As I’ve said before several times in this Web log, if the United States does, in fact, sincerely want to solve the illegal alien problem, all that we need to do is treat the Americans who hire them the way we treat drug dealers. Certainly, diddling with tax policies isn’t going to accomplish much, except the creation of more loopholes for the American businesses that already make obscene profits exploiting illegal aliens. Come to think of it, maybe that’s the real point. But although the purpose of Benteen’s visit today was to discuss exactly that – how to tweak the tax code to fix the illegal alien problem – he had other things on his mind, and, again, as I’ve said before, I don’t think it’s my responsibility to keep my clients on subject. If they want to talk about how much the Redskins stank this season and why, what a mess this recession is and who’s to blame for it, or how Barack Obama’s health care law is the spearhead of a Socialist conspiracy instead, I figure it’s their consultation, go right ahead.
I was somewhat taken aback when Benteen lay down on the couch by the window, however. I’m a policy consultant, after all, not a shrink, and his initial utterance did little to quell my misgivings.
“Tom,” he bitterly complained with a heavy sigh, “I don’t know who I am.”
“You’re not,” I delicately inquired, “by any chance also hearing disembodied voices, too, are you?”
“No, no,” Benteen scowled. “I mean, I know I’m a member of the Senior Executive Service, that I work for the IRS, that I live Reston, that I’m married, have three kids, that I’m screwing a contractor at the office and getting hummers from the baby sitter… uh, keep that under your hat, okay? So, absolutely not, Collins, I’m not crazy or anything. It’s just that my birthday is December 12th, and ever since I can remember, I’ve been a Sagittarius. But now they say I’m an Ophiuchus. That’s what I mean when I say I don’t know who I am.”
“You believe in astrology?” I asked, not terribly surprised, but somewhat disquieted at the revelation.
“What was good enough for Ronald and Nancy Reagan,” Benteen proclaimed stentoriously, “is good enough for me!”
“Can’t argue with that,” I conceded. “And it’s a fact that over half the American public agrees with you.”
“Damn right,” he nodded, his chin bobbing up and down smartly as he lay there on the couch. “This is America, and the majority rules – unless there’s a filibuster, of course. So what’s going on with Ophiuchus? I’ve been reading about it in the papers and the Web sites and watching stuff about it on TV and so forth, but it’s all Greek to me.”
“Well,” I explained, “it started with the invention of astrology, back about four thousand years ago, during the Bronze Age. The high priests spent a lot of time watching what was happening up in the sky, because everybody thought the gods were up there, making it rain, making the seasons change, making the moon wax to disc to wane to crescent, and, above all, making the sun come up. So consequently, exactly where in the sky the sun came up every morning became a very, very important thing. Now, when the ancients looked up in the night sky, they saw patterns in the stars. It being the Bronze Age, nobody actually knew much of anything, and the way they handled that situation was to make up stories that explained the physical world. So they made up stories about the patterns they saw in the night sky. This one was a hunter, that one was a flying horse, that one was a pair of twin brothers, that one was a lovelorn princess, that one was a centaur…”
“Sagittarius!” Benteen interjected. “That’s me! Or at least, it was.”
“Exactly,” I continued. “People identified with those stories then, just as they do now. And the high priests noticed that the sun, that big important shiny warm thing up there, rose every morning in a slightly different place in the sky. And after a while, they figured out that there were certain mythical beasts and such up there that the sun seemed to favor – it would only rise when one of them was on the night horizon, just before dawn. Furthermore, they knew the sun took very good care of them for six or seven full moons and seemed to pretty much abandon them for about the same time, and they set up a bunch of solar observatories, like Stonehenge, for instance, all over the ancient world to keep track of that. And from those, they discovered that the sun began to shun them on what today we call the first day of Autumn and that it seemed to change its mind and begin to come back to them on what today we call the first day of Spring. So the first day of Spring became extremely important. Therefore, the ancients began their years with the first day of Spring, and, at the time, on the first day of Spring, the sun rose on the morning of that day in the place on the night horizon where the constellation of The Sky Ram, or, as we call it today, Aries, was located. And that’s why Aries is the first sign of the traditional zodiac. Then came Cetus, the Sky Whale…”
“What?” Benteen interrupted. “A Whale?”
“That’s correct,” I confirmed. “After the Vernal Equinox, first the sun rose in Aries, then in Cetus, then in the constellation of the Sky Bull, Taurus, then in the Sky Twins, the Sky Crab, the Sky Lion, and so on; and later in the year, the sun rose in the constellation of the Sky Scorpion, then in the Sky Serpent Slayer – that’s Ophiuchus – and then in the Sky Centaur, Sagittarius.”
“When,” Benteen inquired with a curious tone, “is your birthday, Tom?”
“April 1st,” I informed him. “So under the new thirteen-sign system or the really, really ancient fourteen-sign system, I’m a Pisces, not an Aries. But under the fourteen-sign system, people born between May 12th and June 6th are Whales, not Bulls or Twins…”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute!” Benteen protested, sitting up abruptly. “Okay, maybe there are thirteen zodiac signs, or even fourteen, okay, put them in there, then, fine. But why the hell have the starting dates for all the original twelve zodiac signs changed? Because I figured out that if they’re going to take all but seven days away from Scorpio, and give the rest of Scorpio to Ophiuchus, like they did, or if they take last eleven days of Ophiuchus out of the beginning of Sagittarius, like they did, either way, I’d still be a Sagittarius anyhow! But I’m not, because now, after they changed the dates, Sagittarius doesn’t even begin until December 18th!”
“Oh that,” I acknowledged. “Yes… well, the new dates are based on those zodiac constellations in which the sun actually rises, um… today, you see, as opposed to what they were when the Babylonians invented the twelve sign system about three thousand years ago.”
“Huh?” Benteen’s face went blank. “You mean, it doesn’t stay the same?”
“Precisely. If you were to go outside before dawn and actually look at the stars – something astrologers haven’t bothered to do for quite some time, I might add – on, say, my birthday, April 1st, you would not see the sun rising beneath the constellation of Aries.”
Benteen inadvertently scratched his head as he stared at me. “You wouldn’t?”
“No,” I continued, “you would see the sun rising beneath the constellation Pisces, which, in the Year of Our Lord 2011, it does between the dates of March 12th and April 18th.”
“And since when,” Benteen demanded, a bit indignantly, “has all this been going on?”
“The sun,” I informed him, “hasn’t risen beneath the constellation Aries on the first day of Spring in about two thousand years.”
“Damn!” Benteen exclaimed. “And folks complain that the Civil Service is slow! But can you tell me why?”
“Well,” I pressed on resolutely, “I can tell you why the zodiac dates have changed, but not why the astrologers never corrected them to fit reality.”
“Can’t you even venture a guess?” Benteen wheedled.
“I would surmise,” I mused, “that it’s because, what with astrologers being such experts in the supernatural, reality has never really been their strong suit.”
“All right,” Benteen shrugged. “Explain what you can, then.”
“Sure,” I gamely responded. “You know the pole star?”
“Uh, what,” Benteen knit his brow. “You mean like, the Little Dipper and all that?”
“Yes,” I confirmed. “Polaris, the current pole star, is in the constellation of Ursa Minor, the Small Bear, or, as you and many other people call it, the Little Dipper. At night, due to the Earth’s rotation, all the other stars in the sky appear to circle around Polaris. I say ‘current pole star’ because Polaris hasn’t always been the pole star. Back when the high priests were inventing the zodiac, for instance, the pole star was Thuban, or, as modern astronomers call it, alpha Draconis, the brightest star in the constellation of Draco, the Dragon. And, in about twelve thousand years, the pole star will be Vega, a star in the constellation Lyra, the Lyre.”
“Really?” Benteen murmured. “It doesn’t stay the same?”
“No,” I clarified, “because while the earth rotates, like a spinning top, or gyroscope, its axis of rotation traces out a circle. But because the Earth is a very, very large spinning top, it does so very, very slowly.”
“How slowly?” Benteen asked.
“About once,” I replied, “every twenty-six thousand years.”
“Okay,” Benteen allowed. “So what? How does that change the zodiac dates?”
“As the Earth’s axis of rotation very, very slowly drifts around in that big circle,” I elaborated, “the place where the sun appears to rise on the first day of Spring relative to the background stars behind it changes by about one point four degrees every hundred years. So, relative to our perspective here on Earth, the place on the horizon where the sun rises that day drifts very slowly backwards around the zodiac.”
“Hold on there,” Benteen requested as he stretched out on the couch again, “this is making me dizzy. Okay, there, that’s better. So, you say this is all ‘relative.’ And I suppose that since they didn’t know about relativity back when they built the pyramids, that’s why they didn’t know about this other stuff, either?”
“Not only were they unaware of relativity,” I pointed out, “a lot of them didn’t know the Earth was round, and it’s a safe bet none of them thought it was moving, much less spinning like a top. But they didn’t need to know that in order to notice what’s formally called ‘precession of the equinoxes.’ As a matter of fact, an ancient astronomer named Aristarchus calculated it quite accurately two centuries before Christ was born. And the Mayans discovered it too – independently, of course – and as far as we can tell, they definitely thought the Earth was flat. And yet, it turns out that precession of the equinoxes is the reason their calendar ends on the Winter Solstice in 2012.”
“And all this,” Benteen muttered ruefully, “means I’m an Ophiuchus instead of a Sagittarius?”
“You’ve always been an Ophiuchus,” I assured him. “Everybody alive today who was born on December 12th is an Ophiuchus, because on their birthdays, the sun actually rose on the horizon beneath the constellation Ophiuchus. None of them were ever really a Sagittarius.”
“But my astrologers!” Benteen wailed, sitting up again. “My astrologers said that Sagittarius’ upraised bow and arrow symbolize my desire to aim high. They said because Sagittarius is a hunter, so am I – always seeking new ideas and adventures. They said that I’m a cheerful, optimistic person, who’s unfortunately prone to say exactly what’s on my mind sometimes. They said that others enjoy my company except when I become sullen because my questing soul has been thwarted. They said that since Sagittarius is a fire sign, I have a warming personality. They said I have intellect, humor and an impressive, ambitious drive. They said that I’m a great talker and people love to listen to me, except when my native enthusiasm proves too much for them. They said that while I’m always forgetting little things like where my car keys are, I’m always the first to remember important things like, well, like this consultation appointment, for instance. They said I’m remarkably empathetic and charitable. They said I love animals and they love me. Those are all Sagittarius traits, every one of them, and I swear, Tom, every single one of those things is true!”
“Understood,” was my terse rejoinder as I rapidly typed search terms on my workstation keyboard.
“And my horoscopes!” Benteen whined. “I’ve spent, oh, I don’t know, thousands of dollars on having charts done, and they were all created under the assumption that I’m a Sagittarius! My college, my job, my marriage, the honeymoon, the house, the kids, their schools, the cars, the boat, our vacations, the family beach condo in Delaware, our retirement investments, my hernia operation – all of them, Tom, every single one was done on the basis of an astrological chart that assumed I’m a Sagittarius!”
“Okay,” I suggested, consulting a Web search of Ophiuchus I had conducted while Benteen had been spewing his angst all over the room, “how about this? You are a seeker of wisdom and knowledge whom authority figures respect. You are a trend setter, particularly when it comes to fashion, and dress so tastefully you can even wear plaid and look marvelous. You are often successful, and if you fail, it is always because of factors and circumstances beyond your control which would have defeated anyone. Generally, you attract good luck and have remarkable foresight. You hold lofty ideals and constantly strive for peace and harmony. You are at your best in a supervisory position. People look up to you as an example and seek you as a mentor; those who don’t often want to, but their envy prevents them from doing so. You are inventive, poetic, insightful and sensitive, but also fearless and strong. You love learning, but still hold the common touch. You would be a good architect, builder, designer, captain of industry or… tax collector.”
Benteen’s face lit up like December bonfire. “And I work for the IRS! That’s dead on! Amazing! Come to think of it, that does sound more like me than that flaky Sagittarius stuff!”
“And besides,” I rationalized, “those charts all used the exact date and time of your birth, didn’t they? So there’s no reason to conclude they were wrong just because you thought you were a Sagittarius, now is there? After all, the fundamental premise of astrology is that the stars and planets pay no need to the human condition; rather, it is they who determine it, right? Today is January 19th, and the sun rose beneath the constellation of Capricorn this morning, no matter what you, I or any astrologer might say or believe.”
“Yeah!” Benteen exulted. “That’s absolutely right! Okay, then, what the hell! I’m an Ophiuchus! What’s my Ophiuchus lucky number?”
“Twelve.”
“What’s my Ophiuchus zodiac birth stone?”
“Citrine.”
“Great,” he chortled as he removed a ring bearing an opaque, light blue stone from his right hand and placed it in his pocket. “I love those. Never cared that much for turquoise. Now I know why. What’s my ruling planet?”
“Saturn.”
“Wow,” he gasped. “I’ve always really liked Saturn, too. It’s got to be the most impressive planet anybody’s ever seen! What’s my ruling element? Fire? Air? Earth? Water?”
“Aether,” I said, “the fifth Aristotelian element.”
Benteen drew a quick, astonished breath. “Cardinal, fixed or mutable?”
“Cardinal, of course,” I assured him. “After all, Ophiuchus is the only sign in the zodiac ruled by it.”
“Outstanding!” Benteen shouted as he leapt up from the couch in excitement. “I can feel it! Being an Ophiuchus is going be massively impressive – no, make that awe-inspiring! Yeah! All right! Thanks, Tom! I feel absolutely great!”
But just as quickly, his jubilation ceased and a look of grave concern spread across his face. “God damn it, Tom,” he moaned, pointing disconsolately at the source of his sudden anguish, “how can I get this stupid Sagittarius tattoo off my left butt cheek?”
“That,” I frankly told him, “I can’t help you with.”