Winter Sky, the Pleiades and the Faerie Star
The sky has been clear the last few nights, an unusual happening on the Oregon Coast in winter so I’ve been able to indulge my favorite sky-watching activity next to meteor showers – gazing with awe at the nightly march of the Pleiades, Orion, and Sirius across the dome of night.
For those of you who are not ardent star-gazers, let me explain the fascination. The dominant feature in the Northern Hemisphere’s winter night sky is the constellation Orion, the hunter – the one constellation that almost anyone can find. If you follow the stars of Orion’s belt upwards, you find the Pleiades; if you follow them down, you’ll get to Sirius. These three features of the night sky account for a lot of astronomical lore related to ancient human structures, from the Pyramids of Egypt to the ones in the Yucatan. They’re also so easy to recognize it feels like I’m finding old friends in a crowd.
My favorite of these is the Pleiades, perhaps because of the mythology around them. The Pleiades are also known as “the seven sisters;” actually a cluster of hundreds of stars, there are seven generally visible to the naked eye. According to Greek myths, the titan Atlas and the sea-nymph Pleione had seven daughters who were nymphs, serving Artemis. “After Atlas was forced to carry the heavens on his shoulders, Orion began to pursue all of the Pleiades, and Zeus transformed them first into doves, and then into stars to comfort their father. The constellation of Orion is said to still pursue them across the night sky.” (from Wikipedia)

Photo by Jason Ware
This star cluster has captivated humans for millennia. A little internet research will turn up myths from every continent, each of them having some group of seven humans who for various reasons are transformed into stars.
In the Faerie Realm, the Pleiades are associated with the seven pointed Faerie Star (or Elven Star). According to Faerie lore, the seven pointed star is a gateway symbol, signifying the intersection between the human and Faerie realms. Three points on each side, perfectly matched, and a seventh point where the two worlds meet. This is the energetic structure that allows us to move between the worlds.
Knowing that nothing in the Faerie Realm is merely symbolic, I called on my favorite wisdom teachers from the Otherworld to help me understand the connection between the Faerie Star and the Pleiades. “I understand that the energy movement within a seven pointed star is the key for opening Faerie gateways but how do the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades, fit into this?”
“Meet me at the Fairy Circle tonight, before the moon rises,” I was told. “Wear your parka and bring a blanket. And bring chocolate.”
Fortunately, the weather report calls for clear skies tonight and I have a stash of chocolate. If I get any answers, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, do you have any thoughts about the relationship between the Pleiades and the Faerie Star? If you do, please share in “comments” below.
© Bridget Wolfe, 2013
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The Turning of the Year – Samhain 2013

Photo by Amy Freund
The Turning of the Year
Walking silently in the woods is not an option this morning. Last night brought a light frost so grass and fallen leaves crunch as I head into the woods with the sun’s first rays. Samhain, All Hallow’s Eve, Halloween, is here again and I’ve wandered to the woods to begin my process of honoring this ancient celebration.
The hazelnuts have long been gathered by the squirrels, no berries linger on the huckleberry bushes. Harvest season is over; it’s time to celebrate and honor the bounty the Earth has given to nurture her children through the winter dark to come. In many traditional cultures, this is the transition of the yearly cycle from end to beginning again. The corn stalks may be dead but the saved kernels will be seeds for next year’s garden.
Traditional cultures around the world not only marked the solstices and equinoxes in their journey through the Wheel of the Year; they also paid tribute to the in-between times, the half-way points. November 1 is the midpoint between the Fall Equinox and the Winter Solstice. The three Nights of Summer’s End. Samhain, [pronounced SOW-in (Ireland), SOW-een (Wales) or SAV-en (Scotland)] marks the end of the old and the beginning of the new. It links us with the world of spirit at the turning of the year. October 31, when we celebrate Halloween, is the last night of the old year. November 2 is the first night of the New Year and the night of November 1 is the night between that belongs to no time.
Our modern Halloween and its symbols is rooted in traditional observances from Celtic and Northern European harvest ceremonies to the Mexican Day of the Dead. It is a sacred time, when the veil between this world and the Otherworld is so thin that the dead can walk with us and warm themselves at our hearths. It is also the time when some mortals, especially shamans, seers, and poets, are able to find entrance to the Otherworld through special doorways that open only at this time.
Grocery store entrances and roadside fruit stands overflow with pumpkins waiting to be carved into frightening visages. There’s a reason that

Pumpkins waiting to be carved. Photo by Amy Freund
skeletons, skulls, and ghosts traditionally adorn our yards and windows for Halloween – they are emblematic of the dead. It is time for the old year to die and for the living to honor endings and death. As we wander through our world of scarecrows made with dead corn stalks and ghoulish carved pumpkins, we can also remember the corn kernels and pumpkin seeds that sit in a cool, dark place, drying, ready to be planted again in the spring. As we hang cardboard skeletons on our doors and place skulls on our altars, we remember that we are the seeds our ancestors planted.
The origin of this festival in all cultures that observe it lies in the honoring of our ancestors, in the respect for the cycles of life. One day, our children and grandchildren will be honoring our memory. It is, perhaps, reflective of the loss of a tradition of honoring our ancestors and our history that brings us in modern culture to a holiday whose main focus is candy, scaring each other, and seeing the dead as ghouls.
This year I am choosing to honor not only the Nature Spirits, as I always do, but also my human ancestors. On my walk this morning I’ve invited companions: my grandmother, who was my refuge and taught me unconditional love; my aunt who encouraged me to excel at whatever I wanted to be; my father who taught me the love of fishing and sitting quietly on the water; and my grandfather, who I never knew, but whose towering memory infused my life with a love for the spoken and written word. Tonight I will invite my ancestor companions to warm themselves at my fire and I will share food from my harvest with each of them. I will tell them the ways they contributed to the garden that is my life and I will listen to see if they have any messages for me.
I will also gather remaining debris from this year and throw it in the fire. I’ve saved some corn stalks to serve as symbols of things in my life that no longer serve me, things I need to let go. Projects that I’ve abandoned, dreams that no longer propel me, anger or hurt that will fester if I allow it to stay through the winter. Walking a path tuned to the cycles of nature helps with that process. My tongue has fond memories of the green beans from the garden but the vines that produced them no longer bear fruit – it’s time to put them in the compost, knowing the seeds I saved will start the cycle again in the spring.
However you choose to mark this turning of the year, remember the primary teaching of the natural world: that all things move in cycles. Samhain, summer’s end, the end of the harvest, brings the beginning of the time to journey within, to dream new dreams. Celebrate the brilliant colors, the bountiful harvest, the sweet joys of summer’s light and bounty. Honor the ancestors who brought you to this cycle. Burn or bury the debris that no longer serves you and let it be food for the earth. Then you’ll be ready to settle into the dream time ahead.
Bright Blessings.
–Bridget Wolfe @2013
For enchanting ways to connect to the world of Nature Spirits and open doorways to Faerie and the Otherworld, please visit http://www.fairywoodland.com/
Harvest Moon and Autumnal Equinox – Points of Balance
Geese winging their way south above cattails and cornstalks, highlighted by a glowing harvest moon, leave no question about what time of year it is. The apples are ripe, tomatoes are going into canning jars, the fawns are growing their winter coats so losing their spots. The sun is still warm but nights are crisp and longer. As the Harvest Moon prepares to leap over the horizon, the impending Autumnal Equinox asks us to contemplate the question of balance once again.
In all of the realms that reside on this planet, the cycles of life we observe rest on the way light is determined by our planet’s yearly journey around the sun. Whether we live in the topics or at the poles, we have four seasons based on the length of our days and nights. At two points in the seasonal cycle (the solstices) light and dark are at the extremes. At another two points (the equinoxes) light and dark are . . . well . . . equal.
Each of the four moments marks a turning point. At the Summer Solstice (Between June 20-22 in the Northern Hemisphere, December 20-23 in the Southern Hemisphere), we have the most light, least dark, of the year and then immediately the light begins to wane. It’s a disconcerting thought to realize that the moment we mark on our calendars as “Summer begins” is actually the high point, after which the light begins to wane again. The Winter Solstice is the opposite – the deepest dark, followed by gathering light.
The Equinoxes (around March 20 and September 22) are the midway points between the two extremes, the points where dark and light is perfectly balanced. With the Spring Equinox, we know it’s safe to come out of hibernation, greet daffodils and apple blossoms, prepare the ground and get ready to plant seeds. It’s a time of new beginnings.
At the Autumnal Equinox, the harvest is in full swing as we gather-in the fruits of our summer labors in preparation for the cold, dark times to come. Even in today’s bustling cities where artificial light blazes 24 hours a day, a deep impulse inside of us is drawn to tuck away supplies to sustain us on the inward journey ahead.
The Equinoxes are a point of balance between extremes, a moment to contemplate where we’ve come from and what lies ahead. A moment to stand still, take a deep breath, stand on the fulcrum of the teeter-totter, and look to both sides. What seeds did you plant last spring that bore fruit this summer? Have you harvested them all? Are bare stalks from which you’ve stripped fruit still standing in your garden? What seeds do you want to save for planting next year?
I use gardening as a metaphor both because I do a lot of it and also because even those who never get dirt under their fingernails can feel those cycles in their DNA. No matter how removed we think we are from nature and her patterns, our bodies and our psyches are still tuned to the cycles of the planet. Ignoring that reality is part of what causes anxiety and stress in our lives.
My favorite part of the Autumnal Equinox is savoring the last of the golden days and tucking that light into my heart to fuel the fires I’ll need for my dreaming in the dark time to come. Summer is “doing” time; winter is for dreams and internal journeys. At this moment of balance between the two, I can taste them both and value them each for the opportunities they offer me. For now, there’s plenty of “doing” left – the harvest isn’t finished, the garden won’t be put to bed until Samhain (Halloween). I don’t yet feel a need to make a fire for warmth nor to turn off phone and lights and snuggle in front of the fire with paper, pen, and cat.
What I know at this moment of balance is that as I move through these cycles, they also move through me. When there is more light, I’m called to focus outward; as the light recedes, my gaze turns inward. The degree of balance I feel in my life depends on my willingness to stay tuned to the flow of that cycle, to be aware of it, to honor it. I’ll practice for the Equinox moment tonight by standing in the meadow at sunset. As the sun touches the horizon in the west, the Harvest Moon will rise in the East, bringing another example of the balance that exists all around us. No matter what we do to the planet, the seasons will continue until the sun burns out. Perhaps, if we humans find our way back to our own balance, we – and our gardens – will still be here to enjoy it.
May you find a balance between the natural and the mystical worlds in your life this Equinox – a balance between the bright light of the external world and the rich and fertile darkness inside.
–Bridget Wolfe, September 19, 2013
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Lights In The Sky – You Are Made of Stardust
There are few things more awe-inspiring or imagination igniting than lights streaking across the night sky. I remember years ago, sitting on a mountaintop outside of Los Angeles in mid December, wrapped in parka and blankets, watching streaming silver ribbons of the Geminid meteor shower transform the night. If Id ever had any doubt that the universe was magic, that spectacular show would have erased it.
With this year’s Perseid meteor shower upon us (peak viewing Aug. 11 & 12), it occurred to me that I’ve never talked to the Fairies about how they view meteors, so I headed for the hammock in the woods, got comfortable, sang the song I use to open the connection, and began imaging my Geminid memories from years ago.
Within moments I heard the hum that told me one of the Fae had activated the gateway a few feet away. I kept my eyes closed and reached out with my other senses in the way the Fairies had taught me and felt a presence materialize at my side. Of course. Given the subject, it made perfect sense that Light That Listens would be the emissary.
“Thank you for coming,” I said.
“It’s an interesting topic,” she answered. “What would you like to know?”
“I know the scientific explanation of what meteors are,” I told her. “Comets, as they orbit around the sun, slough off debris from their tails. When the Earth’s orbit crosses the orbit of the comet, some of that debris gets pulled into our atmosphere and burns up and that’s what makes the streak of light. But it always seemed to me there was something important about pieces of space dust, comet dust, that have been circling the cosmos for eons, falling to the earth in a blaze of light. Although our space-ship Earth is constantly moving through the cosmos, our atmosphere shields us from that knowledge and we travel, snuggly tucked in our safe envelope, unaware that there are real, not just theoretical objects that exist beyond the atmospheric membrane. When meteors come crashing through that boundary, some part of our psyche has to understand that there’s actual physical stuff out there.”
“Breaking through protective boundaries is a good place to start,” my old friend began. “In some ways, each human is a little like the Earth, moving through space surrounded by a protective shield. You’re energetically connected to everything else around you just like we are, but many of you are so comfortable inside your bubbles that you’ve forgotten that. Part of our job, as Fairies, is to contrive ways to break through your atmosphere and get your attention, to remind you that there are other physical realities outside of yourselves.
“Those other realities are always there, just like the space debris is. We’re always trying to figure out ways to go blazing through your atmosphere to wake you up and remind you.”
“That’s quite an analogy,” I told her after it sank in. “I have a pretty good idea of what you bring when you break through the barriers. What do the meteors bring to the Earth?”
“Memories, experiences that those particles gathered in their long journeys. They’ve been to places the Earth hasn’t and they hold the memories of those travels. When the individual pieces break up in the atmosphere, those experience memories are released and taken by the winds to scatter them around the planet. Sooner or later they get caught in a rain drop, fall to the soil and soak in for the Earth to absorb. If you’re lucky, some of those memory fragments will be in the air you breathe or in the soil that grows the tomato you eat for lunch. That’s how the experience of the universe slips into you.”
I sifted through that information for quite a while; when I surfaced, the space that Light That Listens had filled was empty but I had found what I’d come looking for.
When you see a meteor streak across the sky and you catch your breath in wonder, that’s the stardust in you, recognizing itself. You came from the stars – a “falling star” reminds you of that and awakens the memories. In that moment, be sure to make a wish.
–Bridget Wolfe, August 11, 2013
Learn more about the Perseid meteor showers here.
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Solstices and Cosmic Pendulums
The sun rose over the Heel Stone at Stonehenge this morning, as it has every Midsummer morning since the Heel Stone was set in place some 4,500 years ago. At Newgrange, in Ireland, the rising Winter Solstice sun shines through a narrow opening and follows the passageway to the center of the monument. From the Temple of Karnak in Egypt to the Ajanta Caves in India to Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, ancient sacred sites all over the world were built with features that aligned to the rising or setting sun of the Summer or Winter Solstices. (There are plenty of sites that align with the Equinoxes as well but that’s for another time.)
Why? Why would it matter so much to know precise times of those events that it was worth building huge monuments to track them? Ancient civilizations marked the passage of the year not by arbitrary numbers on a calendar but by the observable events of the cosmos. They accurately observed that the movement of the sun in relation to the earth was like the swing of a pendulum – it went to a maximum point in one direction, which was the longest daylight of the year, then moved to a maximum in the other direction, which was the longest night. They knew that the lengthening days of Spring would peak at the Summer Solstice, that the long dark nights would get no worse than at the Winter Solstice. They knew that all of life happened between those extremes.
In our modern lives, our calendars mark the dates of these profoundly significant events as an aside – if they note them at all. For civilizations that understood the cosmos as an intricately woven web of which they were a part, the cycles of the sun, moon and stars were the calendars they used to navigate their lives. Since this is still the way the Fairies relate to the seasons and the cosmos, I wandered into the woods today to my favorite place to meet with the Fae. I asked them how they saw the difference between cultures, like ours, that track time through an arbitrary calendar and cultures like theirs that align their own lives with the movement of the cosmos.
Their answer was very simple. They know when it’s time to celebrate and reap the bounty that the Earth offers them – and they know when the pendulum has swung as far as it can without breaking the web. When that moment comes, it’s time to stop the celebrations and plant what’s needed for the next cycle. In our world, they say, we don’t know the limits of the web, we don’t know that we can’t just keep taking from the Earth, that we have to give back, too. We have forgotten, they say, when enough is enough, when the pendulum has swung as far as it can in one direction.
They reminded me that the next stop on the wheel of the year is the Fall Equinox – a place of balance. And then they reminded me that, whatever our calendars may tell us, they’re only an illusion on the wall or in our electronic gadgets. If we remember and realign ourselves with the cycles of the sun, the moon and the stars, perhaps our civilization can remember to swing with the pendulum.
They also wished me a Blessed Solstice before they melted away to celebrate.
–Bridget Wolfe, June 21, 2012