Zodiac signs

Zodiac signs by date and month

How to find your sign

The year plays no part; day and month decide. The complication has a name - the cusp, the boundary day between two signs. The Sun crosses into the next sign at a precise clock hour, and that hour is not the same in 1990 as in 2010, which is why every printed date range is an approximation at its edges.

Past that edge the tables stop being useful and arithmetic takes over: a natal chart resolves the Sun to a degree from the hour and place of birth.

One more term worth defining precisely: Ophiuchus. It is a genuine constellation the Sun passes through, but constellations are irregular star patterns of unequal size while signs are twelve equal divisions - different units, so nothing about your sign changed.

Signs by element

Element is the oldest classifier in the vocabulary, taken from Greek natural philosophy, where fire, earth, air and water were the four states matter could occupy. Astrology kept the four names, attached three signs to each and paired them with the classical temperaments; it remains the first cut anyone makes when reading compatibility.

Fire: Aries, Leo, Sagittarius - the choleric temperament in the old four-humour scheme. Quick to ignite, quick to move, with the plan assembled on the way.

Earth: Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn - the melancholic temperament, which in that scheme meant weighty rather than sad. Slow to commit, and built to outlast.

Air: Gemini, Libra, Aquarius - the sanguine temperament: sociable, verbal, quick to connect. Thinking happens in the conversation rather than before it.

Water: Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces - the phlegmatic temperament, calm on the surface. Everything in the room gets absorbed, whether or not it is mentioned.

What next

Sun-sign astrology is the smallest version of the method - one point out of the dozen or so a chart tracks, which is the honest limit of anything written for a twelfth of the population at once. The Moon covers the inner life, the ascendant the first impression, and the destiny matrix works from the complete birth date rather than day and month alone.