posted February 18, 2009 08:17 AM         

How accurate is western astrology? Perhaps it is possible that what seems accurate is no more than self-fulfilling prophecy?
I know it is an ancient art, but then there are many different types of astrology from around the world. Also, there used to be 13 signs in the zodiac. If this is taken into account, then it would mean that you are not the sign you always thought yourself to be, but the sign which comes just before:

http://www.geocities.com/astrologyconstellations/index.htm

Maybe, just maybe, we relate to astrology because each sign description gives deep psychological insight into parts of ourselves which we can all relate to?

I have followed astrology for quite some time now, I'm just challenging my own beliefs, so no offense to anyone.

I can certainly see how the planets themselves may effect us on many levels, but as for the constellations....well, if we each look up at the sky and describe the images we see in the constellations.....then each person would have a different answer.

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"It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing and there's this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. And this bag was like, dancing with me. Like a kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. And that's the day I realized there's this entire life behind things, and....this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there's no reason to be afraid, ever".

posted February 18, 2009 10:35 AM         

i just heard for the first time of heliacal rising star a week ago. i still don't know much about it, and i don't know which one is mine. there's so many things that i don't know in astrology.

like most people, i like the glamour of it, so i'm the first one to say that my sun is in this sign or my moon in this one. but i truly believe that among the many things that i say, there is a lot of BS; and with time, i'll change my mind about it.

for example, now i start to view houses with the whole sign house system. it was a funny thing when HSC started a thread cause around the same time i was playing with this idea. people reaction to his thread were enlightening. i didn't like the placidus system. it confuses me with regard to my pluto moon conjunction. may be it is because i'm not sure where to locate this conjunction in my chart that i look for another system. but i think it is also due to the fact that i don't like to accept something at face value. i don't know how placidus decided to calculate the houses like he did. i wish i could ask him and he could tell me. may be there is a reason.... as always with astrology, nobody can be sure. and there's a way for everyone. a bit like in life really.

well i like what seems logical to me. and logically, the house system that fits best for me is the whole sign house.

but for the constellations and stars, i think there is so much more to know from them. so much. for the little story, did u know that aldebaran the royal star around 10' gemini is 44 times the size of the sun? and the sun is 110 times the size of earth. this means that aldebaran is 4840 times bigger than earth. ok this is astronomy but i think astrology of the ancients was a bit of astronomical facts that became mixed with mythology. may be our era will bring back direct astronomical knowledge back in astrological studies. after all, ancient might not have had telescopes but they had the time to scrutinize the sky. they didn't get locked up in their house to watch "who wants to be a millionaire" every night. and they didn't live in town with light pollution. right now i live in the countryside in the south of france. the biggest town is 45 minutes away by car and with a population of 40 000. when i go out at night, i amazed at the number of stars i can see. after 5 years in london where all i could see were the moon, a few stars and mainly cameras and street lights.

anyway, there is much to discover.

also, i recently reread a book which i highly recommend you. here you can read some parts of it. it's about buddhist astrology. for them, signs are not significants. they use aspects between planets essentially. they refer to house placement so ultimately they use sign, if only because houses are based on signs. but i believe that most of the chart can be interpreted with aspects. and along with aspects, midpoints are probably another great tool. i think astrology is about mathematics. so if you scrap the mythology and summary of those mathematics which i believe the sign are, then you go straight to aspects formed by planets. but regarding aspects, i think there is so much more to know. i don't like when people say that quintile or novile are minor aspects. i think that people say that for two reason. 1st because they are like sheep and just rerpeat what other society's member are saying because they want to be a part of the group and don't want complications by giving their differences. 2nd because may be those aspects need more effort to interpret because they refer to psychological mechanism that are still today unconscious or mechanism which are subtle and in fact have been grouped under other aspect until now and would necessitate a reformulation of more "majors" aspect.

strangely, i noticed by looking at the chart of my mum that the distance between her north node and her sun was the same that the distance between my north node and my sun. by 1 degree. it is not an aspect according to the dogma. 170'. but it is weird notheless.

also, i like the work of davison. i've got a book of him. and he introduced me to the idea of doing a venus chart, a jupiter chart and so on. in synastry. i guess there is so much to dig in this. but he takes reference to the aries point. this however, i don't know. i think it's is a starting point but my intuition tells me there is more to it. i'm not connected enough to the rythm of the sky to say more about that though. what i mean is that aries point is humans who named it that way, and in fact people who follow the ptolemyan tradition.
i used the position of spica to find the ayanamsa. i had read somewhere that different systems in india were based on different ayanamsa. some thought it was around 21' other 24' or even 25'. in the book i mentioned above he talks about "more than 26' " which i find too much. well spica is a star in the constellation of virgo, the brightest i think. it's position was 23'35 in libra when i was born in 1980. i think this star is the aries point. because to me virgo is the first sign of the zodiac. those who consider the draconic chart uses the aries point because it represent the meaning of our present life (north node) in this incarnation (aries point being the first degree of the zodia, it would be logical to embody the power of incarnation.) well myself, virgo is the sign of the harvest (past incarnation), and because the second part of the year represent the begining of the metaphysical side of life (which i find too be the real side of life) then virgo is to me the begining of the real zodiac. at least on a metaphysical level.

i always looked for controversy... lol

so my point is that astrology is fascinating and there is still so much more to learn, if only why dont just follow the dogmas which were here for a purpose obviously, the purpose to "guide" us in some direction. and by exchanging may be we can expand the initial dogmas. unfortunately, i'm not good at one on on relationship so i tend to prefer to rush ahead...... on my own! lol