The Royal Stars of Persia (Part Four): Fomalhaut

Once known as Haftorang, the fixed star known as Fomalhaut is known to many as ‘the star of dreams.’

There’s just one thing you should know…that’s a little bit misleading. Yes, Fomalhaut represents our fondest, most longed for dreams coming true. But to get there…?

To understand what the issues are here, let’s start with Fomalhaut being the most brilliant star in the constellation we know as Pisces. As a zodiac sign, Pisces often gets a bad rap – I’ve heard Pisces called everything from “the trash can of the zodiac” to “the distance by which we fail our own expectations.”

Frankly, I’m thinking that whoever said that had some issues with their emotions. Notice that I didn’t say emotional problems…that’s more like saying someone’s neurotic or unstable. And that’s not the point. What I’m getting at is that because Pisces is all about owning our emotions, the fact that everyone has emotions and that emotions are a healthy and necessary part of life, that suggests that the folks who came up with those labels…well,…maybe they aren’t so friendly about the whole ‘feeling thing’?

There are twelve signs in the zodiac. There are also four ‘elements’: air, earth, fire and water. That means that there are three signs in each element.

The first sign of every element is that element at it’s most basic (Aries/fire, Taurus/earth, Gemini/air, Cancer/water). These are the signs through which we learn what it means to have a life (Aries) to be sustained in that life (Taurus), to think (or not to think!)(Gemini), and to be connected to your family and other people (Cancer).

The second sign in each element is the interactive phase. Leo is interactive fire – we’re learn that others exist. Virgo is interactive earth – we learn build our own life through working with others. Libra is interactive air – finding where we agree, disagree and maybe can or can’t put up with the differences. Scorpio is interactive emotionalism: everything which can provoke our emotional reactions which we don’t do by ourselves or through which we connect to others is Scorpio.

The third set of signs are universal, public and global. Sagittarius is universal fire – envisioning how things could work and finding out how to make them work, bringing things into being.

Capricorn is global earth: commerce, societal transactions and traditional methods of operating, social standing. Aquarius is the universal air sign in which we learn which groups we want to belong to, which we fit into and what it takes to be appreciated out there in the world.

Then there’s Pisces. Pisces is universal emotions. It’s all that we have in common with each other as human beings. It’s what we wish we were and what we don’t like (even loathe) about ourselves. It’s instinct and the ability to connect and ‘know’ without speaking. It’s the emotion of fantasy, the grief of loss, the anguish of betrayal, the ecstasy of reverence, belief, awe and success.

 

 The image of the Pisces symbol in stained

glass at France's famous Chartres Cathedral

 

Pisces rips away that 'barrier’ that ‘holding emotions in check’ we all think is so important.

So Pisces is the sign of dreams – among other things. But all things Piscean, including those dreams…? They require that we bare ourselves to all that can be felt.

Into all this comes the lore of the Royal Stars: success can be yours if you avoid one PARTICULAR human trait.

In Fomalhaut’s case, that ‘trait’ is corruption. By ‘corrupt’ we mean a dream which is ethical and moral, a dream which doesn’t have you succeeding at cost to others. It’s the quality of Pisces as a universal sign which makes it so important that your dream be ‘universally’ acceptable. In one of the interactive signs, the question would limited to just you and whoever you were dealing with – your lover, your boss, your bank, your project. But when you get to the third sign of every element, somehow the questions isn’t limited. Even if it’s a secret and only two people know that secret, there’s a universal level of ‘acceptability’ which is involved.

The zodiac is congruent…one sign leads to the next. So Pisces inherits the question of ‘acceptability’ from Aquarius - as Aquarius has inherited from Capricorn and so on and so on.

Maybe this means Pisces is difficult because it’s the accumulation of everything in the zodiac? Maybe that’s what was meant by ‘trash can’?

(Hmmm…still not nice though. Of course, I am a Pisces.)

Pisces or no, I’ll go more with the notion of my Sun sign as the spiritualist or mentor, as inspiration, disappointment, illusion, disillusionment, compassion, abandonment…any sort of emotion or framework which results from emotional challenge. Let’s face it, emotions are hard for everybody and when it comes to what you long for, most of us would tend to say ‘hey, I didn’t PLAN on falling in love with that – it’ just happened!’

Why it happened? That’s the Pisces question – and not everybody wants to go there.

And when we don’t…? Then it’s likely that the reason we don’t is because we have some internal feeling (instinct? fear?) that there is something ‘wrong’ with what we want.

Then…into all this comes Fomalhaut, Royal Star of Persia. The dream of success or the success of the dream promised by Fomalhaut is all about our willingness to face our own emotionality through emotion-provoking experiences.

So much for those who avoid. And good luck to the ‘rose colored glasses’ tribe. Emotional realism is the Pisces challenge and the metaphysical equation here is solved by accepting your own emotions and those of people around you. From that comes realism and…remarkably…calm.

It’s the games we play with ourselves about what we ‘don’t have to deal with’ which end up tripping us up. Fomalhaut is one of the celestial mechanisms which we trip over…or make our slip-ups on.

Ah yes…Royal Star as banana peel.

 In looking for this photo I found  out that the humble banana is the

 subject of much photography. There are two full pages of banana photos

 posted in Wikipedia's Media Commons section - including (as you see)

several of banana peels.

(photo credit Benutzer Priwo August 2010)

Fomalhaut is roughly in opposition to Regulus – just as Antares is in opposition to Aldebaran. As the ‘Watcher of the South’ it’s position in Pisces is very fitting as ‘south’ – as a direction – is indicative of emotionality. (And I’m not just talking about romantic love here!)

Having moved into Pisces back in the year 1725, Fomalhaut is only now at 4 Pisces. (Like Regulus, it moves very slowly.) Probably the greatest number of people alive today were born with Fomalhaut at 3 Pisces - a degree reached in June of 1938. As a degree, 3 Pisces tests our ability to deal with luck, to deal with goodwill and to monitor our various ‘appetites.’ All the Piscean tests of emotion will surface through these issues.

Well, except if you were born after June 22, 2009. On that date, Fomalhaut moved from 3 to 4 Pisces – and 4 Pisces is mystical yet severe, intelligent yet at times, too judgmental. About the only thing harsher than the 4 Pisces hard line drawn with regards to others is the super-critical judgment of Self which goes with this degree.

Fomalhaut at this degree spreads a subtle fear of not ‘measuring up’ through the world. But the karmic intent here wouldn’t appear to be about making us feel bad, rather to get us to mind what we’re doing. For those born prior to June 2009 (and thus born with Fomalhaut at 3 Pisces) there will be a vacillating back and forth between the confidence that if I do right, all will BE right…which goes along with their nativity and a sense that maybe, just maybe their chance is already gone.

  Fomalhaut 

(photo credit: NASA-JPL)

 

Meanwhile, those born since June 2009? They understand the lay of the land. There’s going to be a pragmatism built into the lives of those born with Fomalhaut at 4 Pisces…they may not all do good, but this is a lengthy generation which when confronted with the truth is less likely than their predecessors to try to explain things away.

In the world of Fomalhaut, that’s a plus. And their ownership of their feelings – warts and all – is a lesson to the rest of humanity. Feel it, own it, realize what it is. If you can’t be proud of it, change it or pay the piper when the bill comes due.

Fomalhaut will be positioned at 4 Pisces until June of 2080. So this is part of our backdrop for the foreseeable future. It’s a realism about who we are as humans which we probably can learn a lot from.

And considering this is Royal Star Fomalhaut we’re talking about, we probably will!