Divine Chaos: On the Fixed Star Rigel

Taking a look under the Pharoah's Foot

The process of learning is, essentially, one of order. But first, there must be chaos. One must plunge into the unknown to make it known, lest our desire for truth boxes us in; but one also risks destabilizing one’s established truths. This push and pull between order and chaos is at the core of Rigel, fixed star in Orion’s foot. As someone with this star in paran to my chart, I could understand Brady’s characterization of this star as one of learning, teaching and divine order. But I knew there was more to this star than simple pedagogy. The more I delved into its history and symbolism, I saw that, in order to find the truth they are seeking, Rigel natives must plunge into the chaos of the world. I also saw that Rigel natives are particularly equipped to handle this chaos without being lost to it, due in part to its relationship to the divine. If you want to see how all these meanings coalesce into this one star, read on.

The Millstone and the Whirlpool

As myth tells us, the nature of our world is of an order out of whack. According to Martin Bugerin, the Ancients came to this conclusion because of the irregular rotation of the Earth. They viewed this celestial turning “as the entire cosmos rotating about our heads, much like the rotating millstones used to grind grain”. The center of the mill was the north pole itself, “the creative center that represented divine power: These cosmic millstones were not only a symbol of regularity and order in the universe, but were revered as the mills that ground out the fates of men and gods”. The very nature of this millstone is ordered, logical, but it sees the divine in this cosmic turning, deciding the fate of the mortals and immortals. As it went beyond the scope of the gods themselves, they, too, were powerless to stop this millstone from eventually being destroyed.

Because though we may wish it were so, the earth does not rotate evenly. Stars that were polar, or never set, for thousands of years slip below the horizon due to the wobble in the earth’s rotation.

This irregularity was enough to spell catastrophe. There are many myths and stories about how the cosmic millstone became broken or fell into the ocean of stars, but its destruction also made room for another key symbol: the whirlpool.

The former pole star, or a star that was always visible at night, lost its status when it dipped below the horizon for the first time, or, as the ancients saw it, fell into the whirlpool. According to Gary David, this watery tumult signifies “an interdimensional portal, the transition between worlds, or a gateway between one reality and another”. Bernadette Brady sees Zeus’s banging on the table as what caused the millstone to fall, and subsequently, it represented a shift in divine order from the Titans to the Olympians.

And though, technically, this cosmic whirlpool is not a place but the phenomenon of precession, the Greeks still deified this whirlpool by locating it in the night sky, more specifically at the foot of Orion, where the star Rigel is located.

I find it important to understand all of this background information because the current understanding of this fixed star in astrology tends to leave the whirlpool out. Much of its current significations has to do with the star’s propensity for wisdom, order, and teaching. Brady mentions that “[i]f Rigel effects your chart it poses no problems for you, but it does indicate the desire to learn or to teach, to bring knowledge to others”.

So somehow, Rigel is about divine hierarchy, and knowledge while also being “the point which ‘slipped’ into the great starry ocean”.

Together we will understand how chaos and order, humility and wisdom, millstone and whirlpool fit together.