What's Out There Part IIClass 3

Today we will learn:1. What aspects in astrology are, and also that all planets from a person's point of view on earth, lie in a circle, which is why astrologers can refer to the distance between any 2 planets in terms of the number of degrees, 0 to 360, that separate them.2. Zodiac signs are a division of the sky in 12 equal sections of 30 degrees each.3. There are 2 zodiacs, the tropical zodiac and the sidereal zodiac.

REVIEW:Yesterday we learned that all planets, like the Sun, rise and set each day, and the time from one rising to the next is about 24 hours. Astrologers divide the sky into 12 sections so it takes about 2 hours for a planet to travel through a house.

THERE ARE 3 FUNDAMENTAL ASTRONOMICAL PHENOMENA THAT ASTROLOGERS ANALYZE: HOUSES, ZODIAC SIGNS, AND ASPECTS. Yesterday we learned what a house is (we have not yet learned how astrologers interpret houses; we have only learned what a house is). Each of the houses, according to astrologers affects a different part of a person's life. We will learn more about how astrologers interpret houses in a future lesson. Right now I want to explain 2 other celestial phenomena that astrologers analyze: zodiac signs and aspects. We will take a look at these today, and tomorrow we will start to see how astrologers assemble this information together to make their interpretations.

WHAT IS AN ASPECT?

Before I can explain what an aspect is, we need to review some astronomical facts. As we discussed earlier this week, the planets, including the earth, revolve around the Sun. All of the planets revolve in approximately the same plane around the Sun.

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The solar system looks similar to this: The solar system does NOT look like this:

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A "plane" in geometry is similar to a table top, floor, or ceiling. It is a flat surface. The planets revolve around the Sun in almost the same plane.

As we discussed earlier this week, changing our view point can dramatically change what something looks like. The moving train looks very different when viewed from the side as opposed to when it is viewed from the front. The planets viewed from outside the solar system are seen to be revolving around the Sun in almost the same plane. What does this do to our view of the planets from our normal position standing on the surface of the earth? It causes all of the planets to appear in a circle. If the planets were not revolving in the same plane, then the planets would appear in every direction, but because they are in the same plane, they appear to be in a circle from a person's point of view.

The fact that the planets lie in a circle makes life a lot easier for astrologers! We can simply discuss where the planet exists on the circle. If we want to talk about how far apart the planets are we can simply talk about how many degrees apart they are. Just to make sure you have the idea, let me make an analogy:

Imagine that there are 3 people are walking in circles around the same point, and each person is walking in a circle at a different distance from the center, as shown in the illustration to the left. The green person in the illustration is walking in the innermost circle, the blue person is in the middle circle, and red person is in the outermost circle. Suppose that the blue person is wondering how far apart the red person and green person are from each other. He could, of course,

measure the distance with a ruler, but he can also talk about the angle between them.

As shown on the illustration to the right, the green person and red person are 90 degrees apart from the blue person's point of view. The 3 people in this illustration are walking in a path that is very similar to the path of the planets around the Sun. The green person, for example, could be Venus (which has a path closer to the Sun than the Earth's path), the blue person the earth, and the red person can represent Mars (which has a path farther away from the Sun than the Earth's path. From the point of view of a person living on planet Earth, Venus and Mars are 90 degrees apart. The angles between the planets are constantly changing, of course, as the planets revolve around the Sun. Certain angles are "critical"; they cause the 2 planets to interact with each other. An angle of 90 degrees is one of these critical angles and it is called a square aspect. We will discuss aspects in more detail in future classes, so if this is a little difficult to follow right now, don't worry because we will discuss this in greater detail soon.

WHAT ARE ZODIAC SIGNS?

Because the planets from a person's point of view lie in a circle, we can pick a starting point in the circle and talk about how many degrees the planet is from this starting point. This would be a convenient way to talk about precisely where the planet is.

For example, going back to our example of 3 people walking in a circle around the same point, the blue person may decide that the direction where the green person is in the illustration above is the starting point, and he measures in a counter-clockwise direction. The green person is at the starting point, which we can call zero. The red person is located 90 degrees from the green person if we measure in a clockwise direction, which is equal to 270 degrees measured in a counter-clockwise direction.

Two starting points are particularly popular among astrologers. Perhaps the most obvious starting point would be a fixed star (in astronomy and astrology, we refer to the stars as "fixed stars" to make it clear that we specifically mean the stars that make up the constellations, and we are not using the word stars

in a looser and more general sense to include planets, the Sun, and Moon, etc). Using a fixed star as the starting point is very simple and convenient.

This is exactly what some astrologers use and the measurement based on using a fixed star as a starting point is called the sidereal zodiac. In a manner similar to the division of the sky into 12 houses, the 360 degrees of the sidereal zodiac is divided into 12 sections of 30 degrees each. Each 30 degree section is given a name, and these names are the familiar names of the zodiac signs that you are no doubt familiar with: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, etc. You have heard about zodiac signs before but now you know what they are! They are 30 degree divisions of the circle that the planets travel in from a person's point of

view on earth. Any planet that is from 0 degrees to 30 degrees from the starting point is in Aries, if it is from 30 degrees to 60 degrees away it is in Taurus, 60 degrees to 90 degrees is Gemini, and so on.

Houses and zodiac signs are very similar. Both houses and signs divide the sky into 12 pieces. Houses divide the sky into 12 pieces starting with the horizon, and the sidereal zodiac divides the sky into 12 pieces starting with a fixed star. (There is another kind of zodiac known as the tropical zodiac which we will discuss below).

When someone says "I am a Leo" we obviously cannot translate this literally because "Leo" means "Lion" and obviously the person is not a lion! What this statement means is that the Sun at the time the person was born was in the 30 degree section of the sky that is from 120 degrees to 150 degrees from the starting point (Leo is the 5th sign of the zodiac and starts at 120 degrees).

What fixed star is used as the starting point of the zodiac and why? Unfortunately, astrologers who use the sidereal zodiac are not in complete agreement about what star to use. In the 20th century research into ancient astrology has revealed many interesting details and many astrologers use these recent studies to base their understanding of precisely where the sidereal zodiac begins. But this gets us into a very advanced subject that we will leave for much later.

Now, here is a real surprise (at least if you are completely new to astrology): the sidereal zodiac is NOT the most commonly used zodiac in the United States, Canada, South America, Europe, and some other parts of the world: the tropical zodiac is used. The tropical zodiac is based on a starting point that is more abstract than using a fixed star as a starting point. To attempt to even describe the starting point of the tropical zodiac is a little complex right now, but I will give you a definition just in case you are curious: the starting point of the tropical zodiac is the intersection of the ecliptic plane and celestial equator. I told you that it would be complex!!! Don't worry if that sounds completely incomprehensible. We will get a better idea of what the tropical zodiac is in advanced level classes. For now, however, we do not need be concerned with these technical details. What is most important to understand right now is that the 12 zodiac signs are similar to the 12 houses in that both of them are divisions of the sky into 12 sections. We can pick out a starting point on the circle, and refer to a planet's position by how many degrees, from 0 to 360, the planet is from the starting point. One final point about zodiacs: the sidereal zodiac is used by some astrologers, and in some parts of the world, most notably India, it is more commonly used than the tropical zodiac. In advanced classes we will learn more about the sidereal zodiac and how it compares to the tropical zodiac, but for the rest of this semester we will be working almost exclusively with the tropical zodiac.

Note that the information we are presenting is astrological theory as commonly practiced in the western world (North and South America, Europe, Australia, etc.) in contemporary times. Astrology has been

practiced for thousands of years in virtually every civilization and culture and the number of theories and ideas is vast. For example, in some forms of ancient astrology, and 8-house system was used instead of the 12-house system that we use today. I will not repeat this caveat in every lesson because I do not want to bore you by repeating the same information over and over again! The vast wealth of ideas in astrology can overwhelm the student, and this is why the structured approach to learning that we present in Avalon Lessons can be extremely helpful to the student.