Is your sun sign wrong?

“Apparently your sun sign is wrong, it's actually the one before what you think you are.”

Have you heard this before? It has been doing the rounds for many years.

I thought I would take the opportunity to explain why there seem to be two schools of thought surrounding your sun sign, and what that means for the rest of your birth chart.

There are two prominent systems used in astrology: tropical and sidereal.

The main difference between the two comes down to how the zodiac is measured.

Understanding Tropical Astrology

Tropical astrology views the zodiac in relation to the Earth's yearly journey around the Sun. From our perspective on Earth, the Sun appears to move through the zodiac over the course of that year.

The tropical zodiac begins at the vernal, or spring, equinox. This point marks the beginning of Aries, and from there the zodiac is divided into twelve equal signs.

In a really basic way of putting it, tropical astrology is a symbolic language. Each sign represents particular patterns or themes in human nature, sometimes referred to as archetypes.

Take Aries, for example. Aries begins at the spring equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. Symbolically, spring is associated with life force energy, moving forward, the breaking of the seed, pioneering, courage and even aggression. These are the same qualities traditionally associated with Aries.

Around 2,000 years ago, the beginning of the tropical sign Aries was much closer to the beginning of the constellation Aries in the sky.

But because of a phenomenon known as the precession of the equinoxes, caused by the slow wobble of the Earth on its axis, the constellations in the sky no longer line up with the tropical zodiac in the same way.

In other words, the Earth continues to orbit the Sun as it always has, but our relationship to the distant stars slowly shifts over thousands of years.

This shift applies across the birth chart, including the positions of the planets and the Ascendant, but I am using the Sun sign here as the simplest example, as this is the sign most people are familiar with.

There is now roughly a sign's difference between the two systems. So, depending on the degree, an Aries Sun in tropical astrology may become a Pisces Sun in sidereal astrology, Pisces may become Aquarius, and so on and so forth.

Sidereal astrology accounts for this shift by anchoring the zodiac in relation to the stars, whereas tropical astrology remains anchored to the equinoxes and solstices.

This is where I think much of the confusion comes from.

Tropical astrology isn't attempting to match each zodiac sign to the physical constellation of the same name in the sky. The signs remain tied to the equinoxes and solstices and to the symbolism associated with that cycle.

So, Which One Is Correct?

Like many things, I think it depends on where you stand.

I have heard astrologers refer to both systems as simply being different frameworks for understanding the same thing. I have also heard the systems referred to as languages, with the idea that saying one is wrong is the equivalent of saying English is correct and Spanish is wrong.

I personally work with the tropical astrological system. It is the system I have been taught and the one that makes the most sense to me from a psychological and symbolic perspective.

I also tend to come back to something Carl Jung wrote about our Western symbolic inheritance. The myths, religions and stories that have been passed down through generations form part of the way we understand ourselves and the world around us. I look at tropical astrology in a similar way, as part of a symbolic tradition that has existed within Western culture for thousands of years.

This is not to say that we cannot resonate with or find meaning in another system. Rather, I think there can sometimes be a tendency to reject symbolism simply because it was developed in the West. Like Jung, I would be hesitant to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.

There is value in understanding the symbols and traditions we have inherited before deciding that they no longer have anything to offer us.