Our lives and the stars......

Patinas Mari* wakes up one Sunday morning and with nothing to do, he goes to the local shopping centre, picks up a local magazine, and a weekly.

 After reading the magazine’s sports page, he flips through its pages and his eyes stumbles on the horoscope column. Something brings a smile on the face of this pent-up bachelor – Venus, his star. “Venus is shining on romance, much to the welcome of those who have been suffering from loneliness.

The single are more likely to meet their love during this month. Financial issues are set to receive a major boost towards mid-month...,” it partly reads.

 Eureka! He shouts with the conviction of a loafer who has won a lotto jackpot. His mood changes from gloom to jovial one only because of the agreeable predictions of his star.

“Finally, I’m gonna get ma’self a chick,” he muses.

 Patinas is among many Zimbabweans, whose dreams and livelihoods depend on these pieces of divination.

 A caption in the horoscope column of a magazine can make one work harder, propose love and act in a manner that one does not normally do. Admittedly, though painful, it doesn’t hurt to say I am one of these. At the mere sight of my star, I’m sometimes left feeling a little bit relieved after reading happy forecasts about how my life will turn out that week or month.

 Horoscopes have guided the way some people budget their finances. When afforded the chance to peruse a magazine, their first port of call is the column where they live their lives with the stars.

 When this magazine stopped publishing the horoscope column, several readers wrote letters, requesting the column back. This shows how important the column is to some people. After the departure of Ziracha as The Outpost’s zodiac columnist, came in the Zundeman and many are just in love with the column.

Though zodiacs have become a favourite in most magazines, do these predictions really foretell our lives? If so, how do those who write horoscopes come to “know” about what fate awaits us shortly? 

The Outpost sought to decipher the myth behind the stars. The Encyclopedia defines Zodiac unfortunately or fortunately the definition tends to take a rather clinical overtone. It defines Zodiac as a divination based on the theory that, movements of the celestial bodies (stars, planets, sun, and moon) influence human affairs and determines events.

 It further contends that in the past, the Chaldaeans and Assyrians believed all events to be predetermined so they would use the stars for example to interpret events. This, however, was arrested with the rise of Christianity.

 Others also argue that the horoscope originated in Babylon and then passed to Greece, India, China, and Islamic nations. They say there are two branches of astrology, namely - the natural and judicial. The former is concerned with observations and theory and the latter deals with foretelling events in individual lives of people through a horoscope.

 In Africa, the study of horoscope has been there, but it is said people do not realise that what they do amounts to be in keeping with the facets of the horoscope. In the Shona culture, marrying in November is taboo. And performing any cultural rites in that month is regarded profane. Thus, many a time, we often hear people saying, “Don’t worry about his behaviour, can’t you see the moon is still in its infancy (mwedzi mutete).”

 Whether we know it or not, this is living our lives by psychic means. Arguably true, if one studies people’s moods, he or she will realise that they change depending on the time of the year. With the passing of months, some become jovial, sullen while others become mentally challenged.

 Zundeman, once The Outpost horoscope columnist, argues that horoscopes started in Africa before the advent of the calendar. He says people used to study the movement of the stars and the moon to tell whether it was January or March, winter or summer. Europeans, who later wrote their own pieces of horoscope, actually usurped this innovation from Africa, he contends. He took his examples further, referring to the Bible.

“In the Bible, the three Wiseman from the east were led to Bethlehem by a star, which led them to Jesus’ birthplace. That was horoscope.”

 He says horoscope writers often interpret stars differently, mainly because of their cultural divergences. For instance, he explains, wearing red clothes in Asia and Europe may mean love. But in Africa that can be construed as the readying by someone to perform spiritual rites or a premonition for disaster.

 “I wonder why people celebrate Valentines Day in Africa,” argues Zundeman. “It has got nothing to do with African tradition because of the colour issue. In fact, it is no use for Africans to read horoscope columns from Western magazines and marrying them off to their lives because of the cultural differences between them and us.”

 He says the issue of believing in the zodiac depends, just like religion, with one’s faith.

“If one believes that they work, then they will work for him.”

But what do Christians say? Prosper Zvinya does not believe in horoscope and attaches it to Satanism. He says those who believed in it doubt God’s existence.

 “You can not rely on horoscope to know your future because God already knows what’s going to happen to you. Satanism has encroached into our society and people are shifting from believing in God to worshipping idols,” says Zvinya, who believes in Christianity.

 In an article published by a local daily, one British astronomer, Dr Jacqueline Mitton of the Royal Astronomical Society, remarked that all the dates used for zodiac signs are wrong and a 13th constellation was missing from the astrologer’s charts. She argued that star signs are approximately one month off and most people who think their sign is Sagittarius are actually born under the little known constellation of Ophiuchus, the god of healing. Constellation is the arrangement of planets in the zodiac at a particular time, believed by astrologers to influence human character or events on earth.

 “The zodiac is constantly changing,” she asserted, adding that the ancient star chart that helps astrologers track the sun’s movement in the sky, the sun passes through one more constellation in addition to the traditional twelve and the time when the sun passes through the traditional twelve is different from what the horoscope said.

" Astrologers, who divided the sky into 12 parts, giving each star cluster an equal portion, drew the dates for each star sign up over 2000 years ago. But constellations cover areas of varying size, and the sun’s time in each constellation differs."

 According to astronomers, the sun’s movement through the sign Scorpio lasts only seven days while it spends over a month each under Virgo, Taurus, and Pisces. It follows then that if her arguments are anything to go by, believing in stars is more or less a waste of time.

 But Blessing Gobvu of Morris Depot still maintains that stars are real and he will continue to revere their influence in his life.

 As he flipped through the magazine, which I had given him, he went straight to the horoscope column and a smile furrowed on his face as he read its contents.

 The star had predicted a wonderful month for the police instructor.

  *not his real name