You’re on a beach during a starry night when subtle blue feelings illuminate the darkness within your soul.
There’s a hypnotic sound from the waves in the background, and the Moon is hiding behind the clouds as the stars twinkle at you from above. Yes, I’m talking about the stars, but what do they remind you of? Is it a moment from your childhood when you tried to count them and grasp them in your hands, smiling when you failed? Or is it a cartoon-like memory of seeing them over your head after a nasty blow from your mother’s slipper? Or in your self-despair, do you feel like you’re trying to throw a lasso around the stars?
Why are some people regarded as shining stars? Our stars can get along with someone else’s, but they will never quite click with those of others, no matter how hard we try. Your heart sinks the most when someone you hold dear becomes a shooting star.
So, what does Sirius whisper in our ears?
They say life is but a perception. For astronomers, the cluster of stars make up an intensely radiant sphere, while others see them as a manifestation of God’s miscellaneous dimensions in this vast universe. One thing is for sure, however: They weren’t hung up there just to decorate the night sky. All around the world, the stars are attributed with various meanings by different belief systems that seem independent yet are essentially the same. Sirius, the richest star in terms of symbolism, is referred to as the Dog Star or Lodestar. Many sources state the term lodestar represents Polaris, but it’s actually Sirius.
Sirius is represented by a dog, wolf, or jackal in esoteric teachings; the dog of Orion in Greek mythology; the celestial wolf, the watcher of the celestial palace, in Turkic mythology; and the sacred wolf that suckled the founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, in Roman mythology.
Dhul-Qarnayn was believed to have imprisoned Gog and Magog in Sirius. The Tuareg tribe, the mysterious nomadic people of the Sahara Desert, who were speculated to be mercenaries for Gaddafi, call this star the Dog Star as well.
Sirius has been called many other names in various languages, including Sothis, Al Shira, Sirona, Seirios, KAK.SI.DI, and Hu-shi.
This star of the Canis Major constellation is the brightest in the night sky. It’s located 8.6 light years away, where it shines 23 times brighter than our Sun. Sirius is actually a binary star system made up of the main-sequence star Sirius A and its faint white dwarf companion Sirius B. Astronomers describe Sirius B as one of the smaller stars but with a very high density. It is hard for the human mind to comprehend that a microscopic extract from this star would weigh a ton. This substance is 300 times harder than diamond, the hardest material on Earth.
Intriguingly, the star is called Ironpost in Turkish astral culture, implying that it’s as hard as iron. The Ironpost is considered the post of the universe and the gate to the heavens, and the cold and warmth are believed to come through this gate. During the months of July and August, when this star rises with the Sun, scorching hot days are called dog days, especially in the middle and northern latitudes. As it happens, the same phrase in English can be traced back to this expression. This period of the year is known for higher rates of epidemic illnesses. The renowned Roman philosopher Plinius, better known as Pliny the Elder, talked about these particular months in his Naturalis Historia as being the riskiest for possible mad-dog attacks. We could consider this to be the warmth reaching the Earth’s surface from the Ironpost.
The Way of the Shaman: The Color of Sirius
According to the old Turkish clans, this star was a sacred gate that joined the Earth with the heavens, the luminous realm of the gods. The star was the frontier between the spirit realm and the material realm where mortals reside. You could also call it the line that separates gods from humans. The gods would send favors to people from this gate, and shamans would fly to the gate and communicate with the gods, but they were unable to truly reach the star and pass through to the other side. The gods would send a messenger from their realm and listen to what mortals had to say through this messenger.
The symbol of the celestial (blue) wolf that descended from the sky in a blue beam of light is pretty common to the creational myths of the Turks. In one of the Göktürk (the celestial/blue Turks) myths, a child whose entire family was killed (symbolizing the solar system) survives with the guidance of a she-wolf (the Dog Star). The wolf suckles the child and proceeds to marry him, and the Sky God descends to Earth in the form of a wolf. According to other esoteric teachings, the creation of the planet Earth was in fact the result of a union between our solar system and Sirius (the Dog Star). The similarities between these teachings and the tale of the wolf that married an orphaned child are intriguing.
Wolves were considered sacred in old Turkic beliefs. The symbol of the she-wolf has important significance in most creational myths and the collected symbolism of the world. The myth of a she-wolf called Ashina, who was sent to Earth from the heavens, has survived to this day. Many Turkic clans have used wolves in their flags, and their commanders were called Kök-Böri. The word kök is an old form of the modern word gök, which means sky, and böri is the word for wolf. You can find wolf reliefs in the earliest known historical expression of the First Turkish Empire, the Bugut Monument that was commissioned by Mahan Tigin (Prince Mahan).
How meaningful is it that a wolf figure appeared on the first printed banknote of Atatürk’s government? His friends nicknamed him “crazy Turk” after the banknote incident.
There are various opinions about the color of the star as well. Although Sirius is widely thought to be a red/orange color, both Manilius, a first century poet, and Avienus, an author from the fourth century, describe the star’s color as light teal. The star is also named the Blue Star in Japanese.
Ancient Egypt and Sirius…
The Ancient Egyptian civilization placed great importance on this star. They considered Sirius the sun of Ra. The Egyptian priests acquired some of their esoteric teachings from Atlantis and believed Sirius was a very important historical influence on the evolution of the planet Earth. For this reason, Sirius is a profoundly important star both to the past and future of our planet. It is regarded as being responsible for a quantum leap in evolution.
The Egyptian clerics considered Sirius to be the star of the goddess Isis and organized their calendar in accordance with it rather than the Sun. The heliacal rising of Sirius marked the first day of the New Year. The banks of the Nile in Memphis would show the first signs of the annual flood on the Sirius feast days, and the first wave of the new flood would relieve the dry lands of their thirst. They attributed the fertility of the vegetation they harvested to Sirius. Isis was portrayed on top of a dog on the Greek coins of Alexandria. The passages and inner rooms of the temples were always located where Sirius could be seen. In the Temple of Hathor at Dendera, there appears an inscription: “Isis shines into the temple on New Year’s Day in all her glory, illuminating the temple and mingling her light with that of her father Ra on the horizon.”
The ancient Egyptians believed the gates to the other side were closed during times when Sirius was not visible (about July 3-4), so they avoided burying their dead within 35 days of this period (70 days in total). Isis and Osiris were thought to watch them from the underworld, which they called Duat. Another argument states that Isis was believed to be pregnant during this period, with her son Horus being born at the end of it.
There are a couple of interesting links between the dog or jackal figure and Isis–Sirius in ancient Egypt. Regarding the relationship between Anubis and Isis, the Middle Platonist Plutarch explained, “For the Egyptians, Nephthys (Isis’s sister) was the invisible side of the Earth, while the visible side was Isis. The ring that touches both sides, namely the horizon, is the mutual point between these two. This mutual point is called Anubis, and it has been depicted as a dog or a jackal.”
Anubis’s function is to protect and glorify the dead. He helps the dead when they stand trial, and he has long been regarded as the sacred embalmer. He is a just judge. On one pan of the Scales of Justice, he puts the heart of the deceased (representing the quality of the soul) and a feather (as the symbol of truth) on the other. He also has the duty of helping the other gods in schooling humans.
The Egyptians believed the souls of the deceased went to Sirius. Just like the Turkic peoples, they considered Sirius the gate to the heavens and the other side. From this perspective, the common figures are Anubis and Ashina (Asena).
The Mysterious Dogon Tribe
Let’s begin by talking about why the Dogons are regarded as such a mysterious tribe. These dark-skinned people from the Republic of Mali, within the dark landmass of Africa, number approximately 300,000. They live innocuously by breeding livestock and hunting. Recent research into this tribe, which has no access to technology and still lives in tents, is quite astonishing. They know about the Sun’s movement pattern, Jupiter’s moons, Saturn’s rings, and the Moon’s craters. Even more astonishing, when asked where they learned such things, they reply, “from our ancestors.” They also know Sirius is a binary star system and that there are many other spiral galaxies other than our own.
Above all, though, the most astonishing fact goes like this. Through the use of the most advanced telescope at the time, an American astronomer named Alvan Graham Clark discovered that Sirius-A has a faint white dwarf companion called “the puppy star” or more formally Sirius-B. So, the fact that Sirius is a binary star system only became known on December 31, 1862!
Some researchers attribute the tribe’s accurate knowledge to possible extraterrestrial connections, while others speculate that the knowledge may originate from the civilizations of Atlantis and Mu. The Dogons have a deity they call Nommo. They believe that life came into being not only on this planet but also in successive dimensions from seeds that were distributed by the ship of Nommo, just like the luminous heavens of the gods in Turkic mythology. They call Sirius Po-Yolo (the little star). They believe that everything in this realm is also present on Sirius and that the seeds of Sirius are what created the Earth. They believe our solar system once married Sirius, and after the birth of our Sun, Sirius guided him to find his own way. This resembles the celestial wolf who guided the child in the Turkic myth of creation.
Sirius from an Astrological Perspective
Just below the Dog Star, there is a large constellation named Argo Navis, the Ship of Argo. In astrology, this region of the sky has been known as the River of Stars, and this section is the gate to the sea of higher consciousness.
It’s said the fixed stars and the region they occupy contain the spirit or soul of matter. A living soul is a higher form of matter, and it can transform into a star during its evolution. These stars and spirits then later transform into deities.
In an astrological sense, Sirius reflects our reasoning capacity and evolvement, and it displays the characteristics of Jupiter and Mars. The main keywords for Sirius are expanding, enlarging, and burning. It means to sacrifice yourself for a cause, to have the power to influence the whole, to be collective with only a minor service, and to have a holy purpose. It may also cause people to adversely fall prey to their greed and pride.
Sirius is believed to grant people luck, fame, and reputation when it’s in conjunction with the Ascendant or Mid-Heaven of their natal charts. What’s really important, however, is how you prefer to use this reputation. We all know that reputation can carry both positive and negative meanings.
Sirius in the Holy Scriptures
This enchanted star, independent of time and space, can appear everywhere in every symbolical way possible.
It’s mentioned in the 49th and the 9th verses of the Surah An-Najm (The Star) with the name of Şi’râ:
That He is the Lord of Sirius (the Mighty Star) (verse 49)
And was at a distance of but two bow-lengths or (even) nearer (verse 9)
Coincidentally, it takes Sirius-A and Sirius-B 49.9 years to orbit each other, corresponding to verses 49 and 9.
In the Avesta, the collected sacred texts of Zoroastrianism, Sirius is depicted as the star of the god of rain, Tishtrya.
Sirius is often mentioned in popular culture. Various organizations from radio channels to enterprises have adopted the name Sirius in some way. Think of the character Sirius Black from the Harry Potter series.
What really warms the cockles of my heart is to read and learn about the vast, mind-blowing scale of the universe. It is able to die and be reborn everyday and every moment within an infinite cycle of beauty.
Shining are the stars that twinkle down at I, who becomes the subject of the poet disguising the cosmos, the spirit of the realm, the human that I am and the pleasant eye who takes Sheikh Ghalib’s word and beholds the ever-blessed man.
What does the pearl of the Nile that is Sirius whisper in your ear? Does it say we’re not the only ones in this immense universe, like it does to me?
REFERENCES:
Bahaddin ÖGEL; Turkic Mythology 1, 2
Nil ELDEM; 10.000 Years Beneath the Stars
Alparslan SALT; The Dogon Mystery of Sirius
Robert K. TEMPLE; The Sirius Mystery
