AGE OF AQUARIUS
“Expression derived from astrology to describe the new age of freedom in all areas of human life and of peace without war among men. The term is partly derived from the medieval belief that the conjunction of certain planets was the sign of a new era in human history. It is also associated with the claim among astrologers that the aquarian personality is warm and friendly, hence the Age of Aquarius (just dawned) is to be an epoch of universal brotherhood.”
http://www.catholicreference.net/index.cfm?id=31702
I don’t believe it all just happened.
Wow, is THAT poorly expressed!
The sun may be considered as moving slowly around a circle inclined to the equator. The low point would be the Winter Solstice, the high point is the summer solstice. And where this circle (called the ecliptic) crosses the equator are the solstices.
Around the time of Ptolemy the astronomer, if you drew a line from the center of the earth through the point of the vernal equinox, it would hit a point midway between Aries and Pisces. In the days following the vernal equinox the line drawn through the sun to the starts would work its way through Aries. We we were in the “’Age’ of Aries”.
SO, they said, the vernal equinox took place when the sun was “entering Aries”.
But that point of intersection between the “ecliptic”(The circle the sun appears to follow) and the celestial equator, the point itself kind of backs through the sky a very small bit every year. (We now think this is because the axis of the earth makes little circles like the axis of a spinning top.) So the Equinox backtracks through the equator.
For a couple of millennia it would hit the “fixed stars” somewhere in Pisces. We were in the “Age of Pisces” But now it is approaching the sign before Pisces, to wit: Aquarius.
This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. You may now smoke dope AND, if you are not my age, remove your clothes.