The "new" astrological signs revisited ahead for 2023

Remember this? I'm STILL being asked "Aren't there 13 signs now?" and "Am I still my original sign? I thought they changed me!"

So...once again...in honor of all the uproar…I am announcing yet another system, the PSYAP way of interpreting your birth sign for the 21st century.  This is my idea, and anyone who disputes it can do so. If anyone cares to reproduce it…send a chunk of crypto (I don’t expect the U.S. dollar to have a long lifespan thanks to Pluto in Capricorn).

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Ramses the Ram – Known for knocking their heads against the wall and wondering why they have migraines, and also found in hat stores trying on styles that don’t fit or make sense.

Taureen the Bull – Found at the dinner table sampling everything that tastes good (and going for second helpings), and also throwing elaborate sports parties where everything is made on barbeque grills.

JimiNye the Twins – These individuals have the potential to play a right-handed guitar with their left hand, and also possess great urges to steal candy from stores, but turn themselves in after being spotted arguing aloud with themselves about right vs. wrong.

Canseer the Crab – These individuals are found crying at weddings, funerals, and at the maternity ward where babies are kept overnight for observation; also known for making phone calls to total strangers and saying “I was worried about you; did you have a bowel movement today?”

HighlyLo the Lion – Often found in department stores behind the perfume counter and in clothing stores, they help themselves to samples and bring armfuls of items to the dressing room to try on and don’t put anything back on hangers.

Where-go the Virgin Maiden – Often noticed in personnel departments and human resource offices rummaging through the trash bins for lost papers and near the copy machine; they can’t stand to pass by the cleaning storage room without wanting to straighten out the supplies and be sure everyone has a sharpened pencil in their desks.

Libraian, the 2-sided Coin - Over-polite when driving (the Seattle area is known for this), and not moving at a 4-way stop sign. Often found at summer camp as geeky counselors, they are dominated by the kids, who are more cool than their leader. Libraians also collect and maintain libraries of hardcover books by color, not author.

Scorch-you-up the Scorpion – Often seen glaring at long lines of people and yelling at sports figures at ballparks; also noticed in school as youngsters who swear that standardized tests are a form of code.

Sloggytarius the Centaur – Fond of mules, donkeys, and burros, these individuals have a yearning to own animals who refuse to cooperate unless they get their own way.  Also found on farms where they sit in the mud and wait until someone says it’s the right thing to get out of the rain.

CaptainCorneous the grounded Goat-fish –  These individuals are the masters of junk yard recycling:  “Just because it’s broken don’t mean it can’t be used.”  Also seen in the fertilizer business and in the pastures of Sloggytarian farmers:  “One man’s waste shouldn’t go to waste.”

Aquire-ous the social networker – Often seen in community centers, schoolyard soccer, basketball, football, or baseball games as referees, coaches, and umpires who rule against the home team, their motto is “We will extend our neighbors a helping hand.  We will extend two hands, and help ourselves to our neighbors!”

Piskees, the two fish – Known for collecting wading pools and filling them with frogs and other amphibians, and fishing in barrels and swimming pools and wondering why they haven’t got a bite.

(C) MDLOP8 2011; 2022

A new set of signs? "No!"

D'oh!  NO, you did NOT get a "new" astrological sign!  I don't care what the news services are saying!  Here's a comment that pretty much sums up what the fuss is all about.  And yes, BOTH ways are accurate:

Fans of the Zodiac have been bombarded with the unsettling news that their astrological sign may not be what they thought.

The horror of switching from Gemini to Taurus had people rushing to the Web for answers, sending searches for "zodiac signs" into the stratosphere.

So has your sign changed?  It all depends on what kind of astrology you follow. 

It may come as a surprise that there are different branches of astrology. A main Eastern form, for example, called Sidereal astrology, looks to the background stars, those famous constellations, as its guide.

Western astrology -- which uses the zodiac -- has its signs fixed to the seasons. Most Westerners, and all those horoscope pages we eagerly check, go by the zodiac. These signs follow what early astrologers called star signs, whose reference points are the tropics that form a ring around the earth. The zodiac is based on our relationship to the sun, not the stars.

The back story: About 2,000 years ago, the astrological signs and the astronomical ones were the same. But not anymore. The locations of the signs are based on the sun's location on the first day of spring. That location in the sky has slowly drifted westward because of something called "precession" -- the earth continually wobbles (a scientific term for a slight motion) every 26,000 years. Since the constellations were first identified, they have shifted some 30 degrees. Translation: The signs have slipped about a month westward, relative to the stars.

What this means to you: If you follow astrology that is linked to the constellations, your sign would go from say, a Gemini to a Taurus. You could even have a 13th sign, Ophiuchus, which you may have read about.

"It's a huge point of confusion for the public," says Bing Quock, assistant director of Morrison Planetarium at the California Academy of Sciences. For those who follow Western astrology, "Astrologers are not talking about the constellations at all. When an astrologer says the sun is in a certain sign, they're talking about the sign, the location relative to the equinox. They're not talking about the location of the constellations. "

In short, if you follow the Sidereal astrology, the Eastern branch, your sign may have shifted. (And most likely, no surprise to you at all: This news is hundreds of years old).

But for the rest of us, our horoscope, and our signs, are still the same.