Dawn Fairchild has been practicing holistic medicine and spiritual healing for 14 years. She is a devotee of the Sacred Feminine and a seasoned aromatherapy and Ayurveda practitioner. She also enjoys horoscope writing, and has been featured on Oranum.
Alternative Horoscopes: Beyond Greece and China by Dawn Fairchild.
We all have at least a passing familiarity with Astrology. Even those who ordinarily wouldn’t even glance over a newspaper horoscope can usually tell you their Greek and Chinese Zodiac signs. But how many of us are aware that there are at least three and a half different horoscope zodiacs? Or are aware of the fact that the Greek Zodiac isn’t originally Greek?
Greek Astrology
Greek (or Western) Astrology is the one most familiar to Westerners. You would think this is a subject that we can gloss over and move on to a lesser known Astrology. However, this is something we need to re-examine, because it was not originally Greek. It was Babylonian.
The origin of “Greek” Astrology was created in Babylon nearly 4,000 years ago. There, scholars of the Babylonian Empire began using the movement of the stars to track the passage of time. While this early development was intended for calendric purposes only, it was their observations which gave us the concept of dividing the sky into twelve different Zodiacal periods based on the positions of twelve constellations.
It wasn’t until about 200 B.C. that the use of the Babylonian calendar for astrology became a regular occurrence. This too was not originally Greek, but started in Greek-ruled Egypt. Egypt had a tradition of observing the sun and moon and correspond this with birth dates in order to learn something of the influences on people’s lives. When these were added to the Babylonian observations of the constellations and stars, the result was the natal astrology we know today.
However, the story of the “Greek” Zodiac doesn’t end there. It then moves on in two directions, neither of them Greek either. First, it moved to Rome. In the 2nd century A.D. a Roman citizen named Ptolemy, writing in Greek, became the first person to formally write down extensive knowledge explaining the workings of astrology. This work is still considered to be essential reading for any aspiring astrologer.
The second direction it moved was India. Following that path takes us to the” half” in our three and a half astrologies.
Vedic Astrology
For a time India, just like Egypt, fell under Greek rule. Along with their soldiers, the Greeks brought the Greco-Egyption astrological practices with them. The native Hindu people took this concept and adapted it to their own beliefs. Around 200 A.D. the Hindu took the original twelve Zodiac signs and renamed them for key body parts, subdivided them to accommodate 27 key stars and nine planets important to Hindu beliefs, then interpreted this using 16 chapters of the Vedanga. The end result was something far different from the original “Greek” astrology to almost count as its own system, and thus my reference to it as the half.
Chinese Astrology
Given that the Chinese Zodiac has twelve divisions, many usually assume that it is also based off a Greek import. This is incorrect. Chinese Astrology developed wholly independently and predated “Greek” astrology, though the “Greek” Zodiac came first.
Chinese Astrology developed around 1000 B.C. Unlike the Western Zodiac, the division into twelve signs was based on the twelve year orbit of Jupiter, forming a confusing coincidence. This twelve year cycle is combined with the five Chinese elements (Earth, Fire, Water, Wood, and Metal) as represented by the planets (Saturn, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Venus) to form 60 year cycles. Combining these with birth dates and Yin-Yang principles, the Chinese astrology added Confucian orderliness to the understanding of our lives.
Mesoamerican Astrology
The final of our three and a half original astrologies comes from Mesoamerica. This often overlooked astrological system originated with the Maya as Mayan Horoscopes.
The Mayan calendar is quite different from ours. To begin with, the Mayans divided the calendar into twenty months, each with its own Zodiac symbol, and cycles lasting thirteen days. The combination of these cycles resulted in to a 260 day cycle called a Tzolkin. This was then combined with the length of a 365 day year to form a 52 year long Haab. This calendar is what formed Mayan beliefs regarding the astrological significance of dates. It was a misinterpretation of this calendar that gave us the recent “End Of The World” in 2012.
When the Mayan civilization died out and was replaced by the Aztecs, the Aztecs supplemented the original twenty Mayan signs with a set of their own. It was this astrological accounting that was first reported by Westerners after the Spanish arrival in Central America, and which led to “cracking” the Mayan calendar.
So now we know a little more about our astrological roots. The next time that you are at a party and someone asks you “what’s your sign” you can now impress them with your extensive knowledge of not only what your sign is, but how it came to be your sign.
Dawn Fairchild has been practicing holistic medicine and spiritual healing for 14 years. She is a devotee of the Sacred Feminine and a seasoned aromatherapy and Ayurveda practitioner. She also enjoys horoscope writing, and has been featured on Oranum.
