Lesson 01: The Zodiac

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve just entered the airspace of Turkey and we will fly over Turkey for the next 40 mins and then we will cross into Ukraine before we enter the airspace of Poland” – said the captain of the flight I took from Dubai to Warsaw a few years back.

And I was thinking there are no actual borders, no solid walls, just political borders dividing countries – imaginary, invisible borders that separate the entire earth into about 200 countries. And yet we call them ‘separate nations’.

If you can imagine invisible borders of countries, it shouldn’t be hard for you to Imagine the entire sky, or to be precise the space surrounding our earth in all directions also divided into 12 parts, invisible but parts nevertheless…

That invisible ring in the space is Zodiac. And those 12 invisible but equal parts of the zodiac are what we call Astrological Signs. Since the zodiac itself is circular, it is 360º and since it is divided into 12 equal parts, each of those parts, or sign is exactly 30º. Very much like the dial of a wall clock, where you see 12 hours separated equidistance from each other.

12 Astrological Signs

One of the first things you must learn by heart is the sequence of the signs. And it is important that you remember each sign by it’s number in the sequence.

The beginning point of Zodiac is 0º of Aries, and then at each 30º, next sign follows. Here is the sequence of all signs in Zodiac.

1 Aries

2 Taurus

3 Gemini

4 Cancer

5 Leo

6 Virgo

7 Libra

8 Scorpio

9 Sagittarius

10 Capricorn

11 Aquarius

12 Pisces

If astrology is a language, and it has it’s own script, then it has 33 alphabets. 12 signs, are 12 out of those 33 alphabets. Tomorrow I’ll introduce you to 12 more alphabets.

What does it mean when you say my Zodiac is Scorpio or Taurus?

What people normally refer to as Zodiac is not the zodiac. When they say my zodiac is Scorpio, they are saying their Sun Sign is Scorpio. And what it means is that when they were born, the Sun was traveling in the imaginary division of space that we know as Scorpio or Taurus or any other.

Zodiac is not a sign, Zodiac is the collective belt in space, signs are just the divisions of space.

Zodiac – The Playground of Planets

You can say Zodiac is the ‘invisible’ canvas, so everything you can see in the space, planets, stars, our moon, they all appear somewhere on the zodiac, which means wherever they are, they are in one or the other of those 12 signs.

Just as we measure coordinates of a place on earth by the combination of Longitudes and Latitudes, the coordinates of a heavenly body (planets) are measured in signs. For example Sun is in Gemini, Moon is in Virgo, Saturn is in Libra likewise.

Today’s Task

Today might be the simplest task you’ll ever get in this group.

Remember all the signs of the zodiac in sequence and try to remember their position in the sequence, meaning, if I ask, what is the 7th sign, you should know, it is Libra, what is the 11th sign, you should know it is Aquarius.

That’s about it for today. See you tomorrow where I will introduce you to the Birth Chart of Horoscope.

Oh, by the way, what’s your Zodiac?

Oops…i meant what’s your Sun Sign?

PS: Since this group has members from different background, some have absolutely no idea of astrology, some are advanced in their knowledge, I choose to go about this group as if I am starting from scratch, from zero. To me, this group os more like Astrology for Non-astrologers. Some experts might find it slow, because I will only include one main idea in a day, but the name of this group says it all.

PPS: Since this is Vedic Astrology, some people also like to learn the Sanskrit terms / terminology. If enough members here are interested, i will also include the Sanskrit terms for signs, zodiac, planets etc.

PPPS: I am going to experiment with a Quiz for every lesson. Lessons will appear at UTC 01:00 which i can schedule in the group. Unfortunately I can’t schedule quiz, Facebook doesn’t allow that. Therefore quiz for each lesson will appear a little later on the same day. This is an experiment, let’s see how it goes