Thursday, November 20, 2014

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.)

7 comments:

Sonny G said...



Good Morning.

I dont want to be a pest but in order to learn from many of your posts , I need to ask questions.

I will go to astro.com as you suggested and get another chart.
Then, am I to look on that chart and also look at the other site to see if I have what you spoke of?
I'll have to go back and read it again. The other site you posted- will it be on there?
thanks ,, I appreciate your help..

Twilight said...

Sonny ~ Good morning!

If you already have your natal chart saved from any reputable website, you can use your natal planet degrees from that - otherwise the astro.com site offers, as well as the chart drawing, a little list of the planets' positions. Easy way is to screen capture that list, save it into your pictures file - or even write out on a piece of paper the degree and sign positions of your planets, then look at the list of Fixed Stars in the link in my post or there's another decent list at Linda Goodman's website

http://www.linda-goodman.com/ubb/Forum24/HTML/001123.html

If any of your planets or your ascendant degree are within a degree of so of the Fixed Stars make a note. Depending on one's year of birth the Fixed stars might be a degree or some minutes different from the position given which is often for 2000 or later. Once you pinpoint any that seem close to a planet in your chart, you can check the actual position of that star at the time of your birth. Probably not going to be a lot of difference but worth checking.

If this isn't clear, do ask again!

mike said...

Well, as we often discuss, there are SO MANY possible variables in astrology. The fixed stars, however, have been around since the beginning of astrology, unlike the asteroids or other newer concepts. The standard deck of 52 playing cards can be arranged 8 X 10^67, or 8 followed by 67 zeroes [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLIvwtIuC3Y ]! There are more possible variables in astrology than the 52 cards, which makes each birth a truly one-of-a-kind individual.

Much of the knowledge of our natural world was often provided by a shaman, who in turn received that knowledge while in a spiritual quest, often convening with "other worlds". In particular, the Egyptians saw some fixed stars as the home of their souls, source of life, and some stars had significance as enemies and-or ill-fortune. Most ancient cultures describe some form of influence from outer space, with some telling of ancient battles with aliens and space ships.

It's interesting to note that the newer physics accepts that our universe is electrical rather than gravitational. The physical aggregates that we call planets and stars are simply conjunctions of electrical fields that merge in such a way as to attract matter (electrical vortices) and that there is no point in our universe that does not influence the balance of the universe...it's all one [ https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/ ].

I've dabbled in many divergent astrological concepts and find interest in most all of them, but after so much, it's like packing fifty suitcases for a trip to the other side of town...too much to maintain in my simple brain. Of course, I pick-and-choose my interests and those can vary over time. What I found unnecessary a decade ago is now considered and other concepts have been trashed. It's up to the vagaries of my fickle interests...flavor of the moment.

Twilight said...

mike ~ On this we do agree. Astrology has so many nooks and crannies into which one can peer if the feeling arises. No astrologer could possibly incorporate all there is - nor would they, if using everything, obtain a very good or even intelligible result.

I too prefer to stick to the tried and true simple basics, but sometimes will delve into things which, for some reason, appeal to me a wee bit - decans, duads, Fixed Stars, chart shapes. There are other things which automatically cause me to "smell a rat" - and I don't know why. Most will disagree with me, I know : midpoints, progressions, directions, and suchlike don't feel right to me.

Some Native American tribes have a tradition that their ancestors came "from the stars" too - I bought a book relating to that a few years ago "Star Ancestors".

From whence Fixed Star and other astrological lore came, originally, is one of those mysteries without a solution, but ripe for lots of interesting conjecture. I quite like the one from the Book of Enoch about the Fallen Angels and the one who taught humans astrology -

Baraqel (Baraqiel) taught men astrology.

http://www.fallenangels-ckquarterman.com/watchers-and-grigori/

Unknown said...

Not sure I should have taken a look at Rob Tilletts article...lol

With Mars slap bang on top of Algol, and my Sun on top of Dorsum which is the unfortunate Wheel of Fortune, with bites from venomous creatures, I almost gave up and had another mug of tea. But managed to recover with Venus on Fomalhaut.

There are so many fixed stars that nearly every one of my planets was within 1 degree of a fixed star which I guess may be the same for most of us. Most were fortunate, thank goodness.

BTW, I commented on James's post at his blog on astrology and noted your comments about Aquarius of which I am also one as you know. I did his natal chart for him a couple of years ago and have listed some of his 'qualities', with his approval I have to say.

Unknown said...

I will have to correct my comment about the number of fixed stars in most people's charts. Just ran the list alongside James's chart and had more misses than hits. I had more than 10 hits so am now giving up trying to understand any of it, as my brain hurts....for now!

Twilight said...

Rossa ~ With lots of Fixed Star conjunctions in your natal chart, maybe it means you are naturally well-connected to the universe and its doings, for good (preferably) or ill (only occasionally). :-)

Thanks for the extra info on James. I've been back and commented again at his blog.

Astrology can bring on brain-pain quite easily, it goes well with a nice glass of....whatever's handy at the time! ;-)