The Leo story, as promised

Here at the Perkins Obser­va­tory, we often get calls from folks who want to come to one of our pub­lic pro­grams because they are inter­ested in “astrol­ogy,” by which they mean “astron­omy,” or at least I hope so.

We do not believe that the posi­tion of the stars and plan­ets influ­ence the course of our lives in some mys­ti­cal way. They do indeed influ­ence my life. If some­body wants to see the rings of Sat­urn, they’re going to have to wait until April to see them. Oth­er­wise, your astro­log­i­cal sign is irrel­e­vant. When peo­ple ask me my sign, I reply, “Yield to Pedes­trian in Crosswalk.”

How­ever, the astro­log­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance of any given con­stel­la­tion reveals much about our emo­tional makeup as humans, and no con­stel­la­tion does so more than Leo, the Lion.

Leo resem­bles its name­sake more than most con­stel­la­tions. But don’t take my word for it. Just after dark, the Lion is ris­ing in the south­east about half way up to the top of the sky. Look for a back­ward ques­tion mark of stars, called the Sickle, that form the head and front paw of the lion.

Humans have always had mixed feel­ings about the king of beasts. We admire its strength but we fear its power. We want to be like the lion. We just don’t want to be its mid-afternoon snack.

That ambiva­lence is reflected in the old sto­ries about the constellation.

Leo was born of the beau­ti­ful moon god­dess Selene. It lived in a cave with two entrances near the Greek town of Nemea. It emerged every so often from its lair to lunch on the local inhab­i­tants. Such behav­ior was con­sid­ered anti-social in those days.

Her­cules, the great­est hero of the time, was called upon to kill the lion, which was harder than it sounds, and it doesn’t sound easy. Leo’s parent­age gave him pow­ers that even an ordi­nary lion does not possess.

Much to Her­cules’ cha­grin, the arrows he sent fly­ing at the beast car­omed off its skin like line dri­ves off a left-field fence.

Our hero heaved up his club and went chas­ing after Leo, but the lion escaped to its cave. When Her­cules entered the cav­ern, Leo ran out the back door. After a few rep­e­ti­tions, the whole thing began to look like an old Three Stooges short.

So Her­cules blocked off one of the entrances, entered the cave and dis­patched the ani­mal Tarzan-style — with his bare hands. He locked his arm around the lion’s neck until the breath of the mighty beast was stilled.

Rec­og­niz­ing the fear­ful nature of the lion, Her­cules decided to become one. Hence­forth, he wore the lion’s skin around him­self as a cloak. As he approached his ene­mies, they would see the lion’s gap­ing, dead mouth bob­bing above his head. Her­cules looked even more for­mi­da­ble than he had already, but after­ward he wasn’t invited to many par­ties. “Hi. You must be Her­cules. Would you like a drink? Can I take your lion?”

Leo lies upon the path that the sun, moon, and plan­ets travel as they move across the sky. We now know that they all pass through Leo because the plan­ets, Earth included, are in orbit around the sun along the same plane.

The ancient believed that the plan­ets were gods. Their pres­ence in a con­stel­la­tion at the time of a person’s birth thus sup­pos­edly influ­enced the course of that person’s life.

All of this gets a lit­tle strange in Leo’s case. At the base of the ques­tion mark is the bright­est star in the con­stel­la­tion, Reg­u­lus, the “lit­tle king.” Our fore­bears some­times called it Cor Leo­nis, the “heart of the lion.” If plan­ets were near Reg­u­lus at the time of your birth, you were lion hearted, and good things come your way.

If you’re won­der­ing why peo­ple like me don’t believe in astrol­ogy, take a look toward the rear of the con­stel­la­tion at the star called Denebola. It rep­re­sents the other end of the lion, if you know what I mean and I think you do. A quick trip to the zoo will help you to see just how unpleas­ant Denebola’s astro­log­i­cal influ­ence can be.

The star’s influ­ence brings mis­for­tune, dis­grace, and an untidy apart­ment. Born under its power, you will be the butt of many foul jokes, and I ain’t lion.

Tom Burns is direc­tor of Ohio Wes­leyan University’s Perkins Obser­va­tory in Delaware, and he’s glad to here from you. He can be reached at tlburns@owu.edu.

Posted by Tom Burns on Mar 5 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.