1. Kurdah - Xi Cepheus
0°22 Aries - 'The blaze' upon a horse's brow.
The Knock of inner spirituality on the brow. Inner Silence borne over the centuries and lifetimes makes heard its inner calling.
Divinity at the threshold knocking upon the third eye. The ancient Indians marked it as a mark on the forehead saluting this inner divinity.
The classical figment of the Horse sets this off. Aries Point, what in astrology is the end of process, consciously atleast.
How do you know a degree? This one says the world for many many centuries has known this Star to be the beginning of the Zodiac.
The star itself, Kurdah, is old language for a running horse. The blaze upon its brow, what the Indian mark as the ‘Tilak’.
The spot for the Horse, where would be the Unicorn’s horn.
But our world knows not of Unicorns, or flying horses in pegs & Pegasus-es, of centaurs or sea-horses, all vestiges of thousand of civilisations past.
The Star is the spot where the Horses look, inward in focus. As if running & chasing time itself where wonder and magic roamed free.
This is the First Degree of the Zodiac. It is said that the horse is the mind focussed to its thought(s). And thus the eyes like two horses, held in chariot of Focus.
The Point of Chariot, not quite the horse’s mouth, but rather the third eye, Ajna of the Horse.
The constellation that houses ‘Kurdah’ is Cepheus, of the King.
And like the Emperor’s messenger horse, we begin to know ourself in the stars.
The Message of this Star and Degree – Know Your Self.
To the Indian Nakshatra scheme, this is the first step station of the asterism Ashwini, of the Healing Horses. It is said to be ruled by the Tail of the Dragon or the Lunar Eclipse Ketu. And the Step station of this degree – Mars.
Naturally, this is a critical degree.
A coat of quotes and passing poetry
"Praising
Only one who has raised the lyre
Praising, that’s it! As one ordered to praise
he emerged like the ore from the silent stone.
His heart, O the transient wine-press, among mankind, of an inexhaustible wine.
When the divine mode grips him, the voice in his mouth never fails.
All becomes vineyard, all becomes grape, grown riper in his feeling’s south.
Neither the must in the tombs of the kings nor from the gods that a shadow falls, detracts at all from his praising.
He’s a messenger, who always remains, still holding far through the doors of the dead a dish with fruit they can praise.
Only one who has raised the lyre already, among the shades, may sense how to return the unending praise.
Only one who, with the dead, ate of the poppy, theirs, from them, will not lose the slightest note ever again.
Wish even the image in the pond that blurs for us, often: know the reflection.
Only within the double sphere will the voices become kind, and eternal.
"Praising | Rainer Marie Rilke