In the Stars with Kathryn Silverton
Author of "In the Stars" for United Airlines' in-flight magazine Hemispheres

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Astrology — What is it?

Have you ever heard the story about the blind men and the elephant? An old Indian proverb suggests that several blind men were asked to feel various parts of the elephant and tell what the elephant must look like based on their individual assessments. The first man felt only the trunk. So he described the elephant as a long, cylindrical muscular animal with the ability to pick things up with the end of his body. The second man felt only the ears. He described the elephant as being a flat, floppy animal. The third man felt only the midsection of the elephant's body. He described the elephant as a large, round sturdy animal with lots of mass. Still another felt just the legs of the elephant. So he described the elephant as large, round and stocky with pads on the bottom. The last man who felt only the tail described the elephant as long and somewhat cylindrical, narrowing to a point at the end.

As each man had only felt a particular part of the body, the group as a whole was not able to arrive at a consensus as to what the elephant really looks like.

Had each blind man been allowed to feel the entire body, collectively they might have been able to come up with some consensus of opinion. But since they were each limited to a specific section of the body, no consensus could be found. So what? By not being allowed to feel all aspects of the elephant, the blind men's description of the elephant was not accurate.

You may be asking yourself what in the world does this have to do with astrology?

In reality, this has everything to do with astrology.

What in the world is astrology?

Astrology, astro-logos, is the study of the positions of the stars and planets in relation to earthly events. We tend to think of astrology as primarily relating to the chart of a person, but in reality, a chart can be done for anything that has a life, be it a person, a nation, a city, a country or even an idea.

The true "science" of astrology is more than what most people think. Most relate to their "sign", which is really their sun sign, or the sign in which the sun was sitting at the moment of birth. To an astrologer, however, the sun sign is not the entire picture. Astrologers take into account every planetary position at the moment of birth, with respect to the sign of the zodiac in which each planet was sitting, the angle at which each planet was sitting to one another, and also what house a planet was in.

As you can see by the above description of astrology, describing a person solely by their sun sign is doing him or her just as much a disservice as the blind men who were attempting to describe the elephant based solely upon one small but relevant body part, rather than the entire creature.

Kathryn L. Silverton
Lilburn, Georgia
770-931-2577