Horoscope: The 13th Zodiac Sign

Internet contains the entire topics that are ready to satisfy and entertain you. You can just choose a topic and there are also related links presented. Luckily, we have this kind of technological advancement in which little browsing gives you so much information on your field of interest and on which you can work with. 

Knowing about your future and predicting the results of your actions and challenges in your life has been at the back of every person’s mind in gathering information. And I would like to cite of about fortune telling. Some people of different times of life are eager to know about their future or destiny and to answer why certain things happen in their lives. The field of fortune telling, horoscope does not only foretell events but also awaken a special interest about human nature.

Browsing the internet gives you many meaning of the word horoscope, but they all mean the same thing. Horoscope literally means 'hour scope'. There is also a transit chart based on day-to-day or future positions of heavenly bodies. Symbols are used to represent planets, signs, and geometric connections called aspects. It has developed from the branch of astrology.

Most probably every individual in this society has his/her own Facebook account. And whenever I open my account, I can see lot of my FB friends having their horoscope on their profile. Even in some radio stations and newspapers, reading the horoscope will always be present. As some do every day, you run your finger down the list until you reach the section that deals with your sign.  Virgo... Libra... Scorpio... Ophiuchus (???!)

I remembered the news about the 13^th astrological symbol. Then, I tried searching about it, I encountered this news article entitled Astronomer realigns astrological calendar, adding 13th horoscope sign by Michael Vasquez. According to the article, an instructor named Parke Kunkle of Minneapolis Community and Technical College is the man responsible for momentarily turning the astrology world upside down. "Ophiuchus has been around a long time, and the sun has been going through Ophiuchus for thousands of years." “As for the inclusion of Ophiuchus, Brock said "we've always known about Ophiuchus'' but that because constellation only barely touches the sun's path, it is not truly a zodiac sign.”

Should this 13^th Zodiac sign be adopted? I don’t think people will desire to be a part of this symbol because some superstitious people believed that number 13 is unlucky. People who have embraced their zodiac characteristics and become somewhat dependent to horoscopes would strongly believe that this is wrong. It will also be a real annoyance for people who made their zodiac sign as their symbol like those who are tattooed with their former zodiac sign.

Based on my further readings about this news, majority of what I read said that this does not make sense because it is just a constellation. And according to Michel Erlewine, “If we want to be fair, we should also include the Constellation Cetus (The Whale) because it actually is closer to the Ecliptic (Earth’s path) than is Aries. And the constellation Auriga is also right next to the Ecliptic. So if you want to have 13 zodiac signs, you might as well have 15 zodiac signs to be fair.” But assuming this will be true, will you be worried? Will you fight or switch?

“Kunkle noted that he's by no means the first member of the scientific community to raise this issue (it's been debated for thousands of years). But thanks to the Twittering, Facebooking age we live in, he might just be the most famous.” Kunkle has never been a horoscope reader. When people ask his sign, he usually tells them "vegetarian."

Reading these parts from the article, I think this issue doesn’t mean anything. Everyone’s zodiac sign has not changed. So if you are a Libra today, no worries because you will still face tomorrow as a Libra and not once you will wake up as Ophiuchus.

In my own point of view, there are people who do everything just to catch the attention of the people and become famous even for just a week. There are people who assume they understand certain things when they really don’t.

Changes on some methods of fortune telling might give worries to other people who are greatly trusting on it. Horoscope is already a part of other people’s life and issues like this might have a strong impact on them. So, we should learn to listen just to the experts and we should not believe on everything we see and hear until we checked in with facts.