Year of the Snake
08/02/13 05:44
I don’t bother to follow the horoscope printed in the newspaper. From time to time I run into someone who makes reference to it, usually in terms of the predictions made for their own lives and sometimes that person will have read the predictions for my sign of the zodiac. I sometimes have to stop to think about my sign. A discussion of the zodiac didn’t figure into my meeting or dating my wife. Without an exploration of such things, we have ended up being very compatible. We’ll celebrate 40 years of marriage in June.
What is mildly interesting about the Zodiac, in my opinion is the unique blend of science and superstition inherent in astrology. Astrology is really a blending of a number of belief systems. On the surface there is quite a bit of logic behind astrology. The movement of the stars and planets in relationship to each other demonstrates that different parts of the universe have relationships – the positions of the sun, moon and planets are explainable in terms of their size, mass, and basic principles of physics. It makes sense that what happens here on this planet is affected by the movement of other parts of the universe. A basic example is the ebb and flow of the tides. The gravitational pull of the moon affects the flow of water around our planet. The lives of humans are affected by the tides. Mariners pay attention to the tides and use them to their advantage when planning trips. Fishermen know that the rising and falling of tides has an effect on where they will find fish in the ocean.
For most of history Astrology was considered to be an academic discipline and was connected with other studies. It was only the rise of Newtonian physics towards the end of the 17th century that began to question the scientific principles behind astrology. These days, astrology is viewed as a pseudoscience by academicians and its basic principles have largely been disproven by other scientific theories and testing.
The real mistake in logic came from the attempt to predict the future. We are relatively accurate in observing the present and the near past, but human logic has never produced an accurate system of prediction of future events. Biology and physics contain enough variables to make prediction a highly speculative art.
Still, there are a lot of people in the world who put a lot of stock in astrology. The frenzy surrounding the Mayan calendar was, in part fueled by a form of astrology.
Different parts of the world have different systems of attaching certain planets and constellations to different dates. Since Sunday is New Year’s Day in the Chinese lunar calendar system, a lot of the world’s citizens will pay a bit of attention to the beginning of the year of the snake. The Chinese zodiac features a dozen animals, each taking turn in the cycle. I don’t pay any more attention to the Chinese zodiac than I do to the western zodiac, but I at least know that I was born in the year of the snake and that this is the fifth time that cycle has brought us back to the year of the snake since my birth year. I don’t think the year of the snake is a particularly good year for business or politics in the Chinese system, but I did once read that the pairing of the snake and the rabbit is a fortunate match and since my wife was born in the year of the rabbit, that much seems to be working out for us.
Astrology and philosophy form a complex relationship in Chinese and eastern Asian thinking. The theory of the three harmonies (heaven, earth, and humans) led to a very complex system of timekeeping for religious purposes. This gave rise to the use of astrology for the purposes of making political predictions. There were, in the past, astrologers who were very powerful advisors to political and governmental leaders, claiming to have the ability to discern the best dates for political announcements, the waging of war, making appointments and other decisions of political leaders. I’m not a student of Chinese astrology and do not fully understand the philosophy or the system, but it does appear that astrology has fallen out of favor among Chinese scientists in a manner that is similar to what has happened with western astrological systems. It seems that political operators are able to use pseudoscience to gain influence in every generation. Even though universities have tended to move away from astrology as an academic pursuit, governmental decisions are still influenced by those who use science in questionable ways.
So I’m not putting much stock in the coming of the year of the snake. It may have a mild entertainment value. I do read the fortunes in fortune cookies. Although I know that such cookies are not an ancient tradition in the orient, they have become associated with Chinese restaurants in the United States. Once, after having delivered a trial sermon, I went out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant with members of the search committee to finalize the terms of call to a new congregation. The fortune in the cookie served to me said, “The time is right for a change of career.” I thought that the chair of the committee might have arranged for a particular fortune to be in my cookie, but it seems it arrived on my plate by random luck. I took the job and for ten years had a good relationship with that congregation. Our children often think of that city as their hometown.
In a manner similar to reading fortunes for entertainment value, I at least have noticed that Sunday is the Chinese New Year and that we end the year of the dragon and begin the year of the snake. I have a memory of having read that people born in the year of the dragon aren’t among the best at business and that would be accurate in my case. But those born in the year of the snake generally have good fortune in relationships. It seems safe to predict that the coming year will be better for love than for business.
But again, I don’t pay much attention to the zodiac and it is unlikely that I will remember my predictions by the end of the year.