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"  A few weeks ago, the world went through something of an identity crisis. Meticulous Virgos became wild Leos; intellectual Pisces became impulsive Aries; most disconcertingly, a cluster of Scorpios (and a few Caps) were something new altogether\u2014the mysterious-sounding Ophiuchus. All of a sudden people were wondering: So who am I anyway? It all started with an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune that reported the shocking revelation that the earth&amp;#039;s wobbly axis had shifted the constellations\u2014and our zodiac signs. Except it wasn&amp;#039;t news. And it wasn&amp;#039;t exactly true either. In truth, the concept&amp;#039;s been around for a long time\u20142,141 years to be exact. &amp;quot;It was developed by Hipparchus in 130 BC,&amp;quot; says ELLE&amp;#039;s resident astrologer, Susan Miller. &amp;quot;And astrologers have known about it and studied it pretty much since then.&amp;quot; Miller&amp;#039;s response, like that of so many other astrologers, is tinged with more than a little disdain for the astronomy community. &amp;quot;I think it came out now,&amp;quot; she says, &amp;quot;because they assumed we didn&amp;#039;t know. In fact, astrologists have to study astronomy and be very well-versed in it.&amp;quot; As it happens the astrology community has not only known about the constellations&amp;#039; shifting, they&amp;#039;ve been debating whether it has any affect on the zodiac for years. And while Vedic astrology, popular in India, bases its forecasts on the stars (and includes the &amp;quot;new&amp;quot; sign), in general, Western astrologers overwhelmingly agree that the stars&amp;#039; formations have no bearing on the zodiac. &amp;quot;You don&amp;#039;t get your characteristics from the constellations,&amp;quot; says Miller. &amp;quot;You get them from the planets, from the sun and moon.&amp;quot; Here&amp;#039;s where it gets interesting: The constellations, it turns out, were a mere tool in providing a simplified name for our zodiacs, no more, no less. &amp;quot;We measure everything by the degree to which the earth is rotated around the sun,&amp;quot; says Miller. So if you&amp;#039;re born at the beginning of the zodiac, which corresponds to the spring equinox and typically falls on March 20, you&amp;#039;re at the 0\u00BA point\u2014or the point at which the sun is crossing directly over the earth&amp;#039;s Equator. From there, the sun moves 1\u00BA each day until it reaches 360\u00BA and begins again, signifying the earth&amp;#039;s annual orbit. &amp;quot;If we didn&amp;#039;t have names like Virgo or Gemini,&amp;quot; Miller says with a laugh, &amp;quot;we&amp;#039;d have to walk around saying, `Hi, I&amp;#039;m a 136\u00BA,&amp;#039; and then I&amp;#039;d say, `Oh, really? Well I&amp;#039;m a 352\u00BA and so on. It&amp;#039;s too cumbersome.&amp;quot; The ancient Greeks agreed. For simplicity&amp;#039;s sake they decided to divide the year into sections, each section reflecting 30\u00BA of the earth&amp;#039;s orbit; 12 sections reflecting its complete circle. But these chunks of time needed names\u2014ones that were easy to remember. So they settled on naming them after the constellations that at the time perfectly matched up with each section. Far from being the crux of the matter, the constellations were more like nametags. As for that 13th sign, the so-called Ophiuchus, Miller is similarly unimpressed. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s as if people forgot about Orion, about the Three Bears, the Big Dipper,&amp;quot; muses Miller. &amp;quot;There are a lot of constellations\u201488 if you want to get right down to it\u2014so I&amp;#039;m not sure why everyone&amp;#039;s up in arms about this one.&amp;quot; And while Miller concedes that Ophiuchus is rather prominent and does come in contact with the Milky Way, she reasserts that, astrologically speaking, it&amp;#039;s unimportant. &amp;quot;The ancients discussed whether or not to include a 13th sign\u2014they debated, they did empirical studies, and in the end they felt it was not significant.&amp;quot; She adds, &amp;quot;Remember, they invented astrology, and we have to go with what they gave us.&amp;quot; New sign or not, the bottom line is that when it comes to Western astrology, constellations don&amp;#039;t count. Astrological history and practices aside, the question for many wasn&amp;#039;t what to believe but whether to believe at all. For many longtime skeptics the recent weeks might have felt like a big fat &amp;quot;I told you so.&amp;quot; But the outpour of response\u2014whether it was outrage or confusion\u2014suggests that more of us believe in, or at least care about, our horoscopes than we might like to admit. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s this thinking that everything has to have a scientific basis,&amp;quot; says Miller, &amp;quot;And that&amp;#039;s okay. Because I&amp;#039;m sure it&amp;#039;s there. We just haven&amp;#039;t found it yet.&amp;quot; The real crisis, it seems, wasn&amp;#039;t about identity. It was about faith. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/life-love/a11523/susan-miller-debunks-the-new-zodiac-524670/>