I'm a Moonchild, Damnit!

Okay - here's the deal. It was recently announced that none of us are the Zodiacal signs we've always assumed we were. It all has to do with the position of Magnetic North and the alignment of the stars when the Zodiac was first established over 3000 years ago vs. their positions today.

This is not really new news. Astronomers have known this for about 2500 years. Astrologists, however, have chosen to ignore this bit of science for the last two and a half millenniums, simply because it doesn't jibe with what their charlatan predecessors wrote all those years ago. It's also something I remember being reported with much less fanfare about 10 years ago. We all seemed to ignore it then, so why the big uproar now? Maybe because the much-feared (and completely over-hyped) 2012 is looming that much closer (and please remind me to point and laugh at those people when 2013 rolls around and the Earth is still spinning on it's axis).

Anyway, according to the new positions of the stars, we are actually the Zodiac sign preceding the sign we've always assumed ourselves to be. So, according to the new charts I am actually a Gemini. But I'm not buying it. Not that I actually buy the whole Horoscope thing in the first place. But when one looks up the attributes of Cancer in a Zodiacal chart, I am the embodiment of that particular sign: Creative; artistic; a homebody; emotional and slightly stubborn; opinionated and affected by the cycles of the moon. Check, check and check. Cancers tend to get along with other Cancers (an apparently rare thing among the signs - and something which would explain many of the relationships and adventures I've had during my life) and we don't like being told that we are wrong. Of course, over the last 20 years or so, there has been a push to rename Cancer (because of the negative connotations associated with the word) to "Moonchild," hence the title of this post. But surely, there are plenty of creative homebodies with headstrong opinions who were born during other times of year. I can name at least half a dozen among my own friends and acquaintances.

Now, anyone with half a brain knows it's all BS and nothing about who you really are has anything to do with the time of year in which you were born. But humans have a tendency to try to make order out of the chaos that is the Cosmos. We try to try the force randomness of the Universe into orderly things we can both control and comprehend. But to me, that randomness is the beauty of life. Do things happen for a reason? We would all like to think so. But they probably don't. Accidents are just that; synchronicity is just coincidence and fate is a concept created to comfort us in the face of all the random crap that happens just because it happens. Time is a randomly assigned set of numbers (which varies depending on which calendar you happen to follow) and no one will ever really know the true nature of existence, except perhaps the Zen Buddhists who believe that life is its own reward and we should rejoice in the fact of our own existence, for its own sake.

I suppose that all sounds bleak and existential to most of you. Hell, after almost 50 years of thinking about such things, I'm still not sure myself. Still, after almost 50 years of thinking about such things, the uncertainty of all is what makes our lives so very precious.

In the end, I'm still a Moonchild (Okay... Cancer, you purists) and that's the silly blurb I'll read in the Daily Horoscope, hoping it's true despite knowing it's nonsense, forgetting what it says 10 minutes after I've read it.

MSNBC's amazing and funny Rachel Maddow has her own thoughts on the matter, which you can see in the clip below (via):

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

As for me - I'm a Moonchild, and a Moonchild I shall remain.

More, anon.
Prospero

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