ANTARES – The Purifying Portal

“I am about to die. And that is the hour in which men are gifted with prophetic power” (Plato)

This is where silence dies out.

This is where ego implodes. This is where nothingness is everything and vice versa, where dark and light is molten, where death cleanses unbridling the insignificancies of material attachments and where the sOul faces seven realms of death to remember after-life. In this plane of divine paradox ascension awaits in undoing, for in the folds of this light we find divinity in the ultimate letting go.

This is the realm of Antares, one of the 15 Behenian Stars, known as the Watcher of the West and currently located at celestial longitude of 10⁰03’of Mutable Fire, or Sagittarius, in the very Heart of the constellation of the Scorpion.

The cusp of an ending

Imagine a focused ray of red and orange light penetrating your skin and allow images to take you in.

Imagine standing on the banks of the Oceanus. Here, skies open rivers of stars, and some insane quench pulls you to plunge directly into the red shining. See in your mind’s Eye the edge of the world as immortalised by ancient poets. Feel magnetised in the sOul of your matter towards these planes, as if entering Elysian fields that welcome gods in an exquisite ecstasy of after-death, where the sOul eternally descends to ascend into the unknown. Imagine the unimaginable. When moved to the unfolding core, you may shed a humble tear that instantly dries in the presence of Antares’ heat before it reaches the cusp of an alien horizon already transcended in no time and before your eyes set on it. It is past midnight, deeper than a void, and here you un-become in irresistible silence muting all the sounds of darkness.

The portal beyond change

Antares is an ultra-dense portal to under-Plutonian catharsis, to an autopsy of what blocks Spirit to move through you, profound life and death experiences in the sOul, an incomprehensible purifying force of anti-gravity indifferent to crumbling structures or fear because she is the sheer focus of reuniting you with the divine omni-presence. When you discover this portal, you commit yourself to an unflinching surrender offering an anti-dote to weighty human desires and constraining material securities. Fall into this space and into the unknown divine revelation and hope to immerse in Oneness.

The imploding force

Not to be confused with the decaying experience of transmutation of Pluto, the dissolving transcendence of Neptune, the Saturnian threshold or the bridging shattering of Ceres, Antares does not facilitate any – thing, this force simply IS out of this world, divinely purifying, hence defying our ideas of material structures and even audible sound.

This light shifts with Prestissimo tempo, dying out in silence for our human frequency is slowed down by material priorities and desires of security and form. This star can only be sensed with a fearless pure Higher Heart, an imploding bass line, a divine barytone pounding on the valleys of our chests. The Watcher of the West penetrates the quantum particles of our Spiritual core, should we be willing to take heed and listen.

Anti-Ares

Antares’ name derives from the Ancient Greek Ἀντάρης meaning “rival to-Ares” (“rival-to-Mars”), honouring the similarity of both celestial bodies’ vermillion red hue whilst the comparison of Antares with Mars may have originated from early Mesopotamian watchers of the sky. In ancient Egypt, Antares represented the scorpion goddess Serket and was the symbol of Isis in the pyramidal ceremonies. She was called “the red one of the prow”.

“The Egyptians saw [referring to the whole constellation] Scorpion as stinging their solar god Horus and sending him to the underworld as Osiris while the Greeks depicted Antares [in another interpretation] as the Rival of Orion due to the Stars’ opposition to the constellation.” (B.Brady)

Therefore, the Heart of Scorpion is deeply rooted in our culture as a gate-keeper to the god’s underworld, the harbinger of death, endings that lead to after-life.

Scorpion’s breast and a Fishhook

From the Heart of the Scorpion for the Persians, Gaba, the Breast of the Scorpion to the Babylonians, or the Lord of the Seed/ Creator of prosperity in Mesopotamia, the Ancients observed and immortalised Antares as a “royal” star in myths and culture. Meanwhile, different images arise in indigenous traditions, from ‘fishhook’ in the sea of stars in Hawaiian First Nation beliefs, to Waiyungari, a young initiate covered in red orche in the Australian Aboriginal Ngarrindjeri people’s Dreaming. The Māori of New Zealand call Antares Rēhua, the father of Puanga (Rigel star) and the son of Marpean-kurrk (Arcturus).

Anti-matter

Interestingly, the etymology of Anti-Ares is somehow parallel to the opposing forces the star invokes – a polarisation of anti-mater and form, life beyond death, equanimity in uncertainty, creation in a void, eternity in nothingness or conception in undoing.

The Behenian Glyph

Interestingly, the glyph of Antares (from the Behenian Stars tradition) invokes images of a descent into an open portal under the surface of matter, or ego, where the gate is left wide open. It further emphasises the ending of physical attachments that might have provided security but also posed a boundary that broken down leads to the liberation of the sOul.

The time of the ultimate undoing

Remember that our mind and voice (Mercury), our heart and sense of value (Venus) as well as our core and our sense of being (Sun) move through Antares light annually while our sOul (Moon) meets the star approximately thirteen times within twelve months. These moments can invoke a cleansing force on a cellular level. Each year a light shaft opens to purify and unbridle us from what burdens us on our path to wholeness. When Antares holds our star – the Sun – an intense focus is put on the weight of our egoic light. Even though within approximately two weeks around their conjunction Antares is not visible in the sky (due to proximity to the Sun), this is a phase of merging of the Heart of the Scorpion with our Masculine light. While human eye cannot see the two stars energetically imploding, the force of Antares is in the invisibility!

The everlasting lOve

This annual union of the Sun with Antares offers us an anti-dote to the loss of the crumbling structures and endings that are ought to be let go of so lOve can grow. Why lOve? Transiting Venus moving through the shaft of Antares consciousness literally becomes One with the Heart of the Scorpion. Then, falling through the seven realms of change, the furnace consumes what blocks our heartlight revealing the only thing that matters – an everlasting lOve consciousness conceived in the nucleus of our authentic heart.

The journey of Venus through Antares’ realms may, therefore, show us that beyond every dying stage and closing chapters awaits everlasting authentic lOve.

“As a pure vessel, stripped bare, ready for divine revelation. As light. As life. As love.” (Rumi)

May this powerful realisation consume you ahead of the next annual conjunction of the Sun with Antares when a tremendous potential for authentic change and shedding the shadow of status quo or ego of our masculine expression opens. This union ultimately brings healing in the finality of death of the material seduction, so many are fearing to let go of, and in hope of ascending the light of our transmuting core to live from the Heart not ego and in a higher divine frequency.

Look into the Watcher’s Eye in your chart

Locate Antares in your chart. Any planets in your nativity within a couple of degrees of 9⁰ Sagittarius (N.B. while Antares is currently at 10⁰ Sagittarius most of us were born with her at 9⁰) will recognise the themes of Antares and those archetypes are direct portals to engage them. The midpoints that fall on Antares are gateways to allow the star’s cathartic healing into your inner worlds. Do you recognise the intensity and focus? This is where there exists otherworldly compulsion to break down what blocks the light of lOve and Spirit within you.

This is the fuel that inspires the ultimate undoing, a breakthrough at your core, sharing oneself in lOve without paralysing fear or constraining conditioning, and profound sOul’s resurrection in alignment with the intention of your incarnation.

Examples of interpretation

If Antares conjoins your Venus, your heart can open the gates where a death of egoic love profoundly awaits so you can birth on your Higher Heart. If your Uranus connects to Antares, your third Eye is ‘one with the Watcher’s Eye’ seeing beyond conditioning in commitment to awakening and cathartic breakthroughs. Should your Ceres merge with Antares, there is a passage in purifying ritual that bridges you above the egoic desire to a tremendous purgatory energy, sanctifying your drive in the most intense ways. Finally, if your Mercury/Pluto midpoint happens to be on Antares in your chart, descend into the world of inner and let intensity fuel your ever-investigative mind, transmute your perception, and conceive consciousness infused with sheer Spirit.

Reflection

In times of redistribution of power and speaking up and out for our truth, we are offered to merge with divine consciousness bringing revelation and clarity in the Heart of change. Facing the edge of your world, or a chapter, a life at the cusp of an ending and a beginning, it is what our sOul chose to align with and experience. We are asked to surrender ego and to fearlessly fall into the realms of the ultimate undoing collectively and individually, so we can express the naked truth of our-selves.

“Footprints lead to the shore of the sea! Beyond that point, no trace remains” (Rumi)

Surrender to the vermilion force of Antares walking through ground-breaking changes to ultimately resurrect among the Oceanus as you truly let go of what obstructs the intention of the everlasting Heart of your Star.

Thank you for reading.

Kamila

INSPIRED BY:

Antares Star and Venus, midpoints & “Radical Sage” writing by Andrew Smith, Blue Rose School of Astrology, Ireland.

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