By the Gods!

Ophiucus/Asclepius

Many typical horoscope fans were shocked to hear the addition of a 13th sign to the Zodiac. The lucky constellation to be put in the infamous spotlight was Ophiucus the serpent bearer, formerly known as Serpentarius. But like most constellations, there is an origin to why they’re placed in the heavens. So who was Ophiucus? And for the sideline, the 13th sign only applies to those who follow the sidereal Zodiac - most Americans and the rest of western civilization follow the WESTERN Zodiac - so relax you’re still the sign you were born under.

Anyways back to the story. Ophiucus is actually Asklepios (Asclepius, Aesculapius in Latin ), the Greek God of Medicine. Not many know of Asclepius, however his legacy still impacts the present. He was the son of Olympian Apollo and the Trikkaian Princess Coronis. Unfortunately for the mother, she was caught being unfaithful to her godly spouse and was punished by the god by laying her out on a funeral pyre, however Hermes saved the infant Asclepius. In lighter versions, she died in childbirth. As a boy, Asclepius––like many would-be heroes and kings––was raised and educated by Chiron, the centaur and was taught the art of healing and medicine. In time he surpassed his father in healing and soon he was deified all over ancient Greece. His priests became the first doctors, but Asclepius himself obtained the cures from listening to the dreams of his patients.

His trademark logo, A staff entwined by a serpent came from a legend in which he was commanded to revive a patient. Deep in meditation a snake crept up on his staff and Asclepius struck the serpent again and again as it tried to flee. Another snake came out of the same hole the first one came out of and placed an herb on its head. Both snakes fled - seeing what happened tried the same herb on its patient, and what a miracle the patient was revived. Since then, the snake was under the guardianship of Asclepius.

Asclepius did many wonders healing the sick and reviving the dead. Hades complained to Zeus he was being cheated dead souls and the Fates got the thread of life all tangled up, unable to sever it. Apollo reasoned that Asclepius was doing it for the benevolent reasons. However, Zeus grew furious when he heard that Asclepius offered to resurrect the dead in exchange for gold. He threw a thunderbolt at Asclepius. In honor of the good deeds he performed he was placed in the heavens as the constellation Ophiucus, along with his serpent.

From D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths / my childhood.

Thanks for the submission! The parentage of Greek deities can be difficult to keep straight. Have a look around our posts on Greek Myth for supplemental info!

Isis the goddess of of magic, motherhood, fertility and life.

She was the first daughter of Geb, who was the god of the Earth, and Nut, who was the goddess of the Overarching Sky. She had 3 siblings: Osiris, Set and Nephthys. She eventually married Osiris. As Nephthys and Set married.

Set was very jealous of his brother Osiris and one day, sent guards to get his exact measurements while he was sleeping. Set then made a wooden coffin/chest and held a party where he said whoever could fit inside it perfectly—can keep it. Osiris was encouraged to try, and the lid slammed shut on him and locked. He was then thrown into the Nile River. Isis then went to search for him, she found him in a tree in Byblos and brought it back to Egypt and hid it in a swamp. But Set went hunting that night and found the coffin. Enraged he then chopped Osiris’s body up into 14 pieces and scattered them throughout Egypt thinking Isis would never find them. Isis and Nephthys went looking for the pieces, but only found 13 of his 14 pieces. A fish swallowed the 14th piece which was his phallus.

Isis then used magic in which she tricked the god Amun-Ra into telling her his secret name, which then she had power of the deity…to make a new phallus out of gold and sang a song, to bring Osiris to life in which Isis conceived Horus—the falcon headed god. Osiris then became the god of the underworld.

A note from the Editor: Thank you so much for the awesome submission! And to the rest of you mythfans, feel free to put your own pieces together on gods, goddesses, heroes and legends, and submit them here!

Forseti (Old Norse ”the presiding one,” actually “president” in Modern Icelandic and Faroese) is an Æsir god of justice and reconciliation in Norse mythology. He is generally identified with Fosite, a god of the Frisians. Jacob Grimm noted that if, as Adam of Bremen states, Fosite’s sacred island was Heligoland, that would make him an ideal candidate for a deity known to both Frisians and Scandinavians, but that it is surprising he is never mentioned by Saxo Grammaticus.

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Kali

Kali Ma, called the “Dark Mother,” is the Hindu goddess of creation, preservation, and destruction. She is especially known in her Destroyer aspect, squatting over her dead consort, Shiva, devouring his entrails while her yoni sexually devours his lingam, penis. Kali, in this aspect is said to be “The hungry earth, which devours its own children and fattens on their corpses…” In India the experience of the Terrible Mother has been given its most grandiose form of Kali, which just is not simple imagery; it is the image of the Feminine, particularly the Maternal, for in a profound way life and birth are integrally connected to death and destruction.

In Hinduism Kali’s three functions are assigned to the gods: Brahma, the creator; Vishnu, the preserver; and Shiva, the destroyer. It is noted that Vishnu, who is thought to have brought the world out of the primal abyss, wrote the following about Kali: “Maternal cause of all change, manifestation, and destruction…the whole Universe rests upon Her, rises out of Her and melts into Her. From Her crystallized the original elements and qualities which construct the apparent world. She is both mother and grave… The gods themselves are merely constructs out of Her maternal substance, which is both consciousness and potential joy.”

Blood sacrifice was important in the worship of Kali. Kali was the Ocean of Blood at the beginning of the world; she might be said to be the primordial mass from which all life arose; her ultimate destruction of the universe is prefigured by the destruction of each individual, though her karmic wheel always brought reincarnation. After death came nothing-at-all, which Tantric sages called the third of three states of being; to experience it was like the experience of Dreamless Sleep. This state was also called “the Generative Womb of All, the Beginning and End of Beings.” Kali devoured Time, she resumed her “dark formlessness,” which appeared in all myths of before-creation and after-doomsday as elemental Chaos.

- http://www.themystica.com/