Eureka! Or, at least, a little closer....

It is so weird when you get insights into bits and pieces of Lady Olivia's dramas from random places. Finding information by opening a book to a random passage is a form of divination known as bibliomancy. It's not a technique I tend to practice much, but sometimes things just jump in your lap. <grin>

In earlier posts on "The Winged Pegasus" from Psyche, I commented that I could not quite sort out how Lady Olivia was getting five stars from a four-cornered square. The specific line that was bugging me is, "And beyond the Square of Pegasus is Al Janah, the Wing, and this is the Fifth Sun and it is a mystery." There are two things I've found that could apply here, and represent the solution of "a mystery."

The first is Al Janah, which is the star Algenib. In the earliest Greek traditions, Pegasus was simply a beautiful, magical horse; his wings were added later, toward mid-Classical times, according to Richard Hinckley Allen's Star Names. But he also mentions that earlier versions of the constellation from Phoenicia and from Egypt saw it as a boat. In Egypt, particularly, the name is Pag Sus, meaning to stop a vessel at the change of the Nile flow. This could represent the mystery of the addition of the wing, as I found from a quick scan of Donald P. Ryan's Ancient Egypt on 5 Deben a Day. In it, Ryan relates that because of the current, ships can drift down the Nile quite swiftly from Upper to Lower Egypt, but once they delivered their cargoes in the Delta region, they had to raise sail to return to Upper Egypt (southward) against the current. So, one aspect of the mystery of the Wing's appearance/disappearance could be this Egyptian symbolism of coming to a halt and raising the sail, e.g., the ship's wing.

However, there is a link further with the "Fifth Sun" that ties in with the "Fourth Sun" segment set in ancient Aztec myth. Central American natives had a creation mythic sequence including the prior existence of several "Suns," each of which had been destroyed through one form of elemental tragedy or another. According to the Aztecs at the time of the Spanish conquest, we are currently living in the time of the "Fourth Sun," which was created when Quetzalcoatl shed blood from his generative organs as a sacrifice to allow the Sun's birth. It was in acknowledgment of his blood sacrifice that the Aztecs offered the blood of others to the Gods—they truly believed that without such nourishment, the world would cease to exist. (That, and it made a really great terror mechanism to keep rebellious conquered peoples in line!)

The "Fifth Sun" is what the supposed 2012 controversy is about, where some speculate that the end of the Maya Long Count calendar on Winter Solstice 2012 marks the end of the "Fourth Sun" and a transition to a new, "Fifth Sun." Since these transitions have always been accompanied by earthly catastrophes, there has been a great deal of speculation about "earth changes," and other doom-saying surrounding this issue. The only problem is that the Maya themselves continued the Long Count calendar on a number of stelae beyond the 2012 date, and did not themselves have a prediction of catastrophe. We know a great deal more about what the Maya believed now than we did even 20 years ago because of the archeologists who cracked the Maya hieroglyphic language—and we've uncovered a culture very much at odds with the peace-loving priest-astronomers who were once theorized to inhabit this culture.

So the "Fifth Sun" is a parallel to our Western "Age of Aquarius," which will dawn officially in about 150 years. (To date, the Spring Equinox point is still in Pisces.) This clearly ties in with the Pegasus constellation being the well or bucket the Aquarian figure draws water from that he/she pours down to feed the Southern Fish, Piscis Australis. In terms of psychic transformation, which is the whole point of these mystery dramas, you could say that Pegasus represents the turning of the tide where we "raise sail" to head into the future. Lady Olivia's drama is encouraging us to draw on the serpent wisdom of the past through many cultures, and the depths of the ocean, both of which represent the intuitive, feminine side of knowledge channeled up from the Collective Unconscious (to use Jung's terms).

So each part of this journey using Manannan's Wheel takes you higher into levels of Aquarian insight, in which you may gain a "mystery" or "gift" of knowledge from the gods in the process. These mysteries can be anything, from a power object you see to a spirit guide, or even an interaction with one of the Divine Beings that gives you insight into your life and reason for being on Earth. The idea of constructing the etheric vehicle and traveling through all these spheres is to let your conscious mind yield control to the unconscious, so that your intuitive insight is activated. The more you study the symbols, deities, stars, and relationships, the more profound your insight is likely to be.

And you never know—chance opening of a book to a passage may bring something wonderful into focus for you that you never expected. You may learn something new you didn't realize before.