About the name
‘Wandering Stars’
The ceiling of the 1st Hypostyle Hall in the temple of Hathor at Dendera, Egypt - taken on the Vernal Equinox 2018 - featuring the sky goddess Nut with winged Ra entering her mouth. In the top register we can see the traditional symbols of the constellations Capricorn, Taurus, Sagittarius, Scorpio, and Libra. Below are the god forms in their barks representing the planets and the hours of the day, the larger one with the Baboon of Thoth being the Moon. Photo by author.
The dark square was left by the restoration crew to show the before and after of their efforts to remove the creosote and soot from the immolation of the temple shrines and furnishings by Coptic Christian zealots circa 400 CE, along with many centuries of fires from people who made their homes in the temple ruins that were already buried in sand and mud leaving 10-15 feet to the ceiling. They are just now beginning work on the 2nd Hypostyle Hall, which is still all blackened.
Wandering Stars
The word ‘planets’ comes from the ancient Greek word πλανήτης (planētēs) meaning “wanderer”, and the Greek word for “star” is ἀστήρ (astēr) - and so ἀστήρ πλανήτης (astēr planētēs), means “wandering stars”, and that was what the Greeks called the planets. They appeared as bright stars, but their paths wandered and deviated relative to the “fixed” stars, which appear to wheel overhead at night. Wandering Stars practices are all astrologically based and/or timed, and dependent upon the movement of the planets across the backdrop of the stars of the zodiac, so the name seemed a good fit.
Only in recent decades have astronomers discovered actual wandering stars, which aren’t gravitationally tied to any single galaxy, but rather appear to wander from galaxy to galaxy, cloaked in an ephemeral haze of light. They are the oldest of stars at billions and billions of years, and nobody really knows how it was that they became homeless so long ago. While one group of Wandering Stars represents the confluence of forces in our solar system, the latter represents some of the oldest objects in the known universe.
Like the wise Egyptians, Sumerians, and other ancient cultures, the Greeks associated the planets with certain of their gods and goddesses and their particular influences on life and human affairs as they moved through the ecliptic constellations of the Zodiac. Other ancient societies, like those in China and India, also connected the movement of planets with influencing personal attributes and events, all in what would later be referred to as Astrology - as opposed to the purely mathematical and data-driven science of Astronomy. They were not always considered separate, however, that distinction was made by materialist scientists in the 19th century. Astrologers generally practice both, however.
I utilize Astrology in my work here at Wandering Stars, and since it is essentially a metaphysical, and thus a sacred science, it seemed apt to name this place Wandering Stars in homage to the Planets which have such a profound influence upon us all.
Astronomical ceiling decoration in its earliest form in the Tomb of Queen/Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s vizier Senenmut (Theban tomb no. 353), located at the site of Deir el-Bahri, Egypt. The tomb and the ceiling decorations date back to the 18th Dynasty of ancient Egypt (ca. 1473 B.C.). It is closed to the public.
As is made clear in the above image, the sacred science of astronomy/astrology was already highly developed long before this 3,500-year-old New Kingdom Egyptian tomb ceiling was painted, and while astronomy is usually attributed to the Sumerians first, the astronomical alignments with ancient Egyptian megaliths predate them and tell us that we shouldn’t doubt its practice in the earliest Egyptian history. To them, astronomy/astrology was a link with the divine, and so they incorporated astronomical themes and alignments into almost every aspect of their lives, their architecture, and their spiritual belief system. We can do no worse but do the same.
The Egyptians viewed the rising and setting of the Sun as a metaphor for the cycle of life, and correlated the night sky with both their conception of the Universe and the afterlife realm called the Duat, which is documented in their funerary papyrus and tomb paintings as the “Amduat” (that which is in the Duat) and “The Book of Going Forth By Day” (The Egyptian Book of the Dead). Its hieroglyph is a five-pointed star in a circle:
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In accordance with the Egyptian goddess Nuit’s statement “Every man and every woman is a star”*, we recognize that each one of us is a Wandering Star, a divine spark expressed through a human vehicle - each like the day star our Sun - Ra - experiencing the cycle of birth as Kephri, life as Herukhuti, and death as Atum, in our physical bodies living upon this lovely blue and green planet, our precious Mother Earth.
Known as the goddess Hathor by the ancient Egyptians, and now called Gaia by the greater global spiritual community, our planet, and mother Earth with her miraculous biosphere is surely our Greater Temple - and our most Sacred Space.
This beautiful and awesome planet Earth is the ground upon which we all must work together towards our Self-Remembrance of being a Wandering Star, before our inevitable return to our starry abode within the body of our greater Mother, the Infinite Stars and Infinite Space of the great goddess Nuit.
*I:3 Liber AL vel Legis, the Book of the Law (see About Thelema for more information)
The ceiling of the open-air kiosk chapel in the temple of Hathor at Dendera, Egypt - taken on the Vernal Equinox 2018 - featuring the goddess Nut arching over the star-studded night sky with her hands and feet touching either side of the North-flowing Nile. Here we see Ra in the West at sunset, depicted as a red disc kissed by Nut before entering her mouth to then travel through the Duat or starry abode within her. Ra is reborn from Nuit in the East - his shining rays illuminating the Akh symbol of the horizons, depicted as green hills on the East and West, rising from the waters, each surmounted by a tree sacred to the goddess. This identifies Ra as Harakhty, Horus of Two Horizons, the day star. Between the two hills beneath Ra Harakhty’s rays, is Hathor’s face within the symbol for her temple between the hills. Notice the pattern of Nut’s dress mimics that of the waters of the Nile.
About the Name Wandering Stars © 2022-24 Shane Clayton - Wandering Stars Publishing
All Rights Reserved
Wandering Stars is dedicated to expounding the Sacred Science of Ancient Egypt
In memory and in honor of John Anthony West
Born July 9, 1932 - Wested February 6, 2018
AUM