autumn equinox and tropicalsidereal

Autumn Equinox and the Tropical/Sidereal Zodiacs

(I'll write more on Libra later or tomorrow).

The Sun entered Libra just before midnight EST last night, marking the

Autumnal Equinox. As written in my earlier post, the Equinox this year

follows just hours after the New Moon Eclipse, the second New Moon in

Virgo. In the tropical zodiac system, Libra is the cardinal turning

point for the fall season, and zero degrees Libra corresponds to the

Autumnal Equinox.

The tropical system which is used in Western astrology is based on the

zero point of Aries being at the vernal equinox and the zero point of

Libra at the autumnal equinox, an event which occurred during the Age

of Aries which was approximately 1700 BC to 310 AD, the birth of

Western astrology. According to the Astrologisk Museum, it was Pharoah

Rameses II that first fixed the cardinal points of the zodiac to the

turning points of the seasons. In 700 BC Babylonian priests divided

the four cardinal sections into the twelve houses that we know today.

In 420 BC the zodiac signs received the Greek names that we use today.

In 330 BC, Alexander the Great helped to spread astrological knowledge

from Egypt and Babylon throughout the middle east and established the

famed Alexandrian Library in Egypt which became the center of

astrological study.

Although astronomers had understood the Precession concept for

generations, early astrologers used the sidereal zodiac which defines

the zero point of Aries as the point where the Sun actually enters the

sign of Aries. However, because of the Precession of the Equinoxes the

Sun is not actually at zero degrees Aries at the time of the Equinox.

The ancient Greek astronomers Hipparchus and Ptolemy, being aware of

the fact that over time the Sun's entry into Aries would no longer

mark the cardinal point of the Equinox, advised the use of the

tropical system which connected zero Aries to the Equinox.

The question of whether to use an astrological system that is based on

the cardinal points of Aries and Libra corresponding to the Equinoxes,

which we call "Tropical," or a system based upon the cardinal points

corresponding to their actual placement in the sky, which we call

"Sidereal," is a thorny one. In my early career I experimented with

the sidereal zodiac and found it to be very ineffective in revealing

psychological complexes in the personality, and this is the likely

reason that the sidereal zodiac is not commonly used in Western

astrology.

Vedic astrology from India does use the sidereal zodiac, but the signs

of the zodiac are secondary to the dasa systems that are used for

prediction. I confess to knowing very little about Vedic astrology,

having found it quite complicated enough, thank you, to learn the

Western form. But it does appear that the use of the sidereal zodiac

rather than the tropical in Vedic astrology is a minor point compared

to some of the other major differences.

So in our Tropical system, today is the first day of Libra AND the