Nighttime comes calling on me
I know why I'll never be free
I can't stop these teardrops of mine
I'm gonna love him till the end of time
Nina Simone, Alphecca culminating and in paran to Mercury
Manifest it I finessed it
Take my pen and write some love letters to Heaven
…
Just like magic I'm attractive
I get everything I want 'cause I attract it
Ariana Grande, Alphecca heliacal setting and in paran to Saturn
And never will I wed
I'll hunt the pearl of death to the bottom of my life
And ever hold my breath 'til I may be the diver's wife
See how the infinite divides
…
You don't know my name
But I know yours
Joanna Newsom, Alphecca culminating
Lately I’ve been thinking about my ex. In a tender way. A hurt way. The usual way. I’ve built whole worlds to these feelings and even as my life moves farther away from his place and time, I am not always a person above the hurt. Before that ex, I would listen to Joanna Newsom’s “Divers” in library basements and monastery grounds and think about the one before him if only because “I don't know if you loved me most/But you loved me last”. Isn’t that how it goes, stuck on the most recent thwarted desire, more so when listening to a sad song and need to remember.
Beginning Again
Ariadne, too, is hung up on an ex, or else why would Alphecca have sadness mixed in with its celestial splendor? A celebratory garland given to the young maiden by Aphrodite, this bright white star in the Northern Crown is a wedding present: Ariadne is to marry Dionysus, but not before she is left by the man she loved enough to help kill her own kin. Theseus, tasked with facing the Minotaur in her father’s labyrinth, receives the help of Ariadne in the form of a thread. She helps him because she has fallen in love only from sight. When he kills the beast in the maze, she betrays her country and her family when she follows him. He leaves her on an island called Naxos. Why he did so is a mystery because this isn’t his story.
Brady, accordingly, tells us that this star— Ariadne means “most pure”— “offered a change in…social status or community standing”
This advancement is not one gained through hard work but rather through love or luck. This gift or possible advancement should be considered very carefully, as the star implies that the person may have to go through a dark or heavy period as a result” (Brady, emphasis mine)
This is the star of the person who must live with receiving their heart’s desire. The prince hunting all over town to find the one foot that fit the glass slipper. Sleeping Beauty awoken by true love’s kiss. But life continues where the story prefers to end. The fairytale wedding turns into tedium, further entanglement, or worse, if you let love alone rule. There’s a reason this star is said to bring “lassitude and disillusionment,” in addition to “[bringing] its natives to a position of command”. Being of the nature of Venus, this star can attract the fairytales and bonds that can lift them up, figuratively and literally. Being also of the nature of Mercury, it finds whatever route necessary to lead their thread to the center of the labyrinth. Agrippa tells us an Alphecca talisman “bestoweth the good will and love of men, and giveth chastity”. In other words, Alphecca helps you be the “wifey type,” as Alphecca native Ariana Grande puts it, or one of virtue, as well as getting noble individuals to notice. But when hard work is not needed, as Brady mentions above, there can also be a dependence on the person or situation that whisks you away.
But can the Alphecca native choose? I have seen Alphecca natives struggle with friendships and relationships because this star imparts less agency than we may expect. Like the Ariana epigraph above, Alphecca natives do well with attraction magic and cultivating glamour— but ultimately, they function receptively. That is one way Alphecca receives blessings— influential individuals who wish to support and cherish them. But there is often little Alphecca natives can do if the other is no longer interested.
Ariadne certainly didn’t have a choice with Theseus, at least after the initial plunge, if you can find agency in the beginning thrust of desire. She also didn’t choose to have a god to descend upon her lonely island. Not long after her abandonment, Dionysus visits Naxos to make Ariadne his wife. Some even say he came to Theseus in a dream, warning the mortal off his pre-destined bride. Others say he put a hex on Theseus to forget his promise to the spinner. Regardless, Ariadne’s loss has turned into an even bigger gain and we finally witness the entrance of the crown of which Alphecca is a part. Aphrodite gives a garland to the bride-to-be on her wedding day and the end of the story is reached: lifelong bondage, but the kind that strengthens and blesses.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Recent Bedroom to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.