The Sky Speaks — An Astrologer Reacts to People Who Claim There is a 13th Sign of the Zodiac

Hey everyone. This is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology [https://nightlightastrology.com/].

Today I am going to respond to people who say that there is a 13th hidden or missing sign to the zodiac. In short, the answer is, No, there isn't, but the number 13 does play a very interesting and somewhat esoteric or hidden role in the construction of the zodiac.

I'm going to tell you about that, how it works, and hopefully you'll find this enlightening, or at the very least clarifying, because this is something that does come up quite a bit. I've noticed many students of astrology hearing about it and getting confused. So let's set the record straight and have a conversation about it.

Okay, well, in order to do that, first, I want to show you a brief clip from a video on YouTube that I found in the Creative Commons, talking about the 13th missing hidden sign, because I think it, broadly speaking, represents the narrative that's out there. And so let's just start with this.

Because, in case you have no idea what this is, you'll just be familiar, okay, this is the story. This is some something like this often circulates throughout social media or some publication, and that, therefore, we can kind of start the conversation understanding what this is all about. What this is all about.

So on that note, I am going to share my screen, and let's take a look at this YouTube video talking about this 13th sign. See if I can just get my want to make sure my speakers are working. Well,

okay, here we go. Once upon a time in the vast expanse of the cosmos,

well, the speed is way turned up. Hold on. Let's get that back down to normal. Okay, sorry about that. Here we go. A

secret lay hidden in plain sight. Once upon a time in the vast expanse of the cosmos, a secret lay hidden in plain sight. This secret was known by very few, the Ancient Ones who held wisdom beyond our wildest dreams. It was an enigma that had been concealed for centuries until now. This is the Tao of Ophiuchus, the 13th sign of the zodiac.

So first of all, I just want to comment on this, because immediately the story is framed as like this is, this is a conspiracy. This is something that was hidden. This is something that was deliberate, deliberately kept out. And I think there are some interesting reasons why the story is framed that way that have to do with the number 13 and the construction of the Zodiac that we'll get to in a little bit.

But first of all, I just want to say in general, this is not true. The history of astrology is about a 12 sign Zodiac that is not actually rooted in constellations. And so what this story capitalizes on is really the same thing that the your zodiac sign has changed story capitalizes on, which is the idea that the Zodiac is rooted in constellations, when actually the constellations are just loose boundary markers in the sky celestially, that demarcate the boundaries of a mathematically idealized and divided circle that we call the ecliptic, or The Zodiac.

So this the fundamental misunderstanding of this story is almost identical to the misunderstanding that occurs with the your zodiac sign has changed story anyway. More on that in a minute.

Ophiuchus is a constellation that has always been there somewhere between Scorpio and Sagittarius.

Well, it's not somewhere. It's actually it's, it's a constellation that has been known about, mapped out, located, consciously, visibly, available to all of us for 1000s of years, and was not one of the original constellations used to demarcate the 12 mathematical portions of the circle.

So again, it's not like it's just this mysterious thing that's out. It's been it's a constellation, like many, many, many constellations that have been known about for 1000s of years. It's simply not one of the constellations used to demarcate the 12 mathematical sections of the Zodiacal circle. So that's just like a simple misconduct. The way it's being told is pretty dramatic and not really grounded.

But unlike its celestial siblings, it has remained shrouded in mystery and intrigue

as a constellation. Remember that in ancient astrology, fixed stars from many, many constellations were thought of as celestial omens and symbols of great power, the qualification of a constellation providing any of its stars for symbolic meaning, has existed for 1000s of years outside of the zodiac and still being integrated into the system of Western astrology.

So the this constellation is is no exception in that regard, where you know any of the stars of any constellation could be relevant. They just don't necessarily have to be stars that demarcate boundaries of the 12 portioned circle of the zodiac. So anyway, let's keep going.

For those who dared to look closer at this obscure constellation, they discovered that it held an extraordinary power, one that could change their destiny forever. It began with whispers of. Among stargazers and astrologers alike as they noticed something different about this particular group of stars.

So that's all made up. There's that's, there's no historical evidence to suggest that that happened or was happening just for the record.

As they delved deeper into their studies and calculations, these scholars found themselves immersed in a world filled with intrigue and wonderment all centered around Ophiuchus. The story goes like this, many eons ago, when Gods ruled over mankind from their celestial thrones, there was an uprising among them. A new deity emerged from within their ranks, one who sought to overthrow them all.

Ophiuchus. Okay, so this another name for Ophiuchus would be Typhon in ancient mythology. And the story of Zeus fighting with Typhon, who tries to usurp cosmic order and and kills him and throws him back down, is a mythology that pertains to the nature of Zeus Jupiter in general, and not surprisingly, many of the connotations of that battle and struggle with things that try to usurp order and justice and then have to be overcome and or redeemed, was all classically associated with the sign or constellation of Sagittarius, because Jupiter and Typhon are essentially close together in the sky in meaning and symbolism for ancient astrologers.

And certainly you could look at this the serpent that the you know, the archer of Sagittarius, is perhaps firing his arrow at as as connected in meaning. That's beautiful and very interesting. But that does not mean that this constellation represents a 13th portion of the Zodiac, because the Zodiac, in the way it's constructed, is very deliberate. It has its own very specific philosophical rationale behind it, and its division is intentionally a 12 fold division for many reasons.

So anyway, that's just to say that you can connect the story of the constellation with the neighboring constellation of Sagittarius, and some of the meaning of Zeus Jupiter that's contained in Sagittarius is connected to the serpent in mythology, but not in the again, very different from making that connection between those two mythologies of the stars and the rationale for an entirely separate 13th portion of the Zodiac, which would throw off literally, the entire system of ancient astrology.

With his mighty serpent entwined around him like armor, he waged war against his fellow gods as he attempted to create balance between light and darkness. In retaliation for his defiance, Zeus banished Ophiuchus to live amongst mortals on Earth where he would remain hidden, unable to wield powers akin to those which once made him so formidable amongst his peers. But like any good mystery worth unraveling, clues were left behind, breadcrumbs leading back towards truth itself. Soon enough, people began discovering strange links between themselves. Those born under other signs within Zodiac wheel, they were different, somehow more powerful than rest. Yeah.

Okay, so obviously this is like some kind of AI generated video. But again, this is just not true, the idea that suddenly there were whispers among astrologers, they started looking at people who were not, you know, who were born in a certain portion of the year that would have coincided with Ophiuchus. This is not broadly speaking, this is not true.

It's not that there hasn't been mystical, symbolic or oracular significance or interest in this constellation there have been, there has been that kind of interest in many, many, many constellations outside of the Zodiacal constellations. But we have to understand what the difference is between, you know, the celestial omens of stars and constellations, and the mythology and lore of those constellations, and the specific reason that the Zodiac is broken into 12 and not 13 parts. So we'll get to that again as we go almost done here.

As word spread about these extraordinary individuals bearing Mark Ophiuchus upon their souls, it became clear that they were the descendants of the forgotten God Himself. Ah,

just what we need. One One more reason to believe that we are just exceptional and so much better or more interesting or more destined than another human being. This is honestly one of my biggest problems with the whole phenomenon of the 13th sign, is that quite frequently it undermines deep philosophical understanding of the roots of our language as astrologers.

It it betrays a real ignorance about our history, philosophically, but also it tends to prop up this kind of, you know, like a new age, narcissistic. I'm so special because I was born under this hidden, suppressed, you know, sign of the zodiac. And this is, honestly, this is all crap. I'm just. Just being totally honest,

their abilities and talents seem to defy all logic, transcending the boundaries set by their fellow Zodiac brethren.

See again, this is more special, more powerful, more capable, more gifted, more spiritual, more mystical, and you hear this kind of stuff, this is not astrology.

And yet, despite this newfound knowledge and the awe inspiring powers that came with it, these individuals remain shrouded in secrecy.

So this is the best kept, hidden secret of the zodiac. And you know all of that, and you can see how it tends to be very ego reinforcing and so forth. So anyway, that's the story. If you've never heard that, you know, that's why I'm making this video. It's because content like this comes out reliably, just as often as the your zodiac sign has changed. Kind of content, once a year there's a story, or every couple of years, a magazine or a big publication runs the story about alphaucus.

You can find Neil deGrasse Tyson talking about it or whatever, and it's simply not true. So let's talk about the ideal structure of the zodiac and where it comes from and why it is 12 and not 13. And then let's talk about where the number 13 actually comes in.

Because the premise behind all of this, if you listened carefully, was that something about this 13th sign has been repressed or suppressed or kept out. And there is actually some interesting reason to consider that part of the argument as like, a like. There's like, something, maybe a little bit like, legitimate about that. So what is it?

Well, the ideal structure of the Zodiac is created. First of all, it's important to note, in case you don't know this, the Zodiac is an ideal symbolic structure that is culturally it's geo it's geocentric in its orientation. It is culturally relative, which means that it is an ideal language constructed from our time, place and circumstance, our view of the heavens from planet Earth, and that ideal symbolic language is rooted in the patterns of the sky as we see and observe them.

And the basic rationale of the Zodiac is that the Zodiac is the great circle of the solar year. This is tropical, ancient Western astrology, and it's a little different than sidereal astrology, but even sidereal astrology is merely astrology is merely how do you adapt the solar Zodiac according to the gradual drifting of the stars relative to the equinoxes and solstices?

So regardless of sidereal or tropical, the Zodiac, quite simply, is the annual path of the sun, the great circle of the sun as seen from Earth. Obviously, we're rotating around the sun, but from our perspective, it is the annual journey of the sun makes around us that we in the ancient world, defined as the solar year. It takes roughly 360 days, or the 360 degrees of a circle for that journey to be complete.

So the great circle of the sun, that 360 degree ideal circle, is the solar year. Now we know that the sun moves just less than a degree per day through the great circle of the Zodiac, which means we get about a 365 day year. So it's not perfect in that sense. But neither is anything in the Zodiac, because it's an ideal symbolic language and not meant to be so precise, we don't need a 300 and perfectly, 360 day year for the 360 degree circle of the solar year to be relevant or meaningful symbolically.

So if you follow that, then you follow the basic logic of the entire language of astrology, which is an idealized system. It's an idealized symbolic system. So that, what is the zodiac? It is the annual circle of the sun. It is the great year.

Now the Zodiac, if it were just a circle, wouldn't be the Zodiac, because the Zodiac is the great circle of the solar year broken into 12 mathematical portions of 30 degrees each. Those are the 12 signs. Where do we get that number 12 from? And why? Well, first of all, the great circle of the Sun is divided seasonally, for ancient astrologers, into four quadrants, you could call them that are rooted in the unchanging, fixed positions astronomically, of the equinoxes and solstices.

So there is a rhythm you can set your clock to it right, and that rhythm is the unchanging rhythm of the spring equinox, the summer solstice, the fall equinox and the winter solstice, the time that it takes, or the sort of distance that it takes for the sun to travel between the equinox, Spring equinox and summer solstice is about 90 days, or one quarter of the circle from the summer solstice.

Us to the Fall Equinox about another 90 days, which is divided by three, three segments of 30 degrees each. So the Zodiac is broken into the four quadrants, divided by the equinoxes and solstices, into 490 degree segments of the solar year. And those 90 degree segments are further broken down into three distinct stages, or three signs, and so you have this divide, this equal dividing of the circle into four parts of three pieces each.

The other way of looking at this division is that this perfectly maps the relationship between the sun and the moon, because during a solar year, there are 12 Lunation Cycles. Now this is where it gets interesting. There are 12 Lunation Cycles which hence break the solar year the great circle into 12 parts. This is very important, because the sun as a symbol represented in the most basic, archetypal and philosophical sense at the roots of the language, the sun represents oneness, whereas the moon represents the many.

So in the ancient metaphysics of the philosophy of astrology, the sun represents something about reality that is one, that is whole. However, the moon represents the fact that this one thing is actually simultaneously broken into many different things. So for example, you and I, from this standpoint, are all part of the same spirit, soul. We're all part of the same reality. We're all part of the same oneness of all things at the exact same time.

Paradoxically, we are different. You're a being. I'm a being. My dog is a being. My wife and kids are beings. The trees and Rey lakes and rivers and rocks and stars. The universe is one thing that is also many things at the exact same time, this fundamental, complementary philosophical perspective was basic to most ancient schools of mysticism and philosophy, and is basic to the language of astrology.

So the Zodiac thus reflects that philosophical value in terms of being one circle that is broken into many parts, the one the circle of the sun, the many parts, the 12 signs, the cycle of the moon, the 12 Lunation Cycles per solar year. Now here's where the problem emerges. People rightly have noticed, and I have heard people who want to argue for a 13th sign notice that actually, by that logic, we're missing a sign, because there are often 13 Lunation Cycles in a solar year.

Aha, right? And you can understand, like, right off the bat, if that's true, then, hey, there's something to that, isn't there? Are they suppressing the number 13 because it's not tidy, and there's something about life in the universe that's not tidy, so we need that 13th sign. Possibly, I can actually sympathize with that perspective, if it were true, but it's not true.

And this is why we this is why it's really important to have this conversation. So in a solar year, there will always be 12 Lunation Cycles. There will never, within one solar year, be 13 full cycles. You can't have 13 full Lunation Cycles in a solar year, you can have 12 and then a remainder.

So a remainder would mean you get through 12 cycles in a solar year, always of the of the lunar cycle. And you may start in on a 13th, but it won't finish before a new solar year begins. And so in that way, there are not 13 Lunation Cycles in a solar year. We're not actually missing the number 13.

However, that remainder, that sense of there being 12 and change, is messy, and it's messy in the exact same way that a 360 degree solar year is not actually 360 days perfectly. It's messy. There's 365 days.

Again. This goes back to the fact that the entire language is an idealized system, a perfect circle broken into 12 perfect parts based on the idealized solar year, based on the idealized lunar lunation, 12 lunations within that year. And it's meant to be that way because it's a symbolic language that is loosely oriented, symbolically oriented to the Physical Sky and the physical year and the lunations within that year.

Okay, so that that's the truth. And so you can understand why, if there were, there was 13, then, okay, we'd have an issue. But there's not, there's 12 and change. But that still gets into the fact that within a solar year, there is at least the beginning of a 13 flu nation cycle. So again, I think it's like, almost like something you could you could sympathize with.

You'd be like, okay, so what do we do? With that little spare leftover, whether it's in the solar year or the lunar cycles within it like, what does that mean? It feels like there's something real about that remainder that's not being taken into consideration. This is where I want to show you a very magical, very esoteric, actually somewhat hidden secret in the Zodiac that I think makes a whole lot more sense than creating a 13th sign, and this is, I believe, the actual origins of this 13th of the number 13, and the role that it plays.

So let's get into this. In order to make this, you know, easier to understand. I'm going to use a chart, and what I want to show you is what happens in a lunar cycle. So here's what I want you to notice. I'm just tracking this most recent New Moon in Libra that's happening as I recorded this in the fall of 2025 here in the northern hemisphere.

Anyway. So the two planets begin their conjunction, the sun and the moon in the sign of Libra. Now what I want you to notice is actually the monthly lunation cycle between the sun and the moon reflects this 13, this number 13, or this messy remainder. Let me show you how.

So we take the moon forward from the sign. It begins in in Libra. If we take that as the starting point, that would be like sign number one. That it starts in, it goes into Scorpio. That's sign number two. So we're going to trace the moon around the wheel. We're going to notice that in the meantime, the sun has moved into the next sign of Scorpio.

So when the moon goes through all 12 signs, it comes back to its starting point. So there's the completion of the number 12. However, in order for the moon to conjoin the sun again and begin a new cycle, it has to go through all 12 signs coming back to where it started, and then it has to jump into the next sign.

In other words, the next lunation will occur in the 13th sign relative to the last starting point. Here are the two planets coming together in the very late degrees of Scorpio, which means the moon will have gone from late Libra all the way through the Zodiac, back to late Libra, 12 full signs, and then it has to jump into the next 13th sign to form the new moon.

This is actually a really beautiful and somewhat hidden doctrine that ancient astrologers were aware of most likely because of the philosophical background that we know, that they inherited, Platonists, hermeticists, Pythagoreans and so forth. So let me explain this, that 13th remainder is very important because the general way that opposites worked.

I'm going to draw this and that, remember, the sun and the moon are like kinds of opposites. Is ideally opposites seek balance, union and harmony, meaning, even though they're separate things, the ideal is for opposites to harmonize and work together, to flow together, as though, even though they're two different things, they're one thing.

Okay, well, fine, that is exactly what we would hope to see if we mapped the movements of the sun through the Zodiac in a solar year for the movements of the sun and the great circle to become one thing, we would need an ideal 360 degree solar year. That would mean that we have the ideal. And then we would need the moon to have 12 full perfect Lunation Cycles per solar year exactly synced up, and then we would have the two things, the sun and the moon, although different, perfectly harmonized, so that they're expressing as one thing, even though they're different.

But we don't have that, do we? We don't have that. That is because ancient philosophers told us that this expression of opposites different but identical at the same time is how opposites work on the ideal plane, but they don't work that way on the material plane. And the reason that they don't work that way on the material plane is because their interaction on the material plane leads to something different.

This is really fascinating, so let's show you how this works. So if on an ideal level, opposites should sync up and perfectly mirror one another, that means that they have some ideal state of harmony. We get close to that. We've got an almost 360 Day year, we've got almost 12 perfect Lunation Cycles per year. So you can see how the sun and moon ideally should flow as one.

And the entire construction of the Zodiac is based on that premise, that the Zodiac is, in some ways, therefore, a structure that exists in the mind of God, that its perfection is not in this world, but in some other world, but in this world, how does it work? Well, the tension of opposites in this world works a little differently.

The tension of the opposites in this world, unfortunately and fortunately, lead to something else, which is the creation of a third, or something different from the two. So in other words, in this world, when opposites meet, there's there's not an ability in this material world for the opposites to meet in a way that they become perfectly complementary.

And notice this in your own experiences, anything in your experience, you have an ideal sense of how something should be, but in this world, it always approximates an ideal, but also deviates from the ideal. And so the way that the opposites were thought to work in the material world was that through the tension of the opposites, their tension births some other thing, and that other thing reflects the simultaneous perfection of the opposites in their harmony while also perfectly reflecting the fact that they can't ever perfectly sync up.

So what is this world? Philosophically speaking, from this perspective, the material world itself is a reflection of an ideal world, but it's also something that deviates or approximates but falls short of a perfect blueprint representation of the ideal. Do you see how that works? So that is really, really important, because philosophically speaking, that is baked into the actual construction of the Zodiac in this very subtle and esoteric little way.

Let's go back to the screen, and now let's rethink about this. Here are the sun and the moon meeting at 28 degrees of Scorpio. Let's push them along as they go through their lunation cycle. So our starting point is Scorpio. For the moon to go through all 12 signs and complete a perfect circle, it has to go all the way back and come come back to Scorpio.

So here we go, day at a time. But look now the sun has entered Sagittarius, which means for the next cycle to begin, the moon has to go through all 12 signs, and then what do you know for it to form the next cycle? It's got to go into the 13th sign. So the idea itself is that the asynchronization between the sun and the moon at happening always at these, at these 13/13, sign intervals in the in their conjunctions actually reflects the way that the entire Zodiac is constructed through the number 13, that that for the for the sun and the moon to sync up in the material universe, there's something sort of asynchronistic about this world and the ideal world.

That's what's actually being said here in the way that the 12 sign Zodiac seems to be birthed itself through asynchronization. If that makes I know that's a lot, and for some people that maybe that's really hard to understand, but philosophically speaking, it's actually really, really profound, because what it means is that that inability for the sun and the moon to perfectly sync up and for their new cycles to always occur in the 13th sign relative to their last starting point is reflective of the fact that the Zodiac in this world is it's ideally.

It's like it's an ideal that's reflected, but this world will always slightly have to deviate from it.

And so something about the body can't be perfect. It can't live forever. The material energy is constantly in flux and changing and impermanent. And try, as we may, to live forever or to get this world to be perfect. There is something about this world that resists and that in tension with an ideal is constantly creating something new that reflects but deviates from an ideal.

That logic is actually baked into the way that lunar cycles work within the zodiac. I think that's absolutely beautiful. I think that that is the deeper, smarter answer to explaining the presence of that remainder, or that 13th leftover that people feel like is shrouded in mystery or secrecy. No, it's shrouded in fucking philosophy. Just be. Real. Do you have to take the time to understand it?

It's not. It's not. There's no need for a 13th sign. There's need for an understanding of ideals and deviation from ideals that's cooked into the actual use and construction of the zodiac and how people thought about the difference between ideals and deviation from ideals in astrology itself, once you understand that you're now you're playing with a full deck of cards.

And I'll leave us with this. This is why traditional astrological education is important, because i This was explained to me for the first time through the amazing philosophical detective work of Robert Schmidt, who was a translator of the ancient Greek texts and just masterful, and had a masterful understanding of Greek philosophy.

When you look at how ancients thought about opposites and how opposites work, whether it's in Taoism, yoga philosophy, hermetic philosophy, platonic philosophy, all of which were schools that were influential, influential to early astrologers, maybe minus Taoism, because it's in a different region. But all of those schools said that you have something ideal and something that deviates from ideals that are co present as their own form of opposite.

The fact that the Zodiac was constructed with that awareness in mind and present in the actual Lunation Cycles of the sky is this number 13 through the Zodiac itself. That is really, really next level stuff, and we so last point I'll make is this is why it's so important to go back and gain a traditional philosophical base of understanding in astrology, because if you don't have it, then most of the time, you don't know the why behind everything you're doing.

You don't understand like you've got delineations that you've heard somewhere else, but you're not you know, frequently people are not able to create their own because they don't have the philosophical base of understanding that leads you to be your own astrologer, to be your own. It's like someone teaching you how to draw a dog, and you never developing the artistic capacity to render your own vision of a dog.

The same thing is true for astrology. You can say a lot of things about, you know, patterns of symbols that recur and repeat, but to generate your own meaningful way of talking about those symbols, or generating new ideas about how they combine, you have to have a philosophical understanding of where it all comes from.

So you know, when people to me when they say there's this suppressed 13th sign, I hear them yearning to understand the presence of 13 as something that feels somehow a part of our experience of the year, of the cycles of the sun and the moon. That part is real, but the explanation that there's some 13th sign that's been suppressed, and if you happen to be born under it, it makes you special.

That is projection, that is fantasy that is not rooted in an understanding. Now, I'm not against people creating a 13th, 13 sign, zodiac, or any other structure, but my point is that there are reasons why the third there is no 13th sign, but there is an esoteric meaning and value to the difference between 12 and 13, because I'm in favor of all kinds of divinatory systems.

And if there happens to be a new divinatory system that is a 13 sign zodiac, I mean, I'm fine with it. What I don't appreciate is the confusion, the projection and the false explanations of astrological history and the lack of understanding of astrological philosophy without that, we're lost, because we have to understand the origins and roots of this language on its own terms and then create and innovate as you will, but not without appropriate understanding of of something like that, like this is actually The difference between an idealized system and that missing number 13.

This is actually what's going on philosophically, and that ancient astrologers, the earliest metaphysicians of this craft, would have been deeply aware of. So we can be aware of it too. And I hope that this was provocative and fun and a little saucy. And I don't know I like these episodes, because it gives me a chance to rant and bitch about stuff. I'm just kidding.

Anyway, I hope you guys are having a good day that this was interesting. No promotions today, because it's a bonus episode. I again, I hope that no one's devastated that maybe Ophiuchus isn't a thing, but hopefully you now have a deeper felt appreciation for just how deep our zodiac really is. All right, that's it. Hope you're having a good one. Bye.