The 12 Signs
The self-centered egotistical nonsense that is Modern astrology deceived people into believing the chart is all about you. Nothing could be further from the truth. The chart is not about you at all. It’s about you and all the people in your life whether you know them or not, and the things that happen to them, and the things that you do to them and what they do to you, and sometimes it’s about a thing and not a person.
If your approach to chart reading is “me, myself and I” then you already failed before you even started. Saturn in a particular house and ruling other houses may be about you or maybe it’s about your parents or children or it could be about material things maybe related to you or maybe not. The art of astrology is knowing what means what in the chart. To do that you must know what the images mean.
The Greek word zoidion (plural: zoida) means “image” and specifically animal image or animal likeness. That should be obvious since the “zo” prefix is what we use for “zoo” (a place where animals are kept), “zoology” (the study of animals), “zoonotic” (diseases passed on from animals to humans), and, of course, “zodiac.” The Latin word signum embodies the concept of animal images but the modern English word “sign” does not. While we have a preference for “image” we often use “sign.” You can use whichever you want.
The info we present is probably not what you expect but it is what you need to know to interpret charts and make predictions. It is a lot of material. We don’t expect anyone to memorize it over-night (you don’t have to worry about a pop-quiz) and we’re not so sure memorizing is a good technique. For those who are good at memorizing things, more power to you. For the restivus, it’s easier to memorize by practicing.