Singing with the Stars : The Heliacal Zodiac

“In the beginning was the …Word” Genesis 1:1

Walk with me for a while.

Let’s walk through time, back to a place free from the white noise of the city and the imprisoning glare of streetlights. A time when Nature’s voice sang openly and freely, in words that were understood, in a tone deep and rich, resonating with the sense of creation itself. Listen closely to that song. Can you hear other voices? Follow the whispering tones. Where does it lead you?

Looking up, what do you see beyond the sparkling light bobbing like buoys in the dark waters of the heavens? Are you sure that they are only white? With your eyes entrained on the celestial ceiling, can you see a kaleidoscope of colours? Can you hear the choir?

  Let those voices wash through you. What is emerging within your inner eye as you listen? What stories are you being shown? What images come to mind? Can you feel them animate and enliven you?

They seem alive, don’t they? Their song is more than a song. Breathe in that air. Feel how alive it is with the cadence carried the passagio of eternity, spun in the breath of angels. Your soul, long shrouded in shadow, blooms like a flower touched by dawn, drinking deeply of the divine harmony, alight, an ember fanned into a flame, kindled by the music of the heavens.

Just as the sky starts to wear the deepest of indigo with hues of violet and plum gently blooming at the edges, a star emerges from its celestial dive, making its first appearance after a long absence, before the tender prelude of mauve and lavender, ceding to blush coral, spreads upwards and the twinkling diamond is eclipsed by the golden saffron and honeyed amber awash the door where the Yellow One’s will enter.

Its voice, lost to the silence of the deep waters, returns from its invisible journey where it infused its wisdom to the One. Now clearly heard within the faint slate blue and soft and muted silvery greys, its shimmering light is reflected in its rich, expressive vibrato. Her light’s return is a murmuration that re-enlivens consciousness with a renewed timbre, her message having been muted for a while.

The golden light of dawn continues to spread across the land, and the warmth of the sun animates life. A different tone emerges. Louder, clearer, enchanting, every light beam droning a different note as Sol calls the world into being. Listen. Quietly, the choir’s tones soften as the music of the One intensifies. The light grows brighter and stronger within the stream of sound and Terra becomes more vibrant with its beauty.

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Sound, the force of creation, melody shaping the land, awakening all that lives, imbuing the world with a sense of awe, is clearly heard away from the hustle and bustle of urban life, a quality muted over the millennia as our predecessors stepped out of rhythm with all of the Lights, caving themselves in, and subjugating themselves under the Rule of Another.

Everything that exists can be stripped down to a waveform. From the hum of the morning traffic to the beating of your heart, the very fabric of reality vibrates at frequencies we often fail to notice. But delve deeper, and you’ll find that beneath every sound, sight, and sensation lies a rhythm, a pattern of energy that can be measured, understood, and even harnessed. This concept of the world as waves is not just a philosophical musing; it is the key to unlocking an understanding of everything from technology to human connection. Our ancestors recognised the power of these cycles, planetary orbital rhythms, the colours and tones of the stars and understood them as fundamental to the workings of the cosmos. Their world, their cultural and social framework was built as a reflection of what they experienced above them, remembering that sky and earth were not separate but part of a continuum, populated by beings of light, just as the earth was populated by peoples of body.

The stars moved in rhythm and harmony, along ‘waveforms’, emitting tones in the form of colour and sound, which are carried on waveforms, containing knowledge and opening up consciousness, as they were beings with an intelligence that seemed vaster than our own. They lived in a world teeming with consciousness, everything being experienced as alive and aware. Everything had meaning. You had to listen, and you had to communicate. Sound is at the very beginning of everything, and the stars were the Primer Movers, whose waveforms informed and guided life.

But alas, for some unknown reason and some unknown time, the Fall occurred, and separation happened. The sky, no longer numinous, became a place to mark time, to determine orientation and direction, to understand the decree of far-removed deities and to fear the dark. Its music muffled, its meaning warped and distorted; its rhythm left to manage and control; its source merely an inanimate nuclear energy at various different stages of life; whose existence and presence is merely random, serving only as a sense of wonder at the vastness of the universe and as a navigational tool for travellers; and whose messages have long since been reduced to omens of doom, pain and suffering,

The origins of our celestial craft is a remnant of a time when the tone of the stars was clearly heard; when entire civilisations were built in homage to their teaching and presence; and when they were not simply about navigation, marking time and defining fate.

Before the glorification of our closest star, Sol, along whose apparent path twelve divisions were constructed, astrology’s history was that of the stars. Whilst we are not privy to the true extent of our history through the destruction of parchments, tablets and entire civilisations whose knowledge was transmitted orally, we can only gleam our past through what was persevered and through the awareness and lens of those who can interpret. What we can gleam, however, is that all peoples on every continent had a relationship with the stars, grouping many into families due to their interconnectivity with each other, the language that they speak and the perspective that they have.

Cosmic State

Mesopotamian and Egyptian cultures were founded on the idea of an intrinsic unity between the heavens and the earth, where the celestial and terrestrial were seen as reflections of one another. These civilisations designed their cities as mirrors of the sky, embodying the alignment of their earthly spaces with celestial patterns maintained the natural and sacred balance of existence. Prior to the development of the zodiac, the stars, along with the planets, were the sources of wisdom and central to the development of astrology.

For example, ancient Egyptian organised their territorial into 42 divisions known as ‘nomes’. French archaeologist Georges Daressy proposed, in 1916, that the 22 nomes of Upper Egypt were aligned with specific constellations and planetary bodies and stars. Sopdet (Sirius) and Sah (Orion) were associated with the nomes of Per Medjed and Abydos, the former being of especial importance and not just because of its reappearance in August demarking a time that the Nile flooded, returning life giving waters to thirsty crops.

Heliacal Rising

Whilst many omens have been recorded on the tablets of the Enuma Anu Enlil, documenting the synchrony of terrestrial events with stellar and planetary phenomenon, it was the reappearance of specific stars that was the principle focus of astrological practice, many of which are brighter than the threshold keeper, Saturn. The rising before dawn of a star enabled its song once again being clearly heard, its wisdom having been imparted to our own star, lifting up our humanity beyond the myopic concerns of the everyday world.

Called heliacal rising, a star becomes visible in the eastern sky just before dawn having spent a period of time being obscured by the Sun. The most famous dawning is that of Sirius, who’s aligned with the Sun takes place on the 5^th of July each year, but who is seen over the Nile around the 8^th of August, the date and subsequent meaning, being stolen by the New Age community and wrongly termed Lion's Gate.

Why not a star-based system

If the dawn of a star, after a period of invisibility, was so significant to our predecessors, why, then, have we not got a star-based system of astrology, instead of several zodiacs?

Unlike a zodiac that is determined by a division of the path of the Sun against the backdrop of the Earth or the stars themselves, a concept that can be universally applied since the Earth rotates about the Sun on a regular and even manner, there are several challenges when it comes to crafting a uniform calendar based on the helical rising of a star presents.

The first obstacle lies in the elusive nature of the event itself - the moment a star emerges from the Sun’s veil can be difficult to pinpoint with absolute precision. The varying latitudes and geographical locations of different regions further complicate matters. A star's rising may occur at different times depending on one's position on Earth, as well as the star’s position relative to the ecliptic. Stars located well above or below the ecliptic plane, such as Altair, can still be visible during conjunctions, where they align with the Sun in celestial longitude. In contrast, stars that lie along the ecliptic, like those in the zodiac constellations, become obscured by the Sun during conjunctions and are therefore difficult or impossible to observe at that time.

This means that stars not located on the ecliptic plane may still be visible during their helical rising, even when in conjunction with the Sun, whereas stars on the ecliptic are hidden from view during their conjunction with the Sun and cannot be observed until they have moved sufficiently away from the Sun's glare.

So even though modern astrologers can apply a general rule of thumb and state that in terms of zodiacal longitude, a distance of between 10 and 13 degrees from the Sun, makes clearly visible a star. But that leads us to another issue – horoscopes do not always depict celestial reality as it is, something that the issue of declination and celestial latitude demonstrate.

However, from a stellar perspective, there are stars that are never visible from certain places on the Earth and stars that can never rise, since they are always visible. Whilst this has a very specific meaning for the people under which they are either constantly hearing the tone or never hearing clearly the song of certain stars, those stars cannot be included in a calendar of helical rising stars.

For example, in Ireland, Vega can never rise helically. Indeed, Vega was once considered to the pole star during the Age of Leo/ Virgo, due to its northerly elevation and the tilt of the Earth consistently aligning itself north for two and a half thousand years. Along with stars like Algol, Capulus and Capella who also never set at very high northerly latitudes, it means that those that live in those regions are consistently hearing the messages of those beings, and therefore their culture, worldview and perception of humanity are infused with those stars meaning.

Similarly, in the South Canopus, Achernar and Acrux are amongst the ever-present stars. It is in the middle latitudes, where our current model of astrology was defined, that the issue of the stars time in the underworld, dying as it becomes invisible to the eye, being re-conceived at its celestial conjunction with the Sun and birthing at its first visibility, was deemed important.

The interval of a star’s absence is a pause from its message, as it retreats from ear and eyeshot, focusing its energy on raising up our own Sun’s consciousness, before returning, refreshed and renewed to continue to raise up our energy.

Star-based ‘zodiac’

All stars have a voice and those with the brightest light seem to have the most noteworthy voices. Sirius is brighter than Saturn and those planets beyond Saturn’s orbit. In the same way that the signs of the zodiac have stories infused into our culture, so too have the stars. Just as the Leonian ‘season’ has its own tone, different to that of its neighbours Cancer and Virgo, so too have each star ‘season.’ Of course, their lyrics are not as familiar to us, given the dominance of Sol, our star’s, song, but that is one of the purposes of these articles – to remember their songs.

There are a number of ways to create a ‘zodiac’ based on the stars, two of which I will demonstrate in this article. The first table below outlines the time frames wherein the Sun conjoins stars with a magnitude greater than 2.5, meaning that it is very bright. This framework denotes the times when a star conjoins our star, the Sun, and this demarcates a time when the song of that star is eclipsed from our ears and is entirely focused upon shifting the consciousness of our Sun. Therefore, our Sun becomes infused with this star’s meaning.

What this means is that Rasalhague, in Centauris or Ophiuchus, is the star that can be heard through the Sun from the 12th of December through to the 5th of January (though the star Acumen conjoins the Sun on the 19th of December, so too Facies and Rukbat, but they are of lesser magnitude for this article), when Vega takes centre stage. The themes of those stars are infused into our Sun, and we can ‘hear’ those cadences being transmitted through our Sun, even if Vega in the North is never not visible, given her latitude and declination. Once you understand the meaning of those stars, you can start to hear more clearly those themes in the zeitgeist of our mundane and personal lives.

In the second table, you can see the times when a star helically rises at the latitude of 53 degrees North of the Earth’s equator, and this table gives direct homage to the ancient’s perspective of the star lore. Please note that the dates of rising and setting are variable, according to the way that they are calculated.

[1] These dates were generated with two differing programs – Alcyone software and from the web at https://barrycarter.github.io/pages/HELIACAL/

The limitation of basing a ‘zodiac’ from heliacal rising dates at high latitudes based on high magnitude stars is that there is a highly uneven distribution of dates over a solar year wherein the song of that star is clearly heard. You can see how ‘noisy’ the summer mornings are, with a densely packed choir rising to herald the day! What is more interesting the duration when stars are muted, and the length of time that they are singly loudly for all to hear. This same technique can be applied to any given latitude, and herein is the reason why this technique was not universally accepted, even if early calendars recorded the star’s heliacal rise.

The table below is the stars rise as seen from 38S, at Melbourne, Australia. Note the differences of stars always/ never seen, and the times of visibility or invisibility and how they vary. Whilst beyond the scope of this article to discuss, it means that certain star consciousness is not readily heard and accessed in certain regions of the world and to do so means that you will need to travel and spend time under a different night sky!

Finally, it is also possible to plot the stars that set just after the Sun, as that star heralds the tone of the night, a subject for another article.

That said, it is an ancient way of viewing the sky and one that adds a differing perspective on the tonality of our solar year. In the same way that Music is not expressed through language and reaches where language cannot go, so it is too with the stars. Our past astrology was experiential prior to the establishment of cities and settled life. With the advent of agriculture, our needs changed, and our ears heard the stars differently. Over time, our separation from Nature has resulted in astrology becoming an increasingly intellectual occupation, and the living sky, replete with her choir, has been muted, much in the same way that Uncle Andrew, in the Narnia chronicles, renders himself unable to hear Aslan’s, the Lion, music or speech. His deafness, mirrored in the history of Narnia, becomes widespread as all creatures cease to listen to or understand one another, highlighting how neglecting connection and communication leads to fragmentation and division.

So, walk with me, away from the busyness, and spend time under the night’s carpet, listening and hearing. The stars sing. Will you hear them?

[1] Heliacal stars dates were generated with two differing programs – Alcyone software and from the web at https://barrycarter.github.io/pages/HELIACAL/

Images by: Kamila Ami Lizis, Stellarium and open source.