The Zodiac or Circle of Life.

                                         

The root of the word zodiac comes from the Greek “zo” which has the meaning of animal or biological life. As our western zodiac is made up of both animal and human forms it is probably in the context of all biological life we can come to understand the meaning of the zodiac as the “Circle of Life”

This circle of life has nothing to do with the positions of the constellations. In fact when we say the sun enters the sign of Aries towards the end of March or the sun is in Cancer during the month of June/ July it doesn’t mean the sun is travelling through the constellation which bears its name. Perhaps at some point, hidden in the mists of time, this was the case but not so today. This apparent discrepancy with reality is one of the reasons why astrology appears to some people to be a load of  xxxx!!

So what does it mean when we say the sun is in Aries or any other of the signs for that matter?

From our earthly view point it looks like the sun is travelling a circular path round us and every 12 months it completes one more lap of the circle. This path has been described as a circular energy field of fiery, creative energy into which, over many thousands of years or laps, all the thoughts and feelings of the human race have been collected. These thought patterns are what Carl Jung described as the archetypes of human behaviour. In this sense the zodiac is actually a collection of all the hopes, wishes and fears of the human race. In this energy field is layer upon layer of all our collective experiences and represents the sum total of our human existence.Looked at in this way, the signs or divisions of our present day zodiac become the bank of collective human thought patterns. You might like to imagine it as a giant circular magnet attracting all our thoughts and depositing all these different thoughts into 12 basic areas, which astrologers call the signs of the zodiac.
 Arabic Zodiac
In reality what this means is, if you are born with the Sun in Pisces, or any of the other planets for that matter, the thinking processes connected to those planets are drawn from the area which holds the archetypal thought patterns which are of a Piscean nature. Looked at in this way a person who has a number of planets in any one sign is likely going to be influenced by the attributes of that particular sign more so than someone who has no planets or only one in a particular sign. This is a reason for the thinking processes of a person appearing to be at odds with their sun sign and also why horoscopes in the news papers and magazines would appear to have no bearing on the actual reality of a person’s day to day life.

A mnemonic for remembering the signs of the zodiac

A Tense Grey Cat Lay Very Low, Sneaking Slowly, Contemplating a Pounce(Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces)

Here's an alternative in the form of a verse by the English hymn-writer Isaac Watts (1674-1748):

The RAM, the BULL, the heavenly TWINS
And next the CRAB, the LION shines
Then VIRGO and the SCALES
The SCORPION, ARCHER and SEA-GOAT
The MAN who pours the water out
And FISH with glittering tails.