History
Ophiucus lies between the constellations of Hercules and Scorpio, and the head of Serpens as far as its tale. Its southern part lies within the galactic plane.
According to mythology, Ophiucus is identified with Asclepius, the renowned physician of antiquity. The close association between Asclepius and the snake is due to the fact that snakes represented wisdom, rejuvenation, and the power of the discovery of new healing herbs.
Asclepius was educated and received instruction from his father Apollo and the centaur Chiron; he was the first doctor and served in the Argonaut campaign in this capacity. When he returned from the journey he was even considered capable of raising the dead.
The cases of Hyppolytus and Orpheus are well known among those he attempted to bring back to life. The king of Hades was so troubled by his behaviour that he asked Zeus to punish him.Thus Zeus killed the first doctor of the human race with a lightning bolt. The father of Ophiucus, Apollo, made him immortal raising him to the heavens as a constellation.
The significance of Ophiuchus - the 13th sign (although in reality it's the 10th.)
Everything in life of any consequence and significance has and NEEDS to be properly 'earthed' and getting on a plateau 'on par' with living on Earth through Taurus is NOT enough. We need to be digging deeper than that because we need to 'take root' and align ourselves with what happens at regenerative force-level on an instinctive level UNDER the surface - under the ground and under what we commonly refer to as our waking 'consciousness'. This is what Ophiuchus is ALL about!
The Ancient Greeks recognised this - as did all other ancient cultures until the Romans divorced us from this way of thinking - after trying to recreate it for political reasons, disastrously! They used 'special-effects' which were no replacement for the 'real thing!'
The Oraclular Tradition in ancient Greece was about our primal need to connect and align ourselves with chthonic primordial forces and now on all sorts of levels that is what is needed to heal this planet and our relationships. Religion tends to simplify because it is in essence an instrument of political control and thereby it cuts each and every one of us off from our rootedness and as a consequence, causes us to rebel and fight against each other when what we truly need to is to be nourished individually, spiritually, to be fed and to grow. Christ was in rebellion against the predominating religious factions in Jerusalem and made his opinions known - and yet was still also observant of his cultural tradition.
There is something in spirituality that is a lot WIDER and more far-seeing than what we are routinely 'fed' by sometimes morally corrupt systems that cannot allow individuals the space to figure out for themselves what they need on an individual level to move ahead spiritually. We are talking about freedom here which isn't just about conscious widest 'mentational' freedoms, but also about being nurtured and rooted at a deep level in what makes us bigger, happier and stronger as capable and pro-aligning individuals collectively for the common good. It aligns us with our community, our traditions and our rich cultural past. It also soothes our anxieties and generates 'meaning'; it HEALS us where we need it most at a core-level.
(Commend by David McCracken, 29/9/2013)