This excerpt was taken from Healing Signs Chapter 1: How the Stars Affect Your Health by, Ronnie Gale Dreyer, with the permission from the publisher, Main Street books.

The Magical Moment of Birth: Your Personal Horoscope as Your Genetic Marker

If you took a snapshot of the sky at the moment you inhaled your very first breath, you would have a photograph of the Sun, Moon, and the eight planets against a backdrop of the twelve constellations into which our galaxy is divided (as seen from the Earth). Known as the zodiacal belt or, more commonly, the twelve signs of the zodiac, these groupings were first cited and named by the ancient Babylonians, who viewed the heavens as a series of pictures the stars seemed to form. The first cluster of stars reminded them of a ram, which they named Aries, followed by other picturesque groups that they sequentially called Taurus the Bull, Gemini the Twins, Cancer the Crab, Leo the Lion, Virgo the Virgin, Libra the Scales, Scorpio the Scorpion, Sagittarius the Archer, Capricorn the Goat, Aquarius the Water Bearer, and Pisces the Fish.

The Sun, Moon, and planets, which travel through the zodiacal belt, were worshiped by the ancients as celestial deities. Surrounded by the magnificent constellations, the ancient skies must have resembled a great stage where, night after night, the skirmishes and romances of their gods and goddesses were dramatized before their very eyes.

If you are fortunate enough to observe the sky on a clear evening with the aid of a telescope, or even with the naked eye, you can see the constellational shapes and sizes as distinctly as did the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, Indians, Persians, and Greeks. Since the Sun is visible only during daylight hours, and the stars come out only at night, it is impossible to see the Sun against the backdrop of its constellation unless the sky is viewed at sunrise or sunset, when the Sun and the stars are equally visible. However, you will be able to see the Moon and some of the planets in their zodiacal signs most evenings. Of course, the time of year and your location will determine which planets can be viewed with the naked eye and which ones will need to be seen with the aid of a telescope.

Each planet's position in its zodiacal sign and its relationship to the other planets at the moment of birth form the basis of the horoscope. Derived from the Greek hora, meaning "hour," and scope, meaning "picture" or "vision," the horoscope is an image of the heavens at the exact time and place of birth and what astrologers believe spells out the story of your life. Just as heredity defines much of who you are prior to conditioning by home, school, and society, astrology may be said to serve the same purpose. Since each planet represents a different aspect of human nature, the planets may be viewed as genetic markers which, based on their position and relationship to one another, predispose you to certain character traits, physical conditions, and, ultimately, illnesses.

This concept is supported by some scientists and astronomers, who theorize that at the moment of birth we are affected by the magnetic fields of the Earth and the Sun, which are bound up with the positions and movements of the planets.

It is as if the solar system-the Sun, Moon, and planets-is playing a complex symphony on the lines of force of the Earth's field. Most metaphysicians and "true believers" do not require scientific explanations; they firmly maintain that each planet symbolizes psychological and physical attributes, and the sign in which it is placed further modifies how it will be represented. Of course, you may say that it is asking too much to take something at face value without any proof. But once your disbelief is suspended, you may actually find astrology is not only rational but surprisingly accurate.

How Your Sign Determines General Vitality

Due to the proliferation of daily and monthly horoscope columns in newspapers and magazines, most people easily identify their Sun sign, that is, the zodiacal sign in which the Sun was placed on the day you were born as it made its annual journey through the twelve signs.

Thus, if you were born on January 28, you would be considered an Aquarius since the Sun passes through the sign of Aquarius between January 20 and February 18. Going one step further, it is easy to see on which degree your Sun falls by simply advancing the date one degree per day. Since January 20 represents zero degrees of Aquarius, your Sun would be situated at 8 degrees Aquarius if you were born on January 28.

While the Moon, Mercury, and the remainder of the planets also fell in one of the signs on the day you were born, they may or may not have been positioned in the same sign as your Sun. Like the Sun, the planets are constantly on the move, albeit at different rates of speed and, therefore, their precise positions change daily. Whereas the Sun takes an entire year to travel through the twelve signs, or 360 degrees of the zodiac, the Moon takes only twenty-nine and a half days to make the same journey. If, for example, you are an Aquarius, yet have three other planets in Capricorn, you may actually have more Capricornian characteristics than those of an Aquarius.