Fixed Starstuff

“In a world turned upside-down, where everything was wrong, bizarre, you could at least look up at the sky and see normality. Stars that shone regardless of who won a civil war, or who should or should not be a president. Their light was billions of years old. They didn't have a care...”
― Alex Scarrow, The Eternal War

I don't, in general, take much notice of Fixed Stars, other than, maybe, noting whether Algol appears linked to a personal planet in a natal chart. Using Rob Tillett's article at Astrology on the Web, I once spent a while with a copy of my natal chart checking whether any planet or sensitive point coincided with the position of a Fixed Star. I then compared traditional interpretations with my own reality.

Some interesting results emerged. If passing readers haven't yet investigated in this way, I'd recommend taking a look at the linked article, especially if there's something you've always felt was missing from your chart, or something slightly out of tune in standard interpretations of it.

Examples of my own findings:

I've often chewed on the fact that hardly anyone in my age group is interested in astrology, even other Sun Aquarians. Now I find that Fixed Star Toliman (also called Bungula) at 29.36 Scorpio is conjunct my natal Mars at 28.54 Scorpio ("Occult & philosphical learning, self analysis, honours, stubborn, cruel") I guess one takes the good with the bad, stubborn I may be but cruel I'm not, even though I say it myself!

My natal Jupiter at 6.03 Pisces lay conjunct Deneb Adige and Sadalachbia 5.16 and 6.43 Pisces (includes "astrology, writing, the public, other goodies, and The Star of Hidden Things")

After moving to Oklahoma, USA from Britain my re-located ascendant became 22.32 Aquarius very close to Sadalsuud at 23.46 Aquarius ("Astrology").

Although astrology has always seemed like a part of me, it only "came out" in public when I moved to Oklahoma, putting Sadalsuud on the ascendant, which is said to be the "lens" through which a person sees and is seen.

I'm curious (as always) to know how and why the Fixed Stars were credited with representing the traits attributed to them. Perhaps ancient astrologers kept records of their clients' life stories and did some rudimentary research on the subject. Or perhaps the information was culled from some unknown source, handed down from an even more ancient set of astrologers. We'll never know.

In checking for significant Fixed Stars in a natal chart it's essential to know natal planets' signs and degrees. It's easy to find these by inputting birth data at astro.com. The natal chart is produced free of charge. If time of birth isn't known, it doesn't matter too much for this exercise. Position of personal planets will be accurate, apart from the Moon's position and the ascendant, so inserting 12 noon as time of birth will suffice.

Now - there is a problem with ancient interpretations - those of the Fixed Stars almost always are based on ancient texts. The words have to be watered down somewhat to fit the 21st century. We should take everything written about these stars with a large pinch of salt, because, as far as I know there has been no modern research to verify any of the ancient interpretations.

I suspect that ancient astrologers noted, and recorded, some of the most evident "effects" of these stars in the charts of a few individual, and possibly rich and powerful, clients, many centuries ago when life was very different. We cannot translate them exactly to fit 21st century life, but they could give us just a fleeting whisper or a very general flavour of a meaning.

The so-called "unfortunate" stars, for most of us, are no more unfortunate than the so-called "unfortunate" or malefic planets (Saturn, Mars) they, too, have their benefits.

As for Algol, I've written in archived posts that the star will appear prominently in millions of charts, but only a handful of people from those millions experience anything vaguely linked to its scary reputation.

I have read (in the linked article?) that aspects to other planets from Fixed Stars are usually not significant, very close conjunctions between Fixed Stars and a personal planet may be of interest in natal astrology. In mundane astrology, I'm not sure whether the same applies.

"All men have the stars, but they do not mean the same things for different people. For some they are guides, for others, no more than little lights in the sky. But all these are silent. You--you alone have the stars as no one else has them."
~ Antoine De Saint-Exupery

(More posts on fixed stars or on individual fixed stars are available by clicking on "fixed stars" in the Label Cloud in the sidebar.)