Renna Shesso - Planets for Pagans: Sacred Sites, Ancient Lore, and Magical Stargazing

Praise for Planets for Pagans

Planets for Pagans truly is an enchanted journey. We learn about the stars and planets through engaging storytelling and cross-cultural myths amid the patterns and movement of the night sky. Renna Shesso has woven a luminous tapestry, sharing her insights, her personal experience, and her deep knowledge of ancient wisdom traditions. This brilliant book is a map that leads us back to our sacred selves.

Sandra Ingerman, MA, author of Soul Retrieval, Medicine for the Earth and How to Thrive in Changing Times

Wow, what a read! Planets for Pagans is an experience sure to intrigue your intellect, stretch your imagination, ignite your soul, and remind you of all the wonder you feel when you look up and connect with life above. As a nature lover and shamanic practitioner, I have always felt akin to the gems in the night sky, never feeling alone even while backpacking by myself in remote areas. Thanks to Renna, we now have the opportunity to understand more about these relations as presented through her masterful bridging of nature, astronomy, astrology, mythology, ancestral teachings, shamanic knowings, soul sensations, and simple truths. It's lovely for the head to understand what the heart has always felt, and the soul always known.

Colleen Deatsman, author of The Hollow Bone: A Field Guide to Shamanism and Seeing in the Dark: Claim Your Own Shamanic Power Now and in the Coming Age

At last! What a pleasure to have a book that looks at our sky instead of the abstract and dead universe of science. Planets for Pagans puts our forgotten, hidden sky into focus and brings its primeval meaning to us to provide food for our souls.

Greg Stafford, author, publisher of Shaman's Drum

Planets for Pagans presents a clear, accessible, up-to-date guide to the positions of the planets in the sky as well as to their resonances in our hearts and imaginations.

Diane Wolkstein, co-author of Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth

This edition first published in 2014 by Weiser Books, an imprint of

Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

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Copyright 2011 by Renna Shesso

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, llc. Reviewers may quote brief passages. Originally published as A Magical Tour of the Night Sky in 2011 by Weiser Books, ISBN: 978-1-57863-495-8

ISBN: 978-1-57863-573-3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request

Cover design by Jim Warner

Cover image: Constellation Card of Aquila and Surrounding Constellations

Library of Congress / Library of Congress

Typeset in Adobe Garamond and Frutiger

Interior by Dutton & Sherman

Printed in the United States of America

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We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust. Something opens our wings. Something makes boredom and hurt disappear. Someone fills the cup in front of us: We taste only sacredness.

RUMI

W ITH DEEP THANKS and joyful gratitude:

To Jerry Davidson, Marilyn Megenity, Deb Hoffman, Cheryl Pershey, Rory Joyner, Jeanette Stanhaus, and Joy Vernon, my patient and outspoken readers, for their curiosity, encouragement, and late-night discussions. You helped keep the heart in this heady endeavor.

To the Colorado and wider communities of shamanism and the Craft, and the teachers, mentors, students, and friends I've been blessed to find within each. These connections with Spirit are my Polaris.

To the librarians of the Denver Public Library and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science's Alice Bailey Library; to Prospector, the interlibrary loan system; and to Starry Night Pro astronomy software, on which many of my illustrations are based. Your resources helped make this book possible (and any mistakes remain my own).

To Caroline Pincus, associate publisher at Red Wheel/Weiser Books and Conari Press, for your ongoing enthusiasm and support for this project.

In memoriam, to my wildly creative astrologer-grandmother, Freda Benson, and to pioneering authors Gerald Hawkins and John Mitchell.

And finally, to the backyards, dunes, and star-rich nights of childhood, where wonder began.

T HESE ARE STORIES OF LOVE and Eternity, of deities and disguises, and of ancient knowledge that have receded into mystery. As mysteries go, however, this is one of the most playful:

The little girls are dressed as bear cubs, and they are dancing.

But let's start at the beginning.

First came wide-wandering Eurynome, Goddess of All Things, borne out of Chaos. Eurynome took the North Wind and crafted a great serpent from its air. She named this serpent Ophion; She danced with the snake and then She coupled with it. And then, from their mating, Eurynome birthed all things. All! Among the beings Eurynome brought forth were Phoebe, whose name means bright, and Coeus, who ruled the intellect and the starry axis of the heavens. Together Phoebe and Coeus had a daughter, Leto.

Her name may come from leth, to move unseen. But Leto was seen. Zeus saw, desired, and courted Her. From Her mating with Zeus, Leto bore a pair of remarkable divine twins who, between them, governed Night and Day. They were called Apollo and Artemisa god of the Sun and a goddess of the Moon.

Artemis was also the goddess of the hunt, the wild places, and all wild creatures, and was Herself devoted to independence. Four prancing, golden-horned deer pulled Her chariot. Sleek hounds and young mortal maidens were Her companionsamong them Kallisto, the fairest one.

Now Zeus saw Kallisto. He pursued herwas He disguised as His own daughter Artemis?and caught her.

Kallisto remained among Artemis' companions until, one day when all were bathing, Artemis saw that Kallisto was with child. The goddess was furious. Pregnant women shouldn't masquerade as virgin devotees. So Artemis transformed Kallisto into a bear and, calling to Her huntress companions and Her hounds, set out to hunt Her former friend.

Figure 1. Ursa Major, the great She-Bear.

Zeus saw all this and intervened. He hid His lover, the bear-Kallisto, high up among the stars, along with a smaller bearKallisto's son, Arcus.

One ancient ritual of Artemis was the arteiaplaying the bearduring which little girls were dressed in honey-colored robes and yellow bear-skins. Costumed as bear cubs, they danced to honor Artemisas if in a mystery school's kindergarten play, but on a much larger, public scale that included entire city-states. Playing the bear was a rite of passage for Athenian girls, their debut into the spiritual life of their city.

So, we begin our story with a goddess and her sensual dancing snake, beings who move unseen, deities of Day and Night, shape-shifting gods, and the great night skyespecially the great She-Bear who still dwells among the stars, spinning nonstop above us (see ).