Page 106 - The Irony Board

Into the Cosmos

Astrolodger

Connect the dots a priest
Did not before the fact
Of learning like which beast
Those born below them act.

This poem argues in favor of one of two opposing theories of
astrology. The controversy revolves around different ways of
geometrically dividing the ecliptic plane into signs of the zodiac. The
older school maintains an even thirty-degree division, beginning
yearly at the vernal equinox; since this spacetime structure rotates in
synchronization with the precession of the equinoctial points, it is
called the Tropical Zodiac. A newer theory holds that the signs of
the zodiac are in fact coextensive with the constellations of the same
names; it is therefore known as the Sidereal Zodiac. This latter view
of the sky has two ramifications: first, the signs are of markedly
unequal size, since their corresponding star-patterns vary from large
to small; second, owing to the slow but steady precession, the entire
measuring scheme constantly moves backward relative to the
equinoctial points. Thus the Siderealists and the Tropicalists differ
greatly on the zodiacal positions they assign to specific planetary
bodies at given times and dates.
It is Gluckman’s conviction that the Sidereal school holds a
mistakenly literal idea of the connection between the imaginary
pictures our ancestors drew around the stars and the regular cycles
of the Earth’s and the Moon’s orbits. In fact, astrology has nothing
to do with stars, singly or in menageries. Variations in the character
of terrestrial organisms have evolved based on recurring seasonal,
gravitational, and electromagnetic patterns caused by the four-
dimensional relationship of Earth, Sun, and Moon; it is pure
mythology to suppose otherwise. Leonine qualities, for example,
occur significantly in people born between July 23 and August 22,
regardless of birth century; those attributes do not flow through
spacetime from the totally-unrelated stars forming the constellation

104