It may be hard to imagine a more visually beautiful image in folk tales and lore than the swan maidens. With their majestic wings they move, dance and swoop down from the sky to glide most elegantly across the clear ponds and lakes. And then magically they change their appearance by the light of the moon; taking off their white feathered dresses, to bathe in the waters as women. They are always beautiful, perfectly blending innocent charm with alluring sensuality.
In our starry skies we too have a beautiful swan gliding across the watery section of the heavens known to the ancients as the Sea. The Cygnus constellation is depicted as a Swan, with her brightest fixed star Deneb Adige, found at the tail of the swan.
Deneb comes from the Arabic dhanab, meaning tail; and we find a few other tail stars in our sky, such as the Behenian star Deneb Algedi, the tail of the sea goat, and the star Deneb Kaitos, the tail of the whale. To differentiate, Deneb Adige is most often just referred to as Deneb. In the Tropical zodiac, Deneb is currently found around the fifth degree of Pisces, and in twenty years from now, she’ll be around the sixth degree of Pisces.
Deneb is mostly associated with creativity and spirituality, and she is known of being of the nature of Venus and Mercury, thereby giving “ingenious nature and a clever intellect that is quick at learning” according to Vivian Robeson in The Fixed Stars and their Constellations in Astrology. Robeson also speaks of how she often gives natives a “contemplative, dreamy, cultured and adaptable nature”. In this part of the sky there is also love for water, swimming and the arts.
In Ojibwe cosmology, the stars of Cygnus form the constellation Ajiijaak, the crane. The crane is one of the leaders in the Ojibwe clan system; crane and loon lead the people to stay strong. This constellation is overhead a few hours after sunset in the summertime. Cranes can grow almost as tall as a person, with their wingspans being longer than most people. It is one of the tallest birds in the world and can fly very high.
The Summer Triangle, created between Deneb in the Cygnus constellation, Vega in the Lyre constellation and Altair in the Aquila constellation.
The Swan flies with wings outstretched along the Milky Way towards the Northern pole. Deneb, along with the bright Altair from the eagle constellation Aquila, and the Vega, the harp star from the Lyre constellation, create our beautiful Summer Triangle, which shines brightly in our Northern summer skies.
With the musical harp, in this part of the sky music moves us with the wings of both the swan and eagle. Music moves our unique songs of souls. Whenever I see these stars, I always think of my time in Positano in summer. There is a legend there that if you are at the beach at night, with someone with whom you share a true soul love, you’ll both be able to hear the love songs of the sirens from the depths of the sea. Surely, when we are in love we do hear music everywhere, everything becomes beautiful, we become a dance itself.
Dance has always been an important part of my life since childhood. As dancers we dance until we become the dance itself. It’s an art of surrender.
We empty ourselves of everything, so that we become moved entirely and wholebodily by the music that enters us; by the emotions conjured, we become a vessel for something to move through us and that we give it form through our movement.
And it feels weightless. Weightlessly surrendered we become a becoming to love, to music, to feeling. We give it our body. Not as sacrifice, but as an offering – because it’s the sweetest pleasure to offer ourselves as a bride to the dance.
And then we become a creation as we create of our whole body. We create through our movements various nuances, emotions, experiences, stirrings within the soul of the watcher and the witnesses.
In this part of the sky are sometimes hidden things, soul things, things felt not necessarily always seen with our physical eyes. Roman astrologer, Manilius, wrote,
“In its own person, the Swan hides a god and the voice belonging to it; it is more than a bird and mutters to itself within.”
“Swans” by Gennardy Spirin. All rights reserved to the artist.
“Crane Wife” by Cheryl Kirk Noll. All rights reserved to the artist.
Swans are mystical creatures indeed. Shape shifters. In alchemy, their element is arsenic, because it can change its physical appearance. We find tales and folk lore of swan maidens and crane wives from across many cultures throughout humanity. I’ve written about them in depth in my essay Into the Wild, with the Swan Maidens.
In most traditional swan maiden tales, we usually see a narrative in which a man, perhaps a hunter or prince, comes across the magical lake or pond where a swan maiden bathes in her human skin. He falls in love at first sight, and completely smitten, out of the desire to capture this magical creature for himself, he usually steals her feathery dress, so that she may marry him.
The swan maiden has no other choice than to follow the man, because she seeks her wild dress, it is part of her; so she follows him and abides, hoping to be close to her identity and dress. Until she is able to find it, often hidden in boxes or closets inside his home, she will never be able to return to her home, the wild nature. In some narratives, she does grow to love him back, but in most, their union cannot possibly be sustained.
What happens when love is captured? No matter how compliant the swan maiden may be as human wife, there may be unspoken tensions in the marriage. The husband cannot ever be truly certain of her affection or if she loves him, because in a way, she is a captive – a choice to be with him not of her genuine emotion but because of stolen dress or stolen skin.
He may offer her his cloak to keep her warm in our human world, but it is not the same as her wild dress – which is her home, a symbol of her true inner nature, her wild nature, her freedom. In a way, she may even lose her identity.
The thing that attracted him to her in the first place – which was her true self and identity, the sparkle of her wild nature – was stolen by him in the first place; and now, as the years go by, she is not who she was, only a pale version of her original magical self.
Swan maiden stories often remind us that a marriage cannot exist too long in a fractured form. If two lovers cannot reconcile their different worlds, while still honouring and respecting their unique inner natures and true selves, the marriage will dissolve.
I’ve often seen natives with this star prominent in their charts feel like they’ve been living a life not theirs; where they felt they were married to someone who didn’t truly see them nor understand them, like they always sacrificed themselves for others, like they lived a life of loneliness inside of themselves, and they never quite knew who they were in their true essence.
Many of my clients with Deneb, especially on their Ascendants, share how just like the swan maidens, they have felt they’ve been living a faint version of themselves, stuck in marriages where they feel emptiness, or even when they create they still feel like it’s not as free as they desire; they often feel misunderstood and unseen by others, and like they can’t quite be themselves.
Often times they have felt like somewhere along the way they abandoned their inner truth and don’t feel a sense of belonging where they are, or like they can’t quite express their voice and authentic creative self. While they often live in wealth and even luxury, they feel a sense of emptiness inside, and a deep longing to be in nature, to feel free, but it’s hard for them to say yes to themselves, a deep yes on a soul level, to do what they need to do and make the choices they need to make.
In ancient times, Cygnus was known as “the Bird”, and it wasn’t specific to what bird, though there were many associations to this constellation such as with hens, pigeons and eagles. Much of our current understanding of the star appears to come from Roman mythology where the celestial swan was placed there by Jupiter, relating to the myth of Leda and Zeus.
In Greek myth, to seduce Leda, the queen of Sparta, Zeus (who in Roman myth is Jupiter) transformed into a beautiful white swan. That same night, she also slept with her husband, Tyndareus, the King of Sparta. In some versions of the myth, she laid two eggs that produced four offsprings; one, fathered by Zeus, gives birth to Helen of Troy and Pollux, one of the Gemini twins seen in the Gemini constellation; and from the other egg, fathered by Tyndareus, are birthed the other Gemini twin Castor, as well as Clytemnestra.
In other beliefs, the swan is said to represent the spirit of Orpheus, who after death transformed into a swan; and as a celestial swan, he was then placed next to his favourite Lyre, the harp with which he played the most beautiful music, which essentially in our sky is the Lyre constellation next to Cygnus, representing Orpheus’ musical lyre. Like the Lyre, Ptolemy then gave the stars of Cygnus a nature like Venus and Mercury.
Roman astrologer Manilius attributed to Cygnus a special affinity with all feathered creatures, claiming its natives will may often work with, trade or capture birds. He claimed that from the Cygnus constellation shall flow a thousand human skills.
English astrologer William Lilly called Deneb Adige “Cauda Cygni” and said it makes a man ingenious, and apt to any learning or knowledge, a comment believed to stem from Manilius’s claim about the thousand human skills flowing from this part of the sky.
The Ancient Egyptians viewed Deneb as “the exit of the birth canal of Nut, the great starry sky goddess” who cyclically rebirthed the sun. Deneb wraps you in her celestial wings and leads you into the deeper explorations of the imaginal realms, and your own inner wildlands also. Just as the sun is born anew into its fulness of illumination through the birth river canal of Nut, so you too may have an opportunity for illumination on your path through your growing awareness and your spiritual maturity.
Swans are of both water and sky, both celestial and earthly fae realms. Theirs are the worlds of grace, of wildness. The wild places. The ones we enter to find something inside of us, for a new insight to emerge that would enrich our path of self knowledge. A swan leads us into stars and then into the earth again, into the soil, into our ability to bring spirit into matter, and make emotions into form, shape love through our gestures, words and hands also.
And there are so many speeds and movements of love, various shapes and forms. Laughter, compassion, gentleness, kindness, patience, non judgment, forgiveness, creativity, playfulness, are ways love unfolds through us. And just like art too – dance, poetry, music, all these are our human attempts to shape and form emotions and the nuances of human experiences. Messages revealed through both spoken and unspoken languages, through metaphors and dreams and sound and lyrics.
The swan maiden, hers is the world of gently bending colours. Braids of wishes, dreams and dresses; waters and skies, turquoise and whites and goldens and all in between as the shines lights various angles to reveal new shades and new nuances.
Hers is the world beyond senses, symphonies of the heart. Hers is a world of mirrors and reflections, in lakes and eyes of hunters and dreamers.
Hers is the world of the wild; the rich woodlands, the mystical lakes, the rivers and waters on our naked bathing skins, the soil in our feet, our wet flesh glistening and our allowing for the wild winds to dry us, and then take us again on their loving wings.
Hers is the world of bendings and blendings, of shape shifting, and songs of soul, languages tied in ancient ropes and starry threads, even before word was human made. Of mysticism, of secrets, of feminine voices from times before times beyond times – beyond the linearity of our human minds. So in her lands, we may not reach by linearity – here it is our other senses that guide us and move us.
“The swan hides a god, and the voice belonging to it.”
I’ve always loved that phrase about Deneb and Cygnus, because when I look at the sky I see the interconnection of all and everything. Many of our constellations are named after great heroes or Roman gods, but we also have many animals, and even man made objects such as the harp, the crown and navigational or astronomical measuring instruments like the sextant.
Everything is held within the heavens, just as everything is held here. These constellations aren’t stories outside of us, or only relevant if you have a planet conjunct it – we need to mature out of these limited interpretations. It’s deeper than this. There are constellations within us, stories and worlds; and we hold all constellations within us, and all earth within us, all nature and wildlife, and all people, and all are God’s children also.
All here is moved with spirit and is part of the divine with consciousness moving through it. Spirit flows through everything. What is a dress, what is a wooden table, what is a canvas if not touches by human hands, infused with emotions, experiences, movements.
It’s a reminder to keep respect towards all in our world, no matter whether small or big, speaking in a human language or a little animal. How we treat nature is a reflection of how we treat humans; how we treat an animal is a reflection of how we treat humans. How we treat and approach our external world, and every single thing and animal, is a direct extension of our own relationship to our inner self and all of our various inner landscapes and aspects.
It is also a reminder of the way of approach. Because with the right approach, a word reveals itself as a world; with kindness of approach, a world may open as kindness also. But if we approach something or someone through judgment or separation, how could it be able to open itself to us, how could we even truly see it if it does.
Within each person is their inner temple of god; for some it may be sleeping, for others it may awakened, but nonetheless, we are here to nurture flames and shine our light upon others, to intend grace.
Inside the swan is her voice. Perhaps not always heard by all, nor understood by all, but we all have a voice, a true self, a divine inspiration that sometimes aligns to our song of soul and moves us as artists of life.
Everything is art. Love is art, life is art, mystics are lovers, and lovers are artists. We understand our power as co-creators, and when we embody love through our hands, lips and gestures, we become it. Love is not air, nor fantasy in the sky; love is meant to be embodied, and it is us who give it shape and form every day in our seemingly ordinary gestures and words.
If we can truly understand that inside of us lives a divine nature, a divine connection, a sacredness to be honoured and respected, we will be less likely to hurt others. If we can truly understand that if we take all the water from someone only for ourselves, eventually all the land will dry and we too will suffer, we will understand that all in life is interconnected.
If we can truly understand that life is interconnected, we deepen into intimacy with the entire world and everything around; and we enter not just the temple inside, we are inside the dome itself, in the center of our heart, anchored in the ancient truth that all is of one. And it is only ever love.
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Cover art is “Swan Maidens” by Walter Crane, 1894, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
