Ophiuchus: The Serpent’s Wisdom.

Today the Sun enters the constellation of Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer. Though not considered a zodiacal constellation in tropical astrology, Ophiuchus nevertheless touches the ecliptic.

Tropical astrology defines the twelve zodiac signs from a perspective of the seasons, while sidereal astrology calculates the zodiac signs based on the observable sky. These two systems were aligned around 2000 years ago (around 285 AD) but have since drifted apart. Sidereal astrology accounts for the apparent backward movement of the fixed stars from the Earth’s perspective, about 1 degree every 72 years (the axial precession).

I am discovering that using both the tropical and sidereal systems offers a much deeper exploration.

Perhaps tropical astrology describes our day-today- journey through this Earth-bound incarnation, while sidereal astrology offers a portrait of our cosmic essence. In my astrology practice, which until now has exclusively focused on tropical astrology, my approach has largely been psychological and evolutionary.

Tropical astrology as a system describes how we are influenced by the planets in our solar system including the Sun which we all revolve around. Tropical/Western astrology is excellent at describing how we are navigating, or even how we are meant to navigate this life as an embodied soul born into a particular place and time with a unique set of circumstances.

The mythos of the Sun and the “Son” of light is present in many figures from Jesus, Mithras, and Horus who were all born on 25th December. When the Sun reaches its southernmost point, it appears to stop, to “die” for three days, before being resurrected again on 25th December.

Sidereal astrology offers something more; the fixed stars and their rich mythologies and lore have been calling me for a while.

This time last year writing about Ophiuchus seemed to herald the beginning of a new journey that coincided with the advent of the Chinese year of the snake. The different layers of this are still uncoiling.

This year I write about Ophiuchus as an “Ophiuchian”.

Although I have known for some time that my sidereal sun is in Sagittarius, I am only now growing into that awareness in a meaningful way.

The Sun is in front of Ophiuchus between 29th November and 18th December (between 7°- 27° Sagittarius). In sidereal astrology my Sun is at 24° Sagittarius. From that perspective my sidereal birthday is on 16th December.

With one foot on the fixed star Antares in the heart of the Scorpius constellation and the other in the same part of the sky that makes up the galactic centre, Ophiuchus is involved with the mysteries of life, death, and resurrection. Imagined as a bearded man holding a serpent, the head in one hand and the tail in the other, Ophiuchus was synonymous with Asclepius in ancient Greece, and before that with Imhotep in ancient Egypt, and Enki in Sumeria.

Ophiuchus is sometimes known as the 13th sign of the zodiac, and although tropical astrologers often dispute this, there is no doubt that the right foot of the serpent bearer does in fact touch the ecliptic.

Being the 13th sign amplifies Ophiuchus’ association with the occult, the secret, and the invisible… perhaps there are those who would like to keep the secret to themselves.

At its essence sidereal astrology describes the qualitative nature of time which is beyond and different to clock time. Time is not a linear sequence as we are led to believe, it has its own cosmic rhythm. If we were to align with this rhythm, human life on earth would be quite different.

More on that in future explorations…

For now, let us welcome the Serpent Bearer and his connection with the galactic centre.