![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.gadflyonline.com\/wpblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/NoelTyl.jpg\" "\\"NoelTyl\\"")
<\/a>Kunkle \u2013 and thousands of others who immediately jumped on the internet and media bandwagon \u2013 argues that the modern zodiac signs do not take into account the wobbling of the earth on its axis, which has affected the position of the stars since the origination of the horoscope 2,000 years ago.<\/p>\n
Need help visualizing it? The most common example is to picture the Earth as a top. As the top spins, it generates a small wobble (for the Earth, this is caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon and is called the Obliquity of the Ecliptic). As the top turns, the handle points to different places in the Zodiac, creating, at least for the Earth, a circle of reference that is complete in 22,000 or 23,000 years.<\/p>\n
Kunkle also introduces Ophiuchus, a thirteenth sign in the zodiac. The zodiac is a line of stars that lies across the ecliptic, the path the sun takes across the celestial sphere throughout the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just not to be believed,\u201d Tyl continues. \u201cI remember debating people who were writing books about this thirteenth sign [Ophiuchus] 23 years ago in Detroit,\u201d says the Harvard educated astrologer. \u201cIt\u2019s an old, haggard point of academia.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tyl, who won the United Astrology Congress\u2019s coveted Regulus award in 1998 and has developed eerily accurate astrological charts of everyone from Savonarola to Marcel Proust to Johnny Carson and Madonna, explains that the wobble in the earth\u2019s axis has already been accommodated in the western, tropically-oriented system.<\/p>\n
As Tyl explains, a system with reference to the constellations and stars is called sidereal reference, based on the Latin word for star.\u00a0By contrast, a tropically-orientated system is one in which one emphasizes the orientation of the Earth relative to the Sun. This is the system used by the West. As Tyl explains, \u201cThe sidereal constellations have absolutely nothing to do with modern day astrology, because things have shifted; however, the archetypes that are the grounding of astrology endure.\u201d<\/p>\n
What does this mean for Kunkle\u2019s claims? It means that the Western astrological system does not rely on the Earth\u2019s position relative to the stars and therefore, the wobbling of the Earth has no effect on our astrological signs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe very justification for the tropical zodiac is that precession\u00a0\u2013 about 56 seconds of arc a year \u2013 from the ancient times when all of this was formulated to today,\u201d says Tyl. \u201cThe wobble of the Earth on its axis calls into play constellational references which no longer ground the thought of western tropical orientated astrology.\u201d<\/p>\n In other words, for those less studied in astrology and astronomy, the wobbling of the Earth on its axis has already been accommodated for within the Western tropical system.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t the first time astrology has been a target for the masses. \u201cI remember one movement coming up with the sign of the whale,\u201d Tyl recalls. \u201cCan you imagine that? It\u2019s just not relevant. This is just not relevant. This will not affect one single astrologer in his or her work on this planet.\u201d<\/p>\n So as it turns out, I\u2019m still a Pisces, an Aquarian is still an Aquarian, and the world, despite its pesky wobbling, is as it should be.<\/p>\n<\/a>