Pisces: March 11-April 18. 
Aries: April 18-May 13. 
Taurus: May 13-June 21. 
Gemini: June 21-July 20.
Cancer: July 20-Aug. 10. 
Leo: Aug. 10-Sept. 16.
Virgo: Sept. 16-Oct. 30.
Libra: Oct. 30-Nov. 23.
Scorpio: Nov. 23-29. 
Ophiuchus: Nov. 29-Dec. 17.  <--The new guy
Sagittarius: Dec. 17-Jan. 20.

Why this is causing chaos:

Forgetting all that horoscope nonsense for a moment, the zodiac was designed originally as a personality profiling system, like Meyer's Briggs or however you spell it, based on observation of seasonal effects on personalities.  The original astrologers used the stars as a sort of calandar for the year (like most people did in those days) and wrote up a neat little way of remembering the all the profiling business by assigning a sort of heavenly mascot that related to that month's observed personality.  The constilations were not all the same size, so creative liberties were necessary to take, and since there was already a twelve month calandar, poor Ophiuchus got the boot.

However, for the past two thousand years, this system didn't lie stagnant while people mindlessly accepted the assessments at face value.  They've been making improvements.  They've mapped out rising signs, moon signs, saturn signs; they got more specific by seperating each month into decons and cusps.  This older-than-the-hills zodiacal system has become so hammered out and so widely accepted that statistically it's fairly accurate despite it's being an arbitrary assessment of personality based on date of birth.

Now all that work's gone out the window.  It's all over the news, but none of the articles are being specific, and Wikipedia is ominously silent about it - behaving as though nothing important is occuring.  For instance, by who's authority was this change carried out?  There's already arguments between western and eastern definitions of the dates, so why is this suddenly something we all have to accept?  Is everyone's personalities suppose to change because of this?  How are the decons and cusps going to be divided?  What is Ophiuchus's personality profile?  Who is everyone compatible with now that the math's all off?

To make matters worse, the sun signs are off by a month already due to lack of accounting for the equinox.  So if you were supposedly born a Cancer and found out the sun was really in Gemini when you were born; NOW you have to make room for Ophiuchus, making you a Taurus.  But you just spent your ENTIRE LIFE thinking you weren't even compatible with Taurus.  Or whatever.  I'm not even knowlegable about compatibilities. Well... the original astrologers made the calandar first priority and the alignment of the stars second, so I doubt the fact that the sun was in Cancer when I was born made me any less a Leo.  (Technically, the sun was in the constilation Hydra when I was born.  That explains why I grow three more heads everytime I'm decapitated.)

So that's why everyone's all in an uproar to-day about the zodiac.  To be honest, I think it's all a publicity stunt to get people paying more interest in their horoscopes.  Which is silly because horoscopes were created after the original zodiac as a publicity stunt - and it's based on the premis that the stars could predict things.  They can't.

When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD, and because of these detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you. You must be blameless before the LORD your God. The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the LORD your God has not permitted you to do so (Deuteronomy 18:9-14).

Divination = predicting the future.

Let's be clear about this, since I just KNOW someone's going to ask me about the hypocricy of prophecy in all this madness: It's easy to be wise in retrospect.  Once we know the outcome of an event, it is much easier to see what we should have done.  For the most part, this information is no longer useful since the time for taking action has passed us by.  Let it be demoted from information to pure data.  The gift of PROPHECY as the Christians use it, is not so much concerned with predicting the future as it is making known the will of God to His people at a time when they still have the opportunity to do something about it.

And as far as Ophiuchus goes, if you don't like it, don't change anything.  It doesn't mean your personality has to change unless you want it to; unless you see it as an opportunity to change your self-view in a way that creates opportunities you once denied yourself because that just wasn't the kind of person you are.  If that's what it takes to destroy your limiting beliefs.  Otherwise, the whole system is largely man-made and you are a human, so you are free from being put inside a box like that.  You know better.  You've got UNLIMITED INFINITE POSSIBILITIES.

I got a call about that New Year's Eve show from my other blog, by the way.  Evidently that pub's business has tripled since we played and all kinds of people are asking for a cd of us.  So we've been invited back to play paid gigs there, me and my sisters.  If you follow me on Facebook and feel like Goldendale is not too far away for you to travel, I will post about it so you can make it.  I'm pretty excited, since it's always been my dream to play professionally. 

On that note, I'm going to sign off and practice.  Infinite love!

--J.M. Gatewood
Probability Significator