Friday, January 14, 2011

Volume 6, Number 2: The Great Zodiac Shakeup

Just yesterday, Time magazine posted this article about the Minnesota Planetarium Society and its research on the 13-sign zodiac--yes, that's right, 13. Apparently the Babylonians wanted a 12-sign zodiac and threw out Ophiuchus, the snake holder, a few thousand years ago. Something about wanting to balance "yin and yang" and an odd number wasn't going to cut it. (In retrospect, I'd love to call out across space and time to those ancient Babylonians, "Every sign has their good and bad, there's your balance right there.")

What's more, the signs are off by anywhere from a week to a month (it varies from one sign to the next), so people who were born under one sign in the 12-sign zodiac belong to another sign in the 13-sign one.

It's not exactly new information. Stories about the 13-sign zodiac had been floating around the Internet for a few years. It actually goes all the way back to 1977, when Dr. Lee Shapiro of the University of North Carolina published a paper about the 13 constellations, but anyway, I didn't know about it until Time.com came out with it.

The Great Zodiac Shakeup affects me. Almost every 12-sign Cancer is a 13-sign Gemini. Now, I don't read horoscopes every day, but there are certain parts of me that led me to easily identify with Cancer. The self-reliance, frugality, being security-oriented, letting emotions get the better of me at times, those are all Cancer things.

But there are parts of Gemini in me, too: Geminis are intellectual, living in a world of logic and science, and can experience two sides of things at the same time. I listen to songs from a whole bunch of different genres (pop, rock, metal, rap, classical, jazz, etc.), which fits in with Gemini's willingness to try varied experiences to gain knowledge. I'll bet they talk to themselves a lot (I do that as well). Even when playing fantasy sports games, I'll compile and process data (for example, in a dynasty fantasy football league I'm in, I'm trying to get an idea of which players could possibly fall to my pick in Round 2 so I've compiled a list of players who will be taken in next year's NFL Draft, that league's labor situation notwithstanding). Geminis like variety (so do I--growing up, my favorite cereal was those variety packs where you got to have a different cereal every day) and get bored easily. They also reportedly have a very short span of concentration and tend to get distracted very easily--that's me, too!

After I read the article, I imagined myself battling a giant crab (Cancer) in my bedroom, ultimately breaking its shell to reveal my long-lost twin (Gemini). I further imagined the twin had mistaken me for an enemy for years and is now ready to be my best friend.

So bottom line, I don't reject the 13-sign zodiac at all. To the contrary--I'm living the first full day of my life as a Gemini in a world where my mind has better control of my emotions. Hopefully I don't lose much of my self-reliance in the bargain.

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