By both Liaf and Morfessa

Do you want to make a conservative Christian cringe? All you have to say is the word "zodiac" and they cringe and hiss the way Dracula does seeing the cross or garlic. We are gravely warned to avoid all things that are "occult". Astrology and fortune telling have no part in Christianity as verse after verse get quoted to prove the point. Well, what about it? Why then are ol' Liaf and Morfessa claiming God's Word is in the stars (or zodiac)? The difference lies in the source of one's faith. Do we use the stars to predict our fate, or do we acknowledge God is in control of our fate? What does the Bible say anyway about the stars? Let's turn to Genesis 1:14-15 and understand:

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

Although the subject here is primarily about the sun and moon, the sentence "He made the stars also" which follows clearly allows all the celestial bodies to be included in the purpose God intended. This is verified by Psalm 19 that says:

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun.

So, we know that they had the function of 1) establishing the seasons (hence the other motions of the Earth also establish days and years), 2) to be lights to give light upon the Earth, and 3) to be for signs. Now a sign is a symbolic representation of something concrete, be it a person, place, thing or idea (the definition of a noun). And it is from this indisputable Word of God that we believe the stars have a story to tell. Alas, the story was covered up time and time again until it became the object of fortune-telling where the created thing is worshiped more than the creator. Amen.

Before we go into the story of the stars, we want this first part message to end with a very basic astronomy lesson. We want our readers to understand certain concepts and jargon before proceeding. The zodiac, or "zoo" of animals are constellations [see footnote at the end of this message about constellations] that circle the heavens in which the sun, moon and planets pass. More on that in a moment. Each and every day we see the sun, moon and stars pass overhead rising in the east and setting in the west. The primary motion of the Earth that causes this is what we call rotation. The Earth rotates once per day west to east which makes everything seemingly pass over us east to west. This idea is similar to a car heading north and everything it passes seems to be moving south. So our daily rotation is the primary cause of the daily movement of all celestial bodies.

As the sun moves daily from west to east about a degree, it crosses certain stars and constellations. Actually, these stars and constellations are just the background of the sun from the Earth's vantage point. So as one can see, the constellation that the sun would be in say, January, would be seen in a clear, dark night in July opposite the sun. The orbit of the Earth is a PLANE and hence the PLANE of the Earth's orbit establishes the background stars and constellations the sun passes through. These constellations are called the zodiac. As for the planets and moon, they are on roughly the same orbital plane as we are; hence the planets and moon also stay fairly close to the zodiac constellation ring. Early people noticed that when the moon fell on a certain circle called the ecliptic, that eclipses could occur and thus the name. Actually, the ecliptic is mathematically the perfect circle (PLANE) of the Earth's orbit and as such is exactly the path that the sun appears to move across the heavens. Naturally if the moon was on this same PLANE between us and the sun, a solar eclipse would occur blocking the sun's light. If we were between the full moon and sun and the moon fell on the same PLANE, then a lunar eclipse would occur.

We can see from this diagram that the Earth both rotates and revolves around the sun in a counter-clockwise fashion (looking from the North pole end). The red circular arrows show the rotational direction of the Earth. The straight red arrow represents an observer on Earth facing the sun and star set #1 in the background. The sun of course is in front of those stars and they cannot be seen due to the bright sunlight. As the Earth revolves around the sun (represented by the white circle and arrows), we see that the white arrow points the same direction in space one sidereal day later and star set #1 is the same direction (keeping in mind that they are VERY much farther than the sun). However, notice that the Earth must turn left slightly (red arrow) to view the sun in the same apparent position as the previous day (this defines a solar day). In addition, the sun now is in alignment with star set #2, and so forth. This illustrates how the sun journeys thru the 12 signs of the zodiac in one year.

There's just one last motion we want to talk about--- precession. This is nothing to worry about in your lifetime as it takes about 26,0000 years to circle (or I should say "wobble") once. However, the thought comes up occasionally in our star studies so a mention of it here is in order. The Earth turns on an axis as any schoolboy knows from seeing a model of a globe. This axis points the same direction in space no matter where on our revolutionary orbit we are on. It so happens that the direction in space the axis points is toward what we call the "North Star" a.k.a Polaris. This is a somewhat dim star that acts like the axis in which all the other stars, including the sun and moon rotate around daily. Polaris is off of your north horizon at the same altitude as your latitude. Hence, if you lived at 40 degrees north latitude, Polaris would be about 40 degrees above your north horizon. Therefore, any star within 40 degrees from Polaris merely circles around it never rising or setting--- these are called "circumpolar" stars. Our schoolboy knows that the Earth is tilted 23 1/2 degrees from the orbital PLANE or in other words, the sun is 66 1/2 degrees away from our pole (and Polaris). Hence, the sun is NEVER circumpolar UNLESS you reside in the coldest regions of the North or South 23 1/2 degrees from the pole. This region is called the Arctic Circle (or Antarctic circle in the southern hemisphere) and this is called the land of the midnight sun when the season is favorable for the sun to be in that position. There, the sun just moves around and around you and never rises or sets until the seasons change. Anyway, back to precession. The Earth turns on its axis (facing Polaris) but this direction changes and the Earth wobbles (like a rotating top) making one revolution in about 26,000 years or about a degree in a lifetime. This is why star maps and coordinate books are based on "epochs" e.g. 1950, 2000, etc.). In the future, the axis will not point any longer to Polaris, but the star Vega (maybe 12,000 or so years down the road). All stars will then seem to circle around Vega although we will have the same zodiac constellations since that is determined by the PLANE of the Earth's orbit. Astrologers refer to procession as different "ages" with one zodiac constellation for (about) every 2000 years hence the song about the dawning of the Age of Aquarius that those happy hippies sung about. Precession, however, works backwards from the way the sun moves through the zodiac. Therefore, if we are in the dawning of the age of Aquarius, we came from Pisces (Jesus' age) and not Capricorn.