This essay is an excerpt from my book on fixed stars, Of Soils and Stars, Volume II, which you may order and learn about here.
Today I’ll guide you through the esoteric mysteries of fixed star Antares, also known as the heart of the scorpion. Antares is one of the fifteen Behenian stars, and in our sky we find her in the Greek celestial Scorpio constellation; she is the brightest star within that constellation, with a bright deep red colour.
Antares is also one of the four Royal Stars of Ancient Persia, which were essentially markings of the cardinal directions and considered guardians. Antares is the guardian of the west, known as the Watcher of the West. In the Tropical zodiac, Antares is currently found around the 9th degree of Sagittarius, and the Sun joins her around December 2nd of each year.
Nature’s intelligence often mirrors celestial wisdom; as above, so below. So what happens during that time when the Sun travels along its eliptic path through this constellation? We enter a quieter time; longer nights, cold enough for absolute honesty as the branches too begin to bare not to hide us from our eyes.
A moving inward, on the medicine wheel we are pulled now towards the inner wildlands of our spiritual body – the space we find who we are. A sacred unfolding. A time of trust, and of listening. A sacred month has begun, with the birth of Christ in few weeks, where we will light the inner candle with our inner flame, to see further, to see clearer, to warm our hearts.
Sometimes at the end of November, and even in the first week of December, I’ve still seen wild roses bloom. Even when the grounds were covered in snow a few years ago, a wild rose was still blooming, as if convinced it’s spring. These are the kinds of things that sometimes happen: unexpected, defying our logic, calling us to consider that not all is as previously written. But – not everyone may see the rose, they may walk right past her; and even those that do see her, may still not choose to treasure her beauty, let the awe of her open them and allow the inspiration of her move them. So there is a choice here to be made, and there is also mysticism here in this part of the sky.
Coming natively from Bulgaria, our lands are of deep mysticism and wise forests. The stag is an animal we consider sacred in our folklore and beliefs. And I always think of the stag during this time of year when Antares becomes more visible. The mystical stag, showing up in the sky, as if calling us to go deeper into the wild unknown lands, both the inner and outer ones.
As a poet, if I were to describe Antares with a phrase, I’d call her, “fire is a dance, ice is the prayer”.
Antares serves often as a calling to trust the fires of our heart to purify and open us; to mature us into wisdom through allowing the wisdom of time itself to rise us. She is a churning of a present moment, so vast and wild like an ocean. A swimming beyond the borders of the known. To taste the hidden nectars.
Antares is a bright red star, a red fire, fires of fires within fires. But it’s alchemy, not wars. If you choose so. If we choose her higher calling, it is alchemy. Sometimes god is an iceberg. Sometimes god is a moth in the candle flame. And sometimes it is the wax itself.
So what hides inside the heart of the celestial scorpion?
An opportunity for purification. A purification portal. Mysteries, of voices and stories woven through the history of humanity from all parts and corners of our world. Also, fires of passion. Deep passions and feelings also are found here; so deep, it sometimes needs to freeze itself, because it may feel too out of the control if it allows itself to feel it all. But it is ocean inside it. Land of fires and ice, an opportunity for a deepening to become ocean; ocean of wisdom of both soil and heaven waves, speaking long lost languages.
When you choose to use fire properly, you may allow it to burn everything inside yourself which isn’t serving you anymore. On the other hand, if you choose the fires to lead you astray externally, to act of fear and separation, then eventually you’ll get burned or destroy things. Fire can serve you. It can be your spiritual ally. An inner transformation where the inner fires alchemize you. You can rise and reclaim your true inner power.
Fire is a powerful element, and if one learns how to master it, it becomes healer nor destruction; it feeds, it warms, it inspires, and it lights up. It nurtures people’s inner flames, it raises them, it lifts them up as encouragement and support. This is the power of fire. People who have fire in their charts are here to encourage others, to nurture their flames, to support them, raise them, lift them up.
As we walk the the mystical celestial wildlands of this part of the sky where Antares resides, and there are three things we find:
One, in Navajo cosmology, we find her reside in the heart of Átsé Etsoh, First Big One, who is depicted as the elder man, the one who holds the wisdom, contentment and stability within that comes with age.
Two, we find Antares’ connection to fire and oaths through the ancient Mesopotamian goddesses Lisin and Ishara, and the importance of purification and inner alchemy towards self knowledge.
And three, the mystery of the stag, and her association with hunter goddesses like Artemis; and through stone carvings and ancient myths, we find that perhaps this part of the sky was not a scorpion but rather a long lost stag constellation.
This piece continues into a deeper exploration.
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