“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
This year, 2024, has seen some incredible and historic astronomical, astrological, and cosmic events: Pluto entered into Aquarius; five eclipses including the first Libra Lunar Eclipse conjunct the South Node since April of 1987 and the Total Solar Eclipse in Aries on April 8th; 4 Supermoons; Jupiter conjuncts Uranus which happens about once every 14 years; Jupiter moving into Gemini; planetary alignments of April 20th, June 3rd, and August 28th; a new comet; and a new recurrent star.
Obviously, it's a lot.
The recurrent star, though, has no known date. This star, otherwise known as the Blaze Star, explodes every 80 years, becoming as bright and visible in our skies as the North Star. But we don’t know the exact date the Blaze Star will play twinsies with Polaris. Astronomers guestimate any day between now and September, though they’re confident it will occur sooner and not later.
The significance of stars in spiritual and magickal matters is easily observable whether they make their appearance in the night sky, literature, art, jewelry, divinatory cards, or even as part of magickal spells and workings.
Stars—Tristars, Stars of Venus, Stars of David, Fairy Stars, Chaos Stars, Dodecagrams, etc.— symbolize optimism, hope, guidance, enlightenment, balance, harmony, interconnectedness, and empowerment. They’ve also acted as a means to mark time, distances, tell stories and oral histories, provide inspiration, and offer directions to travelers in the night.
“Second star to the right and straight on til morning.” — J.M. Barrie
Once you get past the bright lights of cities, beyond the light pollution of modern living, it’s easy to understand how stars have captured our attention and interest throughout history. The velvety blackness of space seen in the night sky scattered with the twinkling lights of stars provide a romantic and awe-inspiring view to inspire our associations to stars across civilizations.
In the Northern Hemisphere, the North Star can be seen every night as long as the weather remains clear. This consistency from Polaris has allowed people throughout history to observe and even use the star as a navigational aid.
The sun’s east to west movement helps travelers and sailors cross the vast distances during the day, clearly marking two of the cardinal directions. At night when the waters and the skies are equally as dark as the other, Polaris’s placement as the closest star to the celestial north pole provided a reliable directional reference that allowed ships to continue to sail while decreasing the chance of being lost at sea and enables caravans to move outside the heat of the desert sun.
Of course, Polaris hasn’t always been—nor will it always be—the North Star.
The Precession of the Equinoxes and the Earth’s Wobble sees the celestial north pole shifting in a circle passing the baton of the North Star’s associations of guidance and direction from star to star. For example, Iota Herculis acted as the pole star when Gobelik Tepe is conservatively thought to have been built—circa 9600 BCE—and Edasich—Iota Draconis—at about 4240 BCE within a year of when the Egyptian calendar is considered to have started. In about a thousand years, the pole star will be Errai—Gamma Cephei.
As the history and future of the North Star suggests, the spiritual, metaphysical, and magickal representations of guidance, inspiration, optimism, etc., can be shared across different stars in different constellations.
“There wouldn’t be a sky full of stars if we were all meant to wish on the same one.” — Frances Elliott Clark
The Blaze Star’s astronomical name is T Coronae Borealis. This constellation sits between Bootes and Hercules and above Serpens Caput in the northern sky.
In Greek and Roman mythology, the constellation represents a garland crown or wreath gifted by Venus to Ariadne upon her marriage to Bacchus after Ariadne was abandoned by Theseus. The crown represented Ariadne’s ascension into the heavens upon her union with the god.
The Blaze Star—T-CrB or T Coronae Borealis—isn’t normally the brightest star in the constellation nor is it a single star.
The blue-white star, Alphecca or Alpha Coronae Borealis, shines at a magnitude of 2.2 as the constant brightest star in the constellation. Every 80 years, though, the Blaze Star follows its colloquial name and blazes up from a dim magnitude of 10 to that of a 2—stellar magnitudes measure opposite to earthquake magnitudes where a magnitude 2 is 2.61 times BRIGHTER than a magnitude 3 and 100 times brighter than a magnitude 7 star.
The recurrent outburst blazing T-CrB from a 10 to a 2 magnitude happens because the Blaze Star is actually a binary star system. The two partners in the binary system are a red giant—the large, cool component—and a white dwarf star—the small, hot component. The majority of the time, the red giant dominates the visible light spectrum as it transfers materials to the white dwarf, obscured by a dense cloud of material. When the 80 year recurrent outburst occurs, the white dwarf expands, increasing the output of visible light in our skies and to our eyes.
What does this recurrent nova star mean to us as a collective and as individuals?
Well, since the Blaze Star is less visible on a normal night, the star doesn’t have an Arabian or Greco/Roman name or mythology behind it. That leaves us pulling associations from two main sources, the observable historical outbursts from the past and the pole star.
“Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.” — Theodore Roosevelt
T Coronae Borealis may have been observed by astronomers and stargazers as early as 1217 CE and again in 1787 as a magnitude 10 red giant star. For the first time, on May 12, 1866, the Blaze Star’s outburst was observed by astronomer John Birmingham. The last observation of the Blaze Star’s recurrent nova occurred on on February 9, 1946.
1865 saw many conflicts and wars of ideology, identity, and sovereignty end—the Temne War, the American Civil War, the Bhutan War, the Mito Rebellion, the Dominican Restoration War just to name a few. So, in 1866, the year after, we can reasonably assume—without diving too deeply into each conflict and the aftermath—that societal and cultural shifts were happening around the world to accommodate the results.
The same can be said of 1946. World War II came to an end in 1945, so 1946 we do see shifts in culture, society, and civilization to deal with, heal from, and grow through the end of the Great Wars.
We can extrapolate, based off these brief historical reviews, that the Blaze Star ignites transformation and renewal, on a collective level through societal and cultural changes, and a personal level as we examine the external world and our interactions with it as well as how we allow the external world to interact with our internal landscape and self.
The transformations can lead to spiritual awakening through introspection. The Blaze Star represents spiritual awakening and enlightenment through the sudden increase in brightness during the Blaze Star’s outburst as well.
The burst of light, illumination, inspiration, insight can lead to individual growth and evolution. Studies show that only 10% need to believe and experience it for the whole population to change. Some studies suggest as little as 3.5% of a population is needed to actively participate to see inevitable success for spiritual evolution as well as peaceful revolution.
Another metaphysical and magickal association that can be attributed to the Blaze Star is magickal timing. Mostly, celestial events and phenomena are considered auspicious due to rarity, evoking awe, wonder, and cosmic connection. This makes for a great time to perform rituals, do spellwork, and host group or practice individual meditation.
"We have calcium in our bones, iron in our veins, carbon in our souls, and nitrogen in our brains. Ninety-three percent stardust, with souls made of flames, we are all just stars that have people names." — Nikita Gill
The heightened energy of a celestial event, especially surrounding the Blaze Star, can be harnessed for spiritual work, light work, energy work, intention setting, manifestation, gaining new perspective, or changing something previously thought to be the only way or purpose.
Personally, I have a ritual semi-planned for the night(s) when the Blaze Star illuminates our skies for clearing mental and psychic fog from my energy fields, third-eye chakra, and aura for spiritual growth.
As I briefly expressed earlier, stars in general represent optimism and hope, guidance and direction, enlightenment and connection, and balance and harmony. Polaris, our current North Star, especially symbolizes guidance and direction, connection, and balance as a fixed point in the sky, from our perspective.
While the Blaze Star won’t have the same association with balance to an equilibrium as it lacks the same consistency as the North Star since it pulses from magnitude 10 to mag 2, and appears to move in a tight circle around the celestial north pole from our perspective.
But T-CrB can represent balance through recognizing the multiple “right” ways to go about doing something and releasing the judgment that any one way is the “right” way. This is a balance of fairness, infinite options, and tolerance—something the world is currently deficit of in my opinion.
Not only can the Blaze Star correspond to transformation and spiritual awakening, it can also offer guidance and direction, especially to those who choose to follow a path less traveled, a path of non-conformity and challenging societal norms. Sometimes when navigating through life and its challenges, a little guidance from a queer and unique source is essential in order to be authentic and true to yourself.
“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” — Carl Sagan
Another symbolic meaning the Blaze Star shares with Polaris is connection. Great quantities of people are already connected to each other, the cosmos, and divinity as they look to the northern sky, watching for and eventually witnessing the recurrent nova.
Just as millions of people look to Polaris for equilibrium in an ever evolving and revolving world, just as many—if not more—people are already anticipating the wonder of the Blaze Star and the new, transformative energy its illuminating outburst will bring with it, whether individuals choose to tap into it or not.
Take the time, before the Blaze Star appears in our skies, to set a flexible plan for a ritual, spell, or meditation using these associations listed above. Or simply be on the look out for the recurrent nova and the new paths, options, and transformations it offers to us as individuals and as a collective.
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