What Sign are you?  Are you sure?  It seems it depends upon how you view astrology.  The 12 Sun Signs we are all familiar with are named after constellations that travel around the ecliptic.  The ecliptic is a circle in the celestial sphere that appears to be the path the sun travels in a year. The celestial sphere is an imaginary circle in which the person looking at it is in the center.  Therefore, from this perspective, all celestial objects appear to lie along this plane.

There are other constellations, however, that the sun traverses on its annual course.  They are fixed stars, though, and astrologers don’t like to count them because some feel they aren’t relative to the study.  Many astrologers use a system that only deals with the sun’s relationship to the moon within the parameters of solstices and equinoxes.

This is also one of the major controversies between astronomers and astrologers.  Especially those scientists who would like to demean and dismiss astology as a legitimate study.

There are two major zodiacs – although many others as well.  The one used by most western astrologers is the Tropical Zodiac which was explained, in part, above.  The other is the Sidereal Zodiac which studies the sun’s position against a star background.  This is the system used primarily in the East and by astronomers.

Anyway, could our Zodiac possess a 13^th Sign?  Yes – and perhaps it should.  The sun spends quite a bit of time transversing the constellation Ophiuchus from 30 November to 17 December.  That’s quite a bit of time to be in a place without having any affects, whatsoever.  So, if you’re born during those dates perhaps some of the traits or aspects of Ophiuchus has meaning for you.

Ophiuchus is situated between the Signs of Scorpio and Sagittarius.  It is called the ‘Serpent Holder’ and it’s sigil is a capital U with a horizontal wavy line through the center that represents the snake.  Ophiuchus  represents the Greek physician Ascelpius who is generally depicted holding a snake, similar to the Caduceus today that symbolizes the medical profession.

Ophiuchians would like to be healers or people who fix things.  They enjoy connectedness and are gregarious, quick-witted, industrious, and can be quite showy.  On the other hand, and there’s always a darker side, they can be moody, greedy, envious, and controlling.  As in any other astrological analysis, the planets in this house and how they are aspected contribute to the personality a person possesses.

This simplistic blurb doesn’t detail the many complexities of astrological chart construction using any of the multi-analytic systems available to astrologers, but the question remains – are you more Ophiuchus than Scorpio or Sagittarius?

–  ashanta