September 19, 2016: Aldebaran

September 19, 2016: 

My Dreams of Gaia card today is the Eleven of Earth reversed, which is titled Heaven/Earth. The Court Cards of this deck are a bit different from a traditional Tarot.  There is a King and a Queen for each suit in the fourteen and thirteen positions, a “specialist” card (for lack of a better term) in the twelve position, and there is a balance and realignment card in the eleven position.  Which actually is a good idea.  The keywords for the Eleven of Earth are above, below, nature, humanity, magick, mundane, material and immaterial.  This card is reminding me that I am a spiritual being that is inhabiting a physical vehicle, and one of the jobs I have is to balance those two opposing natures in order to grow and evolve, and to experience life and living.  The Eleven of Earth is reminding me that Deity, whether named Goddess/God or the Higher Self, is real.  This card also reminds me that the essence of Deity is all around me and infused into everything on and in my world.  Everything is connected, and humans can’t survive without nature.  Both the upright and the reversed card hints at an imbalance and tells me I need to address the relationship within me between spirit and earth because they are both important. 

Here is that concept of Above/Below again.  This concept of Deity being in everything around me is one I have explored in the past.  To me, Deity is in every life essence, and every life essence is a reflection of Deity.  An imperfect reflection for sure, as the “mirror” that is the physical world is not perfect, but a reflection just the same.  All life on our world is created in the image of Deity.

Here is a bit of information about the star Aldebaran from Wikipedia: Aldebaran, also known as Alpha Tauri, is an orange giant star located about 65 light years from the Sun in the zodiac constellation of Taurus. It is the brightest star in its constellation and usually the fourteenth brightest star in the nighttime sky, though it varies slowly in brightness between magnitude 0.75 and 0.95. It is likely that Aldebaran hosts a planet several times the size of Jupiter.  Aldebaran is one of the easiest stars to find in the night sky for two reasons: its brightness, and its location in relation to Orion’s belt.  Following the three stars of Orion's belt from left to right (in the Northern Hemisphere) or right to left (in the Southern) and continuing the line, the first bright star found is Aldebaran. 

Aldebaran is close enough to the ecliptic to be occulted by the Moon (near the fall equinox). There have been a series of these occultations beginning in January, 2015 and continuing to September, 2018.  Each event is visible from a different location on Earth, but always in the northern hemisphere or close to the equator.

In 2015 a study showed stable long-term evidence for a planetary companion.  The planetary exploration probe Pioneer 10 is currently heading in the general direction of the star and should make its closest approach in about two million years.  LOL, I might miss that.

The name Aldebaran is from the Arabic for “The Follower,” presumably as a hunter following prey (probably the prey was the star cluster we call the Pleiades, which were often viewed as a flock of birds).   Apparently several ancient peoples associated the star with rain. The Wikipedia entry notes a Dakota Sioux story in which Aldebaran was a star which had fallen to the Earth and whose killing of a serpent led to the formation of the Mississippi River.

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