In the mystery wisdom of the world there are always references to sleeping kings that lie hidden until something stirs them to wakefulness. And here at the beginning of 2016, an astronomy event is unfolding that is like the story of one of our favorite kings waking up to reclaim his gold!
The ‘big event’ is the Comet Catalina, which can now be found hurtling toward its closest approach to Earth. This means it’s becoming more and more visible to us and you can find it looking east into the early morning sky, from 4 to 6 am.
Catalina is in the region of the star Arcturus, one of the brightest stars visible to us on Earth. This star is linked to a mystery of King Arthur, and is sometimes described as a ‘circumpolar’ star because it never sets as it circles round and round the pole star.
King Arthur is the son of Uther Pendragon, who gets Merlin to cast a bewitching fog so he can trick the wife of his enemy and take advantage of her. The offspring of this trick is Arthur, who must find his way through his father’s underhandedness to a higher truth.
We can see all of this in the sky, where Arthur-Arcturus seems to be circling round this ‘higher truth’ which is our pole star. But here we also find the constellation of the dragon, Arthur’s father, continually casting a spell over those who would dare approach the pole star.
But now this comet is whizzing into view, calling Arthur to wake, and to make for the gold that is the highest truth hidden by his father.
In all fairy tales, the hero-king is challenged to wait for the right moment before he can strike, so if you can’t decide whether to get up to find the gold that is Catalina’s promise, note that now is the singular moment~the comet is moving is so fast and at such an arc that once it leaves our planetary system, it will never return.
Good luck to you in finding King Arthur’s gold as a promise for a bountiful New Year.