Speaking Stars

Northern lights over Eyafjordur, Iceland 2018

I named this blog speaking stars because the stars and stellar centred practice has become a huge thing for me since 2018 directly because of my interactions and experiences with the Otherworld. I've written at length about how that all came about here and here so I don't want to plunge back into it now. The important part here is that my spirituality and ritual changed dramatically and came to focus on the Pleaides specifically and the stars more generally. 

I don't think that this approach is universal among the Other, and I am actually pretty confident that which constellation or star is focused on depends on exactly which group of Other beings one is connected to. My lot, and the ones I encountered in Iceland, look to the Pleiades. Others in other places may look to Orion or Sirius or Polaris, or any other. 

My initial introduction to this concept came in Iceland via a group of the Huldufólk, but after returning from Iceland I plunged into researching the topic at length. And beyond the human world research I did go to my own connections among the Other to see what they had to say. they had already emphasized the importance of the dark moon to me, but it never occured to me that the dark moon is when neither sun nor moon are in the sky and only the stars are visible. At least, I didn't realize that until I went to my main guide among my own Other people and she started talking about the significance of the stars to them.
She said, "The sun and moon circle in an endless round but the stars dance as we below them dance. Our steps mirror theirs, and their joy reflects ours. We follow with them, dance with them, and in doing so we are part of something eternal and grand. The song the universe sings, that the Nameless One, began and continues, we are all part of it, both the chorus and the dance. The stars that guide us go by many names: the Flock, the Sisters, the Queens, the 7 Stars. We measure our steps by theirs, and we celebrate at the times they mark, when their blue fire burns horizon to horizon, overhead, and when it is absent from the sky."

The cycle of holy days, following the stars, is compared to a dance then and is connected to physical movement and actual dancing.
I'm starting to think their analogies and metaphors aren't those things as we understand them but are literally layered meanings for any immutable concept.
The holy days are fixed steps in a wider celestial dance, and a dance themselves, and being one with the song and movement in that single point. It's that feeling when you are dancing and everything else falls away and you are keenly aware of each moment as you are flowing from one step to another, but it is a dance, a movement, aligned to a deep song. It's the stars dancing, and us dancing, as we have forever. Not metaphor. Not analogy. All of that true at once of the same single concept resonating back on itself.
I don't know if I'm explaining this well, it feels too big for words.

All things shift and all things change

Though yet the inner truth remains

The seven queens dance with the moon

Across the sky to an ancient tune

Their light aligns, blue and palest white

Guiding fire shining in our deepest night

We dance behind, step for step

Bow for bow and leap for leap

In this way the track of season's mark

The way is open, a path trod in the dark

Seven guiding stars, eldritch queens

Ancient powers whose wisdom frees

We dance through time, we dance through space

We bring the draoicht sí to this place