Out There: I am Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer

It appears there is a 13th, generally unused astrological sun sign called Ophiuchus. It is generally defined as falling somewhere between November 29th and December 17th of a year. I found it when I was reading Love is in the Earth: The LIITE Fantastic and Last Testament by Melody, (c) 2007 by Earth-Love Publishing House. [At once cloyingly sentimental and egg-headed, it's not a terrifically practical book but it does keep some useful crystal information at hand such as the chemical formulas (good for figuring out which rocks have a good chance of working well together) as well as the Mohs hardness scale for more than 1,300 rocks, minerals, and other things that generally fall under the title of 'crystal'. Unfortunate that the name of the book is misspelled on its own title page but oh well...]

I was born on December 14th, making me not a Sagittarius but an Ophiuchus, by strict sun-sign reading.

Ophiuchus is the Serpent Bearer, the doctor. And true to my nature, medicine is a true love for me. Western medicine holds no charm but completing and alternative medicine traditions do. My first foray into studying completing therapies came about when I wrote a research paper for my sophomore high school English class. My topic? Honey!

I've gotten a parans fixed star reading to integrate into all this too. According to the parans reading, my rising heliacal star is Antares, the Heart of the Scorpion. Not surprising since my Sagittarius Sun is virtually unaspected (being trine only Uranus and that's it). My most aspected Light is my Scorpio Moon and it's my second most aspected planet with Pluto being first in the queue.

Hopefully I'll be able to integrate a couple of astrological readings done for me into a future column. Edgar Cayce considered astrological readings as a snapshot of a person's integral physical and spiritual nature as identified by heavenly body positions at the moment they were born.

What all that means is it's probably not learned behaviour that up to now, I've delved straight into deep, intense relationships, not passing "Go" or collecting $200 or even becoming friends first (my ex-husband began discussing marriage two days after we met and I was there--he and I share many chart similarities), and have made my most profound progress not through reflection or sharing with others, but through life and death. Transpersonal psychology, depth psychology, that's what I want to do.

The stars and planets don't cause me to be the way I am. They provide a way to identify and analyse personality and physical aspects in an understandable way. They'll give me a way to explain to analysands why one workaround might get faster and better results than another. Not likely that they'll care what their heliacal rising or setting stars are or which planet is aspected to the what in the where on their birth charts. All this will be useful to me mostly.

Three steps forward, two steps back...drinking colorless apophyllite, blue aquamarine, and rutilated quartz-charged water right now. I'm about ready to go back to the neurotologist about this Meniere's. I have spent a year working like a dog to see if I could solve my vestibular system problems through completing treatments but haven't made enough progress on that front to count, really. Keeping my energy balanced and using rose quartz both help with vertigo attacks but nothing has touched the disequilibrium that persists for weeks after vertigo attacks. I'm on the verge of needing a walker (the vestibular rehab therapists that I've seen in the last two years think I do), frequently I can't keep my balance sitting upright in bed even, and walking when I'm disequilibriated wracks my shot nerves. This is no kind of life.

What I've learned in the last year is that an integration of what we know now with what we know now is the key to health success. Both Libchik and Aikichik-sensei (Shodan as of yesterday!!) agreed this past week that in some ways, I am remarkably better now than I was two years ago. I owe much to the Crystal Healer's advice and the professional astrologers who've patiently answered my intense questions, the amazing books I've read on Jungian dream analysis and planet delineations, and the personal work I've done on my own ideals and direction.

Although I spent some years as a W-2 wage earner, mostly I've been self-employed in my money earnings. If I can ever get disequilibrium resolved, and can continue the good progress on the Migraine front, maybe I'll be able to rejoin my beloved self-employed. I'll have to find new route out for intestinal gas than through my mind (read: brain farts short-circuit my cognitive processes), but hey! I love a good challenge if I can figure out what it is. XD

"Life goes on within you and without you", as George Harrison put it in Within You, Without You. It'll go on for me whether in this life or the next. I certainly would rather be of service than to require being served, that's for sure. My birth chart is so others-oriented, I didn't seriously consider further pursuing who I was more than being an MBTI "ENTJ" until I was faced with the horrific spiritual attack that has now divided my life into "before July 2007" and "after July 2007", but the rest of who I am in fact will have to wait for a future column.

Time to scoot. The sun will come up soon and this nocturnal scorpion will be retreating underneath rocks shortly to wait out the burning sun until night falls again.