So what do you know about the Zodiac? Translated directly from Greek it means 'animals' and it actually denotes 12 equal divisions of the ecliptic - the path of the Sun across the constellations. In the West we use the Indian astrology Zodiac that comprises the 12 signs familiar to most of us [see the left hand nav for links to all of them].
Chinese astrology uses 12 animals with differing fortunes and misfortunes that relate to events that occur within the 12 equal periods. As you will probably be able to recall we are talking here about the 'Year of the Dog' or the 'Year of the Rat' for example.
The Zodiac signs :
Did you know that in essence the 12 signs of the Zodiac can be divided up in a number of ways? There's the masculine and feminine, the positive and negative, and even active and passive.
Masculine & feminine :
The masculine signs are :
Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius and Aquarius
The feminine signs are :
Taurus, Cancer, Virgo, Scorpio, Capricorn and Pisces
So what does this mean exactly:
What characteristics are there for masculine and feminine? The masculine signs tend to be more extrovert in nature. So think of words like brash and loud direct and sometimes lacking consequence for their actions. The feminine signs are throughful, quieter, cunning and downright crafty sometimes.
When we talk about the signs in more detail you can see that Water and earth signs are feminine, Fire signs and Air signs are masculine.
Qualities
You can also group the signs by Quality - the way in which they tend to act. There are three groups of four signs which cover the Cardinal signs, the Fixed signs and the Mutable signs.
