“It is blasphemy to separate oneself from the earth and look down on it like a god. It is more than blasphemy; it is dangerous. We can never be gods, after all—but we can become something less than human with frightening ease.”1
-N.K. Jemisin
Today’s newsletter is a deep dive on the fixed star Alphard, found in the heart of the Hydra constellation. You don’t need to have much technical knowledge of astrology to appreciate the stars. We have been writing stories and praying to them since we have been looking up. This essay is meant to help readers connect more deeply to these divine messengers and better understand ourselves. If you want to know if Alphard touches your chart, see if you have any planets or significant placements within 2º of 27º Leo. Even if not, you have so much to learn from this fierce, transformative star.
If you want to learn more about how the stars touch and guide your beautiful life, and what your soul is asking of you, book a fixed star reading with me ⭐. You have to feel the magic of the stars yourself to believe it.
Consider the Serpent
Why are so many people afraid of snakes? Some theorize that as many as one half of the population feels unease around the slithering reptiles. Many are poisonous, sure, with long, menacing teeth, but they are not usually aggressive with humans. Most would rather not waste their venom on a large creature who would run away; snakes are timid around people and avoid our presence. Some venture we have been taught by our parents or the mechanism of evolution itself— that those who avoided dangerous animals long ago were more likely to produce offspring, create lineages.2 The question of whether the fear of snakes is inborn, some primordial vestige of a past threat, or that the danger is passed on like an immutable truth, doesn’t change the primary message being taught: snakes are dangerous and not to be trusted.
But even the original serpentine foe of the Christian tradition, Satan, disguised as a reptile to infiltrate Paradise, did not bite. As Genesis tells us, God forbade the first humans from eating any of the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, lest they be dispelled from Eden. Satan, who appears as a lizard, convinces Eve to take a bite anyway. This act compels Gods to cut off his leg and turn him into a writhing serpent. The snake in this story is the taboo, what we are not supposed to want but secretly desire. To indulge this impulse had a host of consequences, not the least being the emergence of the Christian Savior and the possibility of salvation— certainly necessary events in Christian cosmology. Even when I was young I was confused by this condition for living in Paradise: why name the forbidden tree after a useful skill? I fancied it a positive thing to know right from wrong, even if such duality has its limits. Moreover, why did he place a tree full of tantalizing fruit in the Garden in the first place?
Negative connotations aside, we can safely say that Snakes hold quite a bit of power in our imaginations. This dance of might with fear; the strange; the taboo, all come together with the star Alphard, an orange star in the neck of the Watersnake, or Hydra.3 Hydra is the largest constellation in the sky, spanning 95º between Cancer and Scorpio. Throughout history and culture, this winding collection of stars has almost always been some form of serpent.
According to the Dictionary of Symbols, snakes have long been “symbolic of energy itself—of force pure and simple; hence its ambivalence and multivalencies”.4 We see this entwined duality clearly in the use of snake venom to cure the very sickness that venom can cause: poison becomes cure. The symbolism of Alphard is similarly one of power that can be used a wide range of ways, though not without struggle.
Wisdom and Passion
Ptolemy tells us this star is of the nature of Venus and Saturn, reflecting the contrasting qualities Robson assigns to this star: “It gives wisdom, musical and artistic appreciation, knowledge of human nature, strong passions, lack of self control, immorality, revolting deeds and a sudden death by drowning, poison or asphyxiation”.5 Anonymous 379 calls all Venus-Saturn stars "fortunate, with many possessions, and most notable, but passionate, foul-doers, or effeminate in speech".6
Both accounts of Alphard emphasize passion, a certain measure of creativity and good fortune, as well as the potential to descend into foul deeds without proper self control. Alphard natives must acknowledge the stores of raw power they contain while also not descending into reactive use of it, for they have access to the power of earth and creation itself. Juan Eduard Cirlot points out the connection with serpents and "the primordial—the most primitive strata of life,” as “the reptiles are the first to acclaim Ra when he appears above the surface of the waters of Nou”.7 In Hinduism, the creation god Shiva reclines on the back of Shesha, a naga, or snake god, who was said to have helped birth the creation of the universe. He is sometimes referred to as "Ananta," meaning with a beginning but with no end.8 Reality as such did not always exist, but its force of life will continue on. The name "Shesha," means "remainder," or "he who remains"— though it may be spent for a moment, the energy of Alphard is unending.
This serpentine power is often featured in acts of both creation and destruction. Earthquakes were said to be caused by the movement of Shesha. According to Chinese myth, we are all descendants of a snake goddess, Mat Chinoi, "who received the souls of the dead in her belly and then gave birth to new life".9 The Euphrateans called the Hydra constellation "the Source of the Power of the Great Deep".10 So while great power is present, so is great age, and a deep connection to the rhythms of the earth and creation.
Bernadette Brady tells us “the Heart of the Serpent manifests in violent, untamed, emotional outbursts,” but this power is not necessarily malefic.11 It is just powerful, bigger than the individual connected to this star, and thus takes skill and maturity— as well as a consciousness of what we are trying to hide within ourselves— to harness constructively. It also takes some digging.
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