Stellar Resources

Heliacal risings were particularly important in ancient astrology and folk magics, with accounts of their significance found in the earliest recorded star lores. The heliacal rise of a star occurs approximately once a year and is marked by the first day a star rises in the morning twilight when the Sun is far enough below the eastern horizon to make it visible.

The heliacal rise follows a period of invisibility that corresponds with the heliacal setting of the star. This period of invisibility was considered a span of time during which the star was said to travel through the underworld before being born anew.

I recently received an email from a client who is beginning to incorporate the Fixed Stars into their astrology practice and had a few questions about talismans. I realized that I'm so absorbed in the Stars—live and breathe them—that I sometimes forget it is still a niche within astrology. I thought I would share with you what I shared with them.

How to Choose a Fixed Star Talisman

Should I be looking for an aspect in my natal chart to a Star?

In my many years spent as a professional talismanic artist I have learnt that there is much more to talisman making than finding the right astrological election. It is not a race to the finish-line, or a crass game of catch and keep, but rather a slow and long courting ritual.

A dance of seduction.

For Millenia people have seduced the spirits with Art. Bodies writhed in dance, music made with mouths and hands, canvases caressed with wet loaded brushes, paper feverishly scratched with poetry. These are just some of the many ways for Art is multifarious.

The ways of the jewellery talisman maker are the ways of the Smith and the Sculptor.

Exploring the mythological depths of Fomalhaut + ideas for Poesis & Praxis.

Fomalhaut is projected onto the ecliptic at 4 degrees & 10 minutes Pisces. It is one of the four Royal Stars, known as the watchers of the heavens, and is associated with the Archangel Gabriel. According to Ptolomy,  Fomalhaut is fortunate and powerful and has the potential to influence a “shift from material to a spiritual form of expression”. As the most esoteric in nature of the Royal Stars, this blue hued stellar being is more readily accessible to the dreamer who traverses labyrinthine paths into hidden and obscured depths, than to the waking world and therefore, I propose we seek to gain an understanding of the nature of Fomalhaut via symbols, myth, and the poetic. 

On the 22nd of May 2022 at 6:28am AEST Mercury in retrograde will be applying within one degree to the ascendant and forming a near exact (within 4 minutes) conjunction with the Sun. Mercury is at 0 degrees Gemini, which places him powerfully in his own bounds, triplicity, and domicile where he is crafty.

Retrograde Mercury is a psychopomp making his pilgrimage through the underworld and when he reaches the Sun, within 17 minutes (or 1 degree) orb it is called Cazimi, an Arabic word that translates as “being in the heart of the Sun.” This is a period when a planet is fortified and made strong by the Sun’s forge, born anew within his fiery rays.