Deliverance

In the quiet, silver‑kissed hours before dawn, when the world still holds its breath, the cluster of heavens we call Pleiades gleams like handfuls of fire‑flies against the Irish sky. In our old tongue we know them as An Stróilín, “the straggling little stars,” a name spoken softly by neighbour and ceilidh‑guest alike, when they tone: “Is it late? For An Stróilín is going down.”

They are seven sisters of light, drifting at the edge of night’s realm, guiding both the wanderer and the home‑returning, marking the turning of seasons, the tipping of time from bright to dark. In Ireland they were once the gentle signal: the safe guest rises; the hearth dims; the cattle are driven between fires; the veil between worlds thins.

Under An Stróilín’s watch, the world opens its hidden doors. The fairy‑people stir in their mounds; the ancestors stir in their silent places. According to our lore, the rising and the setting of these stars are not mere astronomy but thresholds, moments when the Otherworld sighs softly and the mortal world listens.

The Pleiades cluster features in many folklore anecdotes and myths relating to the dead and passing to and from the spirit world. In some traditions this middle place, veil, or Otherworld is the realm between the human world and the abode of the gods. It is a place where imagination, archetypes and the spirits all reside. You can understand why, for many, there is an overlap between fairies and the dead in this context. Either way, November is a month dedicated to deceased loved ones, ancient ancestors and spirits in many cultures and traditions.

This video explores the rise of the Pleaides as the Sun sets under the Western horizon, along with the week’s slow build up of Mars’s entrance through the Duat Pillars, as he aligns with Antares, one of the four Royal Stars of the ecliptic.

Here are some questions to reflect upon ahead of that conjunction

In moments when the universe seems to pulse with intensity, how do you choose between destruction and creation, between surrendering to chaos or shaping it into something new?

and

How might this intensity become a force for liberation, burning away what no longer serves you and opening the path to freedom?

In other words, are you prepared for ‘deliverance’? Take it away pastor Prince!