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The Hare and the
Eggs… a sky story
Bernadette Brady
M.A.
Located at the feet of Orion and running from Canis Major (the great
dog) is Lepus the hare. The constellation consists of faint
stars and has been defined as many different objects over time. The
Arabs saw it as a thirsty camel bending down to drink from the Milky
Way. The Egyptians claimed it as Osiris' boat and the Chinese called
it The Shed.
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The Hare was well
established in the sky by the time of the Greek poet Aratus (3rd
century B.C.E.), yet its position and its actual presence among
the constellations has raised questions from the Greeks to this
very day.
For Lepus the hare is an ancient
constellation, not a modern addition
like the house fly Mucas placed in the sky by
Johann Bayer in the 17th century.
So why would a timid insignificant creature
such as a hare be honoured in the sky and why
placed at the feet of the
mightiest of hunters (Orion) with his hounds chasing such a
unworthy prey?
The Hare
seems to be symbolic of far more
than
just a timid creature.
In
Egyptian mythology a sacred hare is associated with both the
sun god Ra and the moon god Toth and its role was to guard or
collect and/or deliver the sacred egg of life.
Additionally, the hare was often depicted by the
Egyptians as greeting the dawn, thus paying homage to the sun
god Ra who himself was believed to be born of a great egg. |
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The
constellations Orion, Lepus and Canis Major.
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This loyal
servant and priest of Ra, the hare, thus being faithful to his
task of sun-watching and fast-footed, became a messenger between the
sun god Ra and the moon god Toth.
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Adding to
its sacred place the
hare was also associated with Osiris who was sometimes portrayed
with a hare's head. Osiris was sacrificed to the Nile each year
(possibly in March or April, a few months before the flood) in
the form of a hare to guarantee the annual flooding upon which
the Egyptian agriculture (and indeed their entire society) depended.
[Left - From the coffin
of Bakenmut, divine father of Amum. Thebes 21st dynasty.
(British museum)]
This is reflected in the hieroglyph ‘Wn’ which
is the word for the very essence of life, depicted as a hare on top of a single
blue-green ripple which means 'to exist'.
This link between hares, eggs and the moon is also in Hindu
mythology where the moon is named Cacin or Sasanka
which means Marked with the Hare. |
In recent times it is generally agreed that
the placement of the hare next to Orion is
representative of the union between the sun and the moon
(Jobes:199). Such a union would involved
the dawn-watching-hare receiving the light of the sun just as the
moon "watches"
the sun to produces the
lunar phases, seen as the rhythm of life and
fertility.
Of course this symbolism
is still with us today. The
Christian world celebrates its only lunar
festival of the year at Easter, the death
and resurrection of Christ,
which echoes the Egyptian sacred time of the death of Osiris with
his hare ears to ensure the rebirth of the Nile.
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We still have the hare
symbolism at this sacred time of
Easter
but not really knowing what
to do with it we have turned it into a
Disney-like rabbit that brings children eggs.
Indeed not wanting to lose our hare, we have
morphed it into characters deeply embedded in our literature but
always as one who challenges the domination of the solar order.
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Briar Rabbit
(US Folk Story) |
The March
Hare
( Lewis Carol's Alice in Wonderland) |
Bugs Bunny
(Walt Disney) |
Peter Rabbit
(Beatrix Potter) |
 Even the idea of decorating eggs is much older than Christian Easter, for the ancient Persians also painted eggs for Nowrooz, their New Year celebration falling on the Spring
Equinox.
So as
you munch away on a chocolate egg this Easter,
take a moment to think about
its history, the lunar
symbolism and dead gods with hare ears, and if
you have time, take a look
at the western night sky in the early evening and you
just might see the Easter Bunny as he/she slips below the western
horizon to go into the underworld and find more of those precious
eggs.
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Jobes, Gertude and
James. (1964). Outer Space: Myths Name Meanings Calendars.
London. The Scarecrow Press, Inc.
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An Egg and Three Kisses:
A
Case Study
of Fabergé
Darrelyn Gunzburg
For most of us we connect Easter with eggs. So we thought it
would be of interest to consider some of the parans in the chart of the man who, in
1885, gave eggs to
jewellery: Peter Carl Fabergé . The son of a jeweller,
Fabergé began
what was to become his trademark when he presented
Czar
Alexander III
with a
bejewelled egg that the Czar
had commissioned as a gift for his wife, Czarina
Maria
Feodorovna. Easter
is the most important feast of the Russian Orthodox Church calendar,
celebrated with the
exchanging of eggs and three kisses. The egg reminded Czarina
Maria
of her homeland and from that moment on it became an Imperial tradition: the Easter gift
was to always have an egg shape and it was to contain a surprise which was
to be kept a secret. When Czar Alexander III died, his son, Nicholas II,
continued the practice and over this time, fifty-six Imperial eggs were
created, including eggs commemorating the coronation of Czar Nicholas II,
the completion of the Trans Siberian Railway, the Uspensky Cathedral, the
Gatchina
Palace,
and during the
time of war, the Red Cross and the military.
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The Jewel in the
Design:
Fabergé ’s Venus
Fabergé is a
jeweller, so
an obvious starting point when looking at some of the fixed stars that
sit underneath his chart is to consider his Venus in Aries (in
detriment) conjunct Uranus. This combination suggests an independent,
challenge-orientated approach to his relating, socializing and
networking pattern (Venus in Aries), flavored with the love of
difference or freedom to engage with many people (Venus-Uranus) yet a
difference that still relies on the support and help of other people
and/or taking an alternative, non-mainstream approach (detriment). In
his young years he has the following star-planet combination:
Venus is rising as
Scheat
is on the nadir
Independent ideas concerning fashion,
relationships and social customs |
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Peter
Carl Faberge - 18 May 1846, St Petersburg, Russia
unknown birth time |
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As part
of the Great Square of Pegasus, this star adds intellect and
the challenge of logic to his personal and
business networks. Brady writes of this star in Starlight:
You will want to think independently and may well
have issues about needing
to break with conventional thought or philosophy.
Thus we begin
to see that this love of independence of thought and difference expressed
by the Venus-Uranus natally is being emphasized in the fixed stars that
connect with the Venus by paran. This is seen most clearly when
his younger brother
Agathon, a trained jeweler, joined him in the business in 1882, for it was
then that a new dimension came into Fabergé’s work. The two began to make
copies of ancient Russian treasures and sell them. Their designs were
inspired by historical art works imitated or copied by Fabergé from his
travels or from the Hermitage, a treasury which stored all of the precious
objects of the Russian czars, including gold artifacts and ancient
treasures and where Fabergé volunteered his time.
However, until that time many felt the value of jewelry was
intrinsic, based upon the precious metals and stones that were used in the
piece, such as malachite, jade and lapis lazuli. Fabergé believed it was
the fine craftsmanship of
jewellery
that made it art and that it was this artistic creativity
that transcended bullion value.
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Resurrection Egg
-1887 |
Renaissance Egg
-1894 |
Azova Egg - 1891
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15th Anniversary
Egg - 1911 |
Peter the Great
Egg - 1903 |
As
one visitor to
an exhibition of the Fabergé eggs at the
Museum
of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia
wrote:
The eggs are each unique masterpieces with
intricate designs and clever
engineering created with precious metals and gems, each
capable of fitting into one
open hand. Though small, the eggs are dazzling to behold.
Fabergé also has the following:
Venus is
rising as
Altair
is on the nadir
The bold artisan, a
person who is sexually and sensually orientated
Altair is the bright star in the Eagle and is associate with
boldness of action and thought. Again, the story of his natal Venus in
Aries conjunct Uranus is being underscored with Altair in paran with
Venus, allowing him to take a non-mainstream approach and changing the
idea of value in jewellery (Venus).
The hard work that makes it happen: Fabergé’s Saturn
Fabergé’s Saturn is in
Pisces conjunct his Moon, suggesting an empathic connection with mother
but which suffers from some form of separation anxiety at birth. Without a
birth time, we do not know the natal house placement or house rulerships
of this Moon-Saturn. However, the Fabergé family is French by origin.
Their home had been the
village of
La Bouteille
in the Picardy region of North Eastern France and they were Huguenots in a
predominantly Roman Catholic country. In 1685 King Louis XIV of
France
revoked the Edict of Nantes and they lost religious freedom and civil
liberty and fled east, living over the next 150 years firstly in East
Germany, then Livonia, then Russia. Given this background, it is possible
this Moon-Saturn may be an inherited pattern, particularly since Faberge
repeated this pattern of escape later in his own life.
More closely, young
Fabergé was educated in Germany and gained his apprenticeship as a
goldsmith there. His father was a Master Goldsmith in St Petersburg but
retired at the age of forty-six in order to live in
Dresden,
leaving the business in the hands of two managers, and at the age of
twenty- four, his elder son.
Taking over as head of
his father’s business suggests the striking once more of this bitter-sweet
chord, the gift of responsibility mixed with the wrench of emotional
separation. Yet under this Saturn sits some potent fixed stars:
In his young years
Saturn is rising as Deneb Algedi is rising
A
person who believes in the value of persistence and hard work
Deneb Algedi is the star in the tail of
Capricornus, the sea-goat, the law-giving, justice-orientated ancient god
who is trying to civilize his people. Translated into this star-planet
paran in Fabergé’s pre-Saturn Return years tells us that he has the
strength not only for such early responsibility but the gift of hard work
that can achieve productivity through a genuine desire to help through a
leadership role.
As well,
Saturn is rising as Sirius is setting
To
be a founder of an institution; an idea that goes from strength
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Sirius is one of the great stars of the sky, the
brightest star in the heavens. When it touches a person’s chart
through being in paran with a planet or luminary, the mundane becomes
sacred through that planet. In this case, touching Fabergé’s Saturn
allows him to take an idea and build it into an institution.
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Fabergé and his younger brother exhibited their work at
the 1882
Pan-Russian Exhibition held in Moscow.
Their work
was a
sensation. Czar,
Alexander III, and his wife, Czarina Maria were in attendance and made a
purchase at the Faberge exhibit and Faberge was presented with a gold
medal honoring him as "...having opened a new era in jewelry art". In 1885
he became
the Tsar’s Court Goldsmith.
Fabergé changed the face of jewellery through his designs and
raised the humble egg to exquisite proportions, all because the most
important feast of the Russian Orthodox Church calendar is Easter,
celebrated with the exchanging of eggs and three kisses.
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Sources:
Brady, Bernadette. (1998). Brady's Book of Fixed Stars. York Beach,
Maine USA: Samuel Weiser, Inc.
Starlight Software (2002) Barnswood and Brady:Zyntara Publications
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Profession and Money in the natal chart
by Bernadette Brady
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