Consider the Stars

Omina

November. The eleventh month. It's name being derived from the Roman system prior to the introduction of the Julian Calendar reforms, when it was the ninth month (The latin 'novem' means nine). The esoteric signifigance of the month is linked with this original number, with its magical power as 3 x 3 marking the completion of two inter-related cycles, as a necessary prelude to the enactment of a new cycle which will begin the following month. It was a magical month in many regards.

A time for change.

Looking out over the city of New Orleans at night and to the west that particular year, one would have noticed a very conspicious grouping of stars. For in that direction, hanging over the city like a gilded fruit were the Pleiades. The same Pleiades that in ancient times were associated with the number seven. The seven sisters, the seven virgins, the seven stars and so on they have been called down through history. The name given to the individual sisters are Alcyone, Maia, Electra, Merope, Taygete, Celaeno and Sterope. Merope is sometimes called 'the invisible sister' because she is the only one who married a mortal and thus hid her face in shame. The power of the Pleiades in ancient times were said to be evil. Their influence bearing disgrace, ruin and violent death.

If one were to look further out from the Pleiades one would find the second star of signifigance. For up in the sky at that particular location was the malefic Algol, the beta of Perseus, set in the head of the gorgon Medusa. It is said to be the most evil of all stars. The most unfortunate, violent and dangerous star in all the heavens. The word Algol is from the Arabic 'Ra's al Ghul' (demon head), for which reason it is sometimes called Caput Algol. It is the 'demon star', the 'Satan's head' (Rosh ha Satan) of the Hebrews, whose astrologers call it Lilith after their own female demon. It is said to afflict the neck and head to the point of decapitiation or strangulation.

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The cold chill of fall descended onto the city of Washington with the suddenness of an afternoon shower causing the birds to stay in their nest rather than venture out into the cold. The birds. Or the absence thereof was the first thing that Anna Evertson recognized when she pulled up to the place she had recently came to call home.

​Home. Is there really such a place? Or is it just what we come to call that which we are most familiar with? She thought to herself. For twenty years home had been the house that her and her (now ex) husband had bought to renovate and make a place for their old age so that their children could return to. But just like all dreams in life, that too faded. Was it the affair he had or was it the growing distance that had developed between them after they had lost their first child to Pneumonia? The real reasons became shaded and hazy the further removed she was from that part of her life.

​It had now been three years. And now at the age of thirty-three she was once again rebuilding her life. Her friends and her family kept urging her to "get back into life" and to "begin to live again". So at their urging she decided to relocate to the quarter – the vital hub that courses through the entire city. The home she had rented was located on Ursuline Street across from what used to be a convent. Built in the 1820's, it was everything one imagined a house to be in New Orleans. Beautiful metal lattice work spanned the building from front to back and in the middle of the building was a captivating garden and courtyard that Anna had took to retreating to, to read and relax when she returned from work.

​The history of the house was of some interest. The original home was owned by Chess Champion Paul Morphy who spent a portion of his early life there. Then Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard came to stay in the place for several short years. Later, the writer France Parkinson Keyes took up residence and as fate would have it she wrote stories of both a chess player and a confederate general. Anna thought it was as if the deceased somehow gained life once again by willing themselves into the mind of the author. But life was for the living and even if the dead did live again through the author it was an ephemeral and murky kind of half-life that could never compare to the exstacy and agony of flesh and blood existence. And it was this thought that for some reason made her melancholy.