February 2, 2009
- From Z(odiacs) to A(strology) -
Was checking my horoscope for this month and I realized that Mercury has been in Retrograde for the past few weeks.
Well. It’s no excuse for shitty blogging, but this does give me a chance to explain my general take on astrology. Like most people, I think that the idea of the planets having any direct effect on my life is pretty ridiculous. Just because Mercury’s in retrograde, it doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s some “cosmic beams” shooting down (out?) at me from Mercury, slowing down my blogical linguistics.
On the other hand, consider a clock. Say you have an appointment with a friend for lunch at noon. You’re sitting at work, typing away at some spreadsheet or email, and you notice that the big office clock is about to hit noon:
Now, when those hands both hit “12:00″, does some cosmic beam shoot out of the clock and “make” you go to lunch with your friend? No, of course not. Clock time is just a way to make sure that we all agree on when things happen, and “12″ just stands for the time when you both thought it would be most convenient for your lunch. And how do you know when it’s “12″? Exactly. You check the clock.
So too, I would say, does astrology work. The symbols and associations assigned to the planets, as well as to the various constellations and “houses”, are all similar to the numbers on a clock. The ancient people who came up with this stuff just had a lot of free time on their hands to watch the stars and track the changes that people went through that lined up with their cosmic-star-clock. Thus they were able to assign various traits and symbols to the different changes in the sky, because they saw the corresponding changes happening in the people around them.
Everything in the universe happens in cycles, and if you’re working from a paradigm where history is circular, then it makes sense that you’re going to try to make some predictions based on those circular cycles. Doing so is just human nature.
But how could they make sure their predictions were so accurate? Oh, I don’t know. You tell me…
I think it means the hour hand is pointing at the sun.
My take on astrology is that if everything is connected, you are part of everything. You know, like, all the planets and an extension of you. So when you are born you are a mix of all these energies. The suns energy, the Earth’s energy, planets etc.
Anyway, blogging is not for me but you have a beautiful blog going here. Its gotten pretty good. BTW, I am in Manitou Springs, CO.
Ted
Comment by Ted — February 3, 2009 @ 11:47 am
Hey Ted! Awesome, congratulations man, you made it to Colorado! I’m having thoughts pop into my head like it’s Oregon trail or something. Glad you didn’t die of dysentery! :)
Keep us updated on your progress there!
And thanks for the kind words on the blog. It really has become a great outlet for my thoughts, as well as a way of organizing them for better recall and referencing. I like this medium’s massage, so to speak…
And yeah, the hour hand is pointing at the sun! That’s why a 12 hour clock instead of a 24 hour one, cause that way noon is “straight up”! Excellent point, I hadn’t thought of that… Makes the numbers on the clock face a lot less arbitrary if we look at them that way.
Comment by Ian — February 3, 2009 @ 12:24 pm