After the universal cafuffle about how the stars don't match up with the Astrological signs due to precession, I did some digging.Following several leads I learned that Tropical Astrology, the version that is used here in North America, is quite different from Sidereal Astrology, the version that purportedly uses star maps.
So in reading this:
Tropical astrology is based on the idea that astrology is based on the configuration of the solar system relative to the Sun, not to the remote fixed stars. For tropical astrologers therefore it is irrelevant that the solsticial points (tropics) have drifted from one constellation to another over the millennia, due to the precession of the equinoxes. The names of the zodiacal constellations that became the star signs are supposed to suggest the characteristics of (the sun in) each segment of the year. Thus, Aries (House 1), representing the sun just returning to the northern hemisphere at the vernal equinox, Leo (House 5), representing sun of mid-summer, Sagittarius (House 9), representing the retreating sun close to the winter solstice, etc. In its emphasis on the symbolic or metaphorical meaning of the star signs tropical astrology differs from sidereal astrology which claims intrinsic meaning for the star signs and wishes to preserve those meanings by laying out horoscopes against fixed stars.
... I had to think that all of the hubbub over changing signs didn't actually apply to us here. Western Astrology doesn't even use the stars to make it's predictions.
But THEN, I started to think about all the people who have paid to have their charts done, according to some very complex maths interpreting the positions of heavenly bodies, were being ripped off. It's all bollocks anyway.
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