posted January 19, 2008 03:59 AM
According to page 159 - 160 of BRADY'S BOOK OF FIXED STARS...a book on fixed star parans
Ophiuchus was known to the Greeks as Serpentarius the Healer,who was also the god,Asclepius,son of Apollo. He learned the healing arts from Chiron and is usually depicted as holding a stick on which a serpent is coiled. The symbol is now used as the symbol of Western Medicine. Asclepius was the ship's surgeon on the Argo and became so skilled he was able to bring patients back from the dead, a practice quickly forbidden by the gods,who eventually smote him with a thunderbolt for fear that he would surpass them with his healing powers. He was placed in the heavens as Ophiuchus.The serpent was seen as a healing agent because it represented prudence,rejuvenation,wisdom,and rebirth. This is the healing side of the ancient goddess,for just as she had the ability to create life,she also had the wisdom and knowledge of how it could be healed, as well as the knowledge of how it can be destroyed. Asclepius was said to have the blood of Medusa in his veins. The blood that flowed on Medusa's left side created fatal poison,while the blood that flowed on the right was beneficial.
Thus Ophiuchus is connected with all aspects of healing: medicine and drugs,ranging from the alcohols produced by Benedictine monks,to the knowledge of drugs and herbs in Western and Eastern medicines. Melaine Reinhart points out in her lectures, its position as the thirteenth ecliptical sign could well be the echo of the thirteen lunar months clashing with the established solar signs.
According to page 54 of FIXED STARS AND CONSTELLATIONS By Vivian E. Robson
Legend. This constellation is said to represent the infant Hercules who strangled two serpents sent by Juno to kill him as he lay asleep in his cradle.
Influence. According to Ptolemy it is like Saturn and moderately like Venus. It is said to give a passionate, blindly good-hearted,wasteful and easily seduced nature, together with little happiness, unseen dangers,enmity,strife,and slander. Pliny said that it occasioned much mortality by poisoning. This constellation has also been called Aesculapius, and held to rule medicines. By the Kabalists it is associated with the Hebrew letter Oin and the 16th Tarot Trump "The Lightning-Struck Tower."
This is from Diana Rosenberg's site
THE GROUND OF HEAVEN:
THE CONSTELLATIONS
OPHIUCHUS, THE SERPENT-BEARER
Tropical Span: 34 degrees
2 Sagittarius - 6 Capricorn
Above the Scorpion, his left foot upon it, is Ophiuchus, (grasping Ser-pens, coiled about his body); known to the Greeks as Aesculapius, God of Medicine. An ancient Babylonian tablet lists a constellation Nutsirda (Prince-of-the-Serpent), called in Semitic Namassu, "The Reptile". Nutsir-da, also called An-u-gie, "Lord-of-the-Underworld", was connected to the god Sagimu: the ideographs of his name express "mouth" and "invoke" which indicates he may have been "Lord of Invocation", presiding over dead bodies and disease. The archaic lunar zodiac of "The Tablet of the 30 Stars" from Birs-Nimroud, which goes back at least 5,000 years, lists as Asterism XXV Kakkab Mulu-Bat // Pa-gar, a-sig: "The Asterism Man-of-Death || The Corpse, the Fever" made up of Epsilon (Yed Posterior) & Delta (Yed Prior) Ophiuchi, the stars in the left hand of the figure, grasping the Serpent.
On 11 8 1333 a solar eclipse occurred at the "Man-of-Death" asterism, at Ophiuchus' left hand; from 1333 to 1337 a terrible famine killed 6 million Chinese, but the aftermath was even worse: Bubonic Plague! Moving gradual-ly westward, the terrible pestilence reached Europe 14 years later. This was the infamous Black Death, a world-wide pandemic that killed an esti-mated 1/3 of Europe's population. In 1495 Mars, at the Aries Ingress, was at the-hand-holding-the-Serpent: a European strain of Smallpox was carried to the newly-discovered New World, where it wiped out entire tribes of native Caribbeans. Nostradamus, born in 1503, was a physician who spe-cialized in dealing with epidemics; tragically, while he was away, his own wife and two children perished in one. He was born with Ophiuchus culmi-nating, & Sun, Mercury and Pluto in its longitudes (because of the trance techniques he used to summon visions of the future, he also fits the ancient title "Lord of Invocation"). In 1878 the path of totality of a solar eclipse ran directly through Memphis, TN: 2 weeks later a devastating epidemic of Yellow Fever ravaged the city; the chart for the eclipse at Memphis had Ophiuchus rising. On 5 24 1910 a lunar eclipse occurred at the "Man-of-Death" asterism: from 1910-1913 Bubonic Plague ravaged China and India; millions died. By mid-November, 1914 when Mars conjoined and the Moon’s Nodes squared the eclipse, a terrible world-wide influenza pandemic was decimat-ing the world's population; it killed an estimated 30 million people. When the South Lunar Node reached this degree in mid-1919, typhus in Russia joined the still-raging flu epidemic to cause even more suffering. The 11 22 1984 solar eclipse at this ancient "Man-of-Death" mansion brought the AIDS epidemic to full public awareness. The 5 25 94 lunar eclipse again occurred at Ophiuchus' left hand: Cholera raged through the Ruanda refugee camps, new outbreaks of Legionnaires' Disease drove cruise ships back to port, and a serious outbreak of Pneumon-ic Plague is reported in India! In 1996-7, with Pluto at this ancient, ominous Lunar Mansion, new strains of bacteria are proving resistant to antibiotics, causing world-wide concern.
ye-stars.com/tmacons.htm
I want to use an astrological system that uses the actual 13 zodiac constellations. I find it rather uneasy to use a zodiac that is based on northern hemisphere seasons for people born in southern hemisphere.
My Sun in tropical Scorpio is actually in the constellation of Virgo with Spica,alpha star of Virgo,being my heliacal rising star.
My cousin,Shavon's birthday is November 30th. Therefore,her Sun is in the Ophichus constellation.