The Zodiac is Killing Me

Yesterday was a major upset in my world.  I found out the mysterious “they” were introducing a thirteenth zodiac sign.  Now everyone’s sign would be shifted.  For most of us, we would end up being whatever sign used to come before us, unless you were the new sign Ophiuchus, in which case your friends were probably laughing.  Here’s a chart of what your sign would have been:

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.
Sagittarius: Dec. 17-Jan. 20.

All of this was debunked today, so don’t worry too much about it.  To my knowledge none of my friends felt a sudden personality shift and I doubt any couples got divorced because out of the blue they were incompatible.  I don’t actually believe in astrology.  I only check my horoscope occasionally when the mood strikes me.  I’ve never sat in a bar sipping cosmos asking men “what’s your sign?”, but this still would have shattered my world view.  Why is that?

Because I don’t date Scorpios.

I also don’t date pianists, poli-sci majors, and guys who are 6’1”, though under certain circumstances all of those are forgivable.  Being a Scorpio is not.

It’s not that weird when you think about it.  Some women don’t date accountants.  Others won’t date men who are close to their mothers.  And most women automatically rule out a guy who wears socks with sandals.

I just don’t date Scorpios.

This didn’t come out of thin air of course.  I tried it.  Several times.  Enough times to finally save myself the trouble and finally come up with The Rule.  For some reason I’m drawn to Scorpios the way some women are drawn to bad boys in leather who ride motorcycles.  Half the time I didn’t know they were Scorpios until I was too late, (that’s not why I was attracted to them), but I always unfailingly got stung.  Apparently Aquarius and Scorpio are incompatible signs and I can believe it.

A lot of people blogged/tweeted/facebooked about the change, either to complain, or say how ridiculous it is, or to muse whether or not they felt different about themselves.  But I was upset for much more practical reasons.  If all the signs were shifted, who don’t I date?

Do I not date all the former Scorpios?  Do I not date all the current Scorpios?  Do I not date both former and current Scorpios?  How much of the male population was off limits to me?!

In my mild state of panic I jumped on the interwebs and began my research, so here’s my breakdown of how the situation went, from Ophiuchus’ “discovery” to its debunking.

For any of you who don’t know the reason for Ophiuchus being introduced into the Zodiac, let me give a brief explanation.  The ecliptic (i.e. the apparent path the sun takes around the Earth) passes through all twelve signs of the Zodiac.  But if you look between Scorpio and Sagittarius, it also clips the constellation Ophiuchus.  It didn’t always do this, but the Earth wobbles on its axis, so the apparent path of the sun changes.  Now in today’s day and age the ecliptic crosses thirteen constellations instead of just twelve.  (Wow, I never thought taking astronomy last semester would come in handy!)  Just so everyone clear, the whole fuss over Ophiuchus has been caused by a Minneapolis Community and Technical College Professor named Parke Kunkle, who kept calling it the “13^th sign of the Zodiac” until he made some headlines, but he’s not an astrologer.  Anyone with a star chart can see the ecliptic crosses it though.

So why didn’t astrologers “see” this coming?  Especially since the ecliptic has been crossing Ophiuchus for a while…  According to them, they did.

One astrologer, Lawrence Grecco, when interviewed over at the Global Grind, claims trying to discuss the new chart is like, “discuss what it’s like now that New York is its own country.”

“My earliest teachers from the 80’s were aware of this, and telling us about this and preparing us for these questions that sometime come up. But western astrology as it’s practiced is not based on literally where the consolations appear in the sky but it’s based on time.”

In other words, it doesn’t matter what constellations the elliptic crosses or where they are literally in the sky.

Astrologer Georgia Nicols gave a similar explanation on the Calgary Herald.

“‘Most astrologers use what we call the tropical zodiac,’ she said. ‘We're using the same system for thousands of years. It's based on math. A producer just called and said, so basically this is just (an issue of) math versus the sky? I said yeah. You could call it that.’”  She did note that there are astrologers that already include Ophiuchus in their signs, including Vedic astrologers in India and Sidereal astrologers in North America.

With Ophiuchus out of the way, my prediction it that someone is going to object to the use of Pluto in predictions since it’s not a planet anymore!

Despite my skepticism about astrology as a whole, I have to say debunking the shift was a relief to me.  The Rule still stands.  I don’t date Scorpios.