Question about 12 zodiac and 88 constellations

[pegcityevolve]

How come in astrology we only use 12 of the 88 available constellations? Wouldn't this be ignoring parts of our whole? I'm asking this because my natal chart does seem to reflect a lot of me, but I just don't get how we only incorporate 12 of them?

I thought astrology was about the energetic properties of these bodies of stars and different planets affecting our home planet? How can we just ignore all these extra planets in our solar system, and constellations that we can view from down on Earth?

I heard once that these intelligent bodies of stars like to come into our awareness overtime, extending the spectrum of our collective awareness as a whole species? Yet we do have these 88 bodies in our awareness??? Thanks!

[Olivia]

Traditional astrology uses fixed stars, as do some varieties of modern astrology.

As to why 12 signs and not 11, why 12 and not 13, why 12, not 88, or 99, or 73, go here for the an explanation, though there's been plenty of posts in this forum, too.

http://www.skyscript.co.uk/13thsign.html

[pegcityevolve]

I read it all, thank you. One thing:

"despite the fact that the tropical zodiac signs now only retain a symbolic memory of the constellations they were close to at the time of their creation."

So how does a symbolic memory from their time of creation apply modernly? I am not doubting, just very con-fused, as I can definitely resonate with all the positions that was drawn out in my chart.

[Mark]

If we're talking about tropical astrology, the constellations go completely out the window anyway. The constellations are not drawn to be 30 degrees wide, so they vary greatly. On top of that, they drift at a rate of about 1 degree every 72 years due to precession. Tropical astrology doesn't really concern itself with constellations at all. Distant stars can be incorporated, but those are individual stars. It seems that the best application of constellations to tropical astrology is through name and story analysis to discern the value of particular stars within constellations. Outside of that, you can draw any pictures you want from the stars and many different cultures have done just that. There are tons of star maps with all kinds of dissimilar constellations from all over the world. Given that tropical astrology doesn't deal with background stars directly, it is fair to say that it deals more with local angularity relative to the Earth.

If we're talking about sidereal astrology, then the whole system is based on the stars in the first place and so it's much easier to remedy troubles like these. There are many different kinds of sidereal astrology and some function in different ways (at least systemically), so it's difficult to generalise anything of value. At any rate, sidereal astrology is the way to go if you are concerned with constellations. Personally, I use the Lahiri method for sidereal measurements and this still involves 12 even divisions of the circle. I'm sure a few Vedics might want to show me a better system, but I'm open to discussion of any good reasoning. :joyful:

[Olivia]

I read it all, thank you. One thing:

"despite the fact that the tropical zodiac signs now only retain a symbolic memory of the constellations they were close to at the time of their creation."

So how does a symbolic memory from their time of creation apply modernly? I am not doubting, just very con-fused, as I can definitely resonate with all the positions that was drawn out in my chart.

Because by using the traditional 12 sign zodiac, tropical astrology is pinned to the seasons, not to the constellations. Sidereal astrology (at least most of it) isn't pinned to the constellations, or to the seasons, either. It's a bit closer to the constellations because it corrects for precession, but the constellations aren't equal in size, and some barely touch the ecliptic, so that doesn't really work out either, since sidereal also uses the 30 degree zodiac, just with the Aries point pushed back a bit.

Rudolf Steiner advocated a constellational astrology, though I can't remember what he called it. It hasn't had results as good as using the zodiac.

[dr. farr]

The 12 signs represent the division of the pleroma of the qualities of space; the stars and constellations and planets, the qualities of things IN space; both the quality of SPACE and the qualities of things in space, make up macrocosmic influences upon the Earth (which itself is also a 'thing" in space). Then there is the objective quality of TIME, which has best been worked out in the various Chinese astrological models.