Near the center of Stonehenge Aotearoa is a five meter tall needle of stone called an obelisk. Near noon on a sunny day it casts a shadow on a structure on the ground called an Analemma. The point of the shadow tells us the date and the true length of the day, which varies throughout the year. This variation is the reason we use ‘mean time’, which is the average length of the days throughout the year.
The shadow also tells us something we cannot see with our eyes – it shows where the Sun is against the background stars. If you were in space, just above the Earth’s atmosphere, you would see our Sun against the blackness of space. And, over a year, as the Earth orbits around the Sun, it would appear that the Sun was moving in a great circle around the Earth. The background stars along this path of the Sun form the constellations of the Zodiac.
This is the significance of the Zodiac. It is the path in the sky of the Sun, Moon, and planets. Although you cannot see where the Sun is amongst the stars, the shadow of the obelisk shows you exactly where it is. For our ancestors, this knowledge provided vital information on timekeeping and allowed them to foretell seasonal changes.
If people know anything about the stars, it is their astrological star sign. And, traditionally, your star sign is the constellation the Sun was in at the time of your birth. If your star sign is Gemini, for example, this means that the Sun – the life-giving powers of the Sun – was in Gemini when you were born.
It comes as a shock to many visitors to Stonehenge when they discover they are not the star sign that they thought they were.
For centuries, publishing the Zodiac and astrology was banned. When this law was repealed, which wasn’t until 1910 in England, one Western newspaper decided to publish the star signs. Problem was, unbeknown to the publisher, the date upon which a star sign begins slowly changes over time due to a wobble on the Earth’s axis. Consequently, the star sign dates given in Western newspapers and magazines? 2000 years out of date!
by Richard Hall, astronomical communicator