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The Constellation Cygnus - The Swan or Bird of Return

The Swan lies between Constellations Pegasus and Draco and is often shown with outstretched wings flying parallel with the Milky Way."

- Cygnus

"The very beautiful Cygnus constellation is quite easy to observe in the summer because it is very high up in the sky. Along it's length is one of the most beautiful areas of the Milky Way.

It is also very easily recognized by it's giant cross made of stars."

- Cygnus

"There are two celestial features that may have served as a model for the cross (or staurós, in Greek): the prominent constellation Cygnus, otherwise known as the Northern Cross, and the equally prominent T-shaped star-group in the constellation Scorpio."

- The Messiah Metaphor
by Jacqueline Brook

"Cygnus, sometimes called the Northern Cross, is the perfect counterpoint to the anguish of the Southern Cross. For here is a picture of a swan circling, and then returning to, earth. The brightest star, Deneb, means The Lord Comes, also called Arided, He Shall Come Down."

After Armageddon
by John A. Sarkett

"Cygnus was son of Mars..."

Mars is Aries, the sign of the 21st Century Schizoid Man . Cygnus represents Christ, the "son of (fallen) man". Aries, the "Ram", is also (or becomes) the "Lamb" of God (Intuition).

"...Cygnus is also called the Northern Cross with Deneb as its head and Albirio was the foot of the cross. It was only a short step from here to where it was also called the Cross of Calvary."

- Star Lore

"The last Decan or part of this story ...is Cygnus — The Swan, the lordly king-bird of the waters. In classic writings the swan was considered the emblem of poetic dignity, purity and grace. It seems to be flying down the Milky Way, in the same general direction with the river which pours from the heavenly urn. It is thus the bird of matchless beauty, purity, dignity and grace, bearing aloft the cross, and circling with it over the blessed waters of life."

- The Heavens Declare
by J. Preston Eby

"English Christians knew Cygnus as "The Northern Cross" from the time of the Venerable Bede, and held it in awe. Because the Cross stands erect over Europe at 9 p.m. on the night before Christmas, the constellation was regarded as a divine portent of the crucifixion.

The Northern Cross not only signifies the death and resurrection of Christ, but has an even more ancient association with a myth of recrossing the bourne separating the living and dead. Under its pagan designation, Cygnus, the constellation was dedicated to Orpheus--perhaps because of its close proximity to Lyra, the harp or cythera.

The lyre was the instrument Orpheus used to enchant the creatures of the underworld in his quest for Euridice. A third, nearby, and related constellation is Draco, the Great Northern Serpent. Orpheus' beloved Euridice died from the poisonous bite of a snake, as did Old Hamlet: "The serpent that did sting thy father's life Now wears his crown" (1.5.38-9). Together, the three constellations present an eternal tableau vivant of the archetypal myth of contact between living and dead."

- Certain Speculations on Hamlet, the Calendar, and Martin Luther
by Steve Sohmer

"The pole star today is of course Polaris in Ursa Minor and will next enter the constellation Cepheus, which constellation pictures God as the triumphant king over all the earth."

- Ursa Minor The Lesser Bear
by Anne Wright

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The Constellation of Cepheus

"Cepheus, The King [Latin Cepheus, from Greek Kepheus], appears on the Meridian on October 15. Cepheus has been known for thousands of years. Its shape is a large pentagram, rather like a child's drawing of a house with a steep roof.

Others call Cepheus, The Crowned King, depicting a picture of a bearded man who wears a crown, seated upon a throne. In his uplifted hand he holds a sceptre and with his right hand he holds a portion of his robe. His right foot is placed firmly upon the Pole-star, the central point in all of the galaxies and all of the heavens. A picture of Christ enthroned, no longer the slain Lamb but the Great Redeemer.

Cepheus means "The (Royal) Branch or the King."

To the ancient Egyptians this constellation is known as "Per-Ku-Hor", meaning "This One Cometh to Rule."

- The Symbolism and Spiritual Significance of the Number Five
by Dee Finney

"In addition, Cepheus is well known as the home of the famous Garnet Star (Mu Cephei), the reddest naked-eye star in the sky."

- Cepheus: The King
by Roger Ducharme

"Known as the "Garnet Star" because of its deep red color, Mu Cephei is one of the most intensely colored stars ever recorded when viewed through a telescope. It is 38,000 times brighter than the sun."

- Mu Cephei Deep Red Giant
by by Travis Metcalfe

"The Garnet Star is a huge red giant. Much like Betelguese in Orion, its size is uncertain, but if its center were where our sun is, we would be inside it."

- Cepheus
by Kerry Magruder

"Betelgeuse is nearly one billion miles across. It is so titanic, if it replaced the sun at the center of our solar system, its outer atmosphere would extend to the orbit of Jupiter.

Larger still is the red star Mu Cephei, in -- appropriately enough -- the constellation Cepheus the King. This supergiant's diameter is comparable to the orbit of Saturn."

- The Largest Star
by Chris Lancaster

"As a point of interest, Mu Cephei is the north polar star of the planet Mars."

- Cepheus

"The largest known star is Mu Cephei which has a radius of 11 astronomical units. One astronomical unit is the distance from the Earth to the Sun - 93 million miles - so this star would encompass our solar system out to Saturn! Will all remnants of human existence perish when the time comes for this planet to disappear into history, as it inevitably will? Just as the organic basis of our DNA may derive from interstellar pollution (via the Big Bang) perhaps, one day, we will bequeath our own organic matter to the universe."

- Beyond Star Trek
by Lawrence Krauss

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Cepheus was the father of Andromeda. There are several curious similarities between the myths of Andromeda and Agamemnon.

"Andromeda was chained to a rock because her mother, Queen Cassiopeia, had bragged that she was more beautiful than the sea nymphs, the Nereids. The nymphs called on Poseidon, the god of the seas, for revenge. Poseidon sent a monster, represented by the constellation Cetus, to terrorize the coast. King Cepheus consulted the Oracle of Ammon for advice and was told to sacrifice his daughter, Andromeda, to the sea monster. Fortunately, Perseus, who had already beheaded another monster, Medusa, arrived in time to kill the monster and rescue Andromeda. Perseus' reward was to marry Andromeda."

- Compton's Encyclopedia

Iphigenia was sacrificed to the gods because her father, Agamemnon, had bragged that he was a more proficient hunter than the goddess, Artemis. In her anger, Artemis sent adverse winds to keep the Greek fleet from sailing. King Agamemnon consulted a prophet for advice and was told to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia, to appease the goddess. Unfortunately there was no Perseus to rescue Iphigenia.

So it would seem that, by rescuing Andromeda, Perseus is able to reverse one of the great tragedies alluded to in the first album, the sacrifice of Agamemnon's daughter, the anima.

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"Cassiopeia is a beautiful constellation at the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy and is associated with what is known as the Perseus Constellation Family. It is in the zodiacal sign of the Ram wherein one finds the stars Shedir, "The Breast," Ruckbah, "The Enthroned," and Dat al-Cursa, "The Seated."

Cassiopeia is an enthroned woman, at whose right hand is a star crowned King Cepheus holding his sceptre toward her. Ancient writings describe her as his wife, and she is also referred to in other ancient sources as "The Bride, the Lamb's wife."

- The True Identity of Fulcanelli and The Da Vinci Code
by Laura Knight-Jadczyk

"Cassiopeia is the Priestess in the Tarot, which Wirth also identifies with the Egyptian Isis and Latin/Greek Juno/Hera. "...the Priestess (Arcana 2) who is seated motionless and calm, impenetrable and priestly. She is the priestess of mystery, Isis, the goddess of deep night and without her help the human spirit could not penetrate the darkness."

- Cassiopeia
by Anne Wright

Cepheus

Cassiopeia

"The symbolism of the throne can give a better understanding of this constellation, Cassiopeia, the Enthroned Queen. In the Book of Revelation (4: 2ff.), the 'throne that was set in heaven', surrounded by the four symbolic beasts, was a manifestation of God's glory at the end of the world. It symbolizes the final balance of the cosmos, a balance, Burckhardt writes, achieved by the complete integration of all natural opposites."

- Cassiopeia
by Anne Wright

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"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and
there was no more sea.
And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem , coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride
adorned for her husband.
The New Jerusalem by Gustave Dore

And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues,
and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb's wife.
And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy
Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God,
Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear
as crystal;"

- Revelation 21: 1-2, 9-11

"By virtue of this stone the Phoenix is burned to ashes, in which she is reborn. Thus does the Phoenix molt her feathers, after which she shines dazzling and bright, and as lovely as before. However ill a mortal man may be, from the day on which he sees the Stone, he cannot die for that week, nor does he lose his color. For if anyone, maid or man, were to look at the Grail for two hundred years, you would have to admit that his color was as fresh as in his early prime...Such powers does the Stone confer on mortal men that their flesh and bones are soon made young again. This stone is also called the Grail."

- Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival

"I have occasionally spoken of a light in the soul which is uncreated and uncreatable. . . . This light is not satisfied with the simple, still and divine being which neither gives nor takes, but rather it desires to know from where this being comes. It wants to penetrate to the simple ground, to the still desert, into which distinction never peeped, neither Father, Son nor Holy Spirit. There, in that most inward place, where everyone is a stranger, the light is satisfied, and there it is more inward than it is in itself, for this ground is a simple stillness which is immovable in itself. But all things are moved by this immovability and all the forms of life are conceived by it..."

- Meister Eckhart

"In the deeps are the violence and terror of which psychology has warned us. But if you ride these monsters deeper down, if you drop with them farther over the world's rim, you find what our sciences cannot locate or name, the substrate, the ocean or matrix or ether which buoys the rest, which gives goodness its power for good, and evil its power for evil, the unified field: our complex and inexplicable caring for each other, and for our life together here. This is given. It is not learned."

- Annie Dillard, Teaching A Stone To Talk

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"Gazing past the planets, looking for total view
I've been lying here for hours
You've got to make the journey out and in."

- Mike Pinder, Out and In
from The Moody Blues album To Our Children's Children's Children

"Frederick, in later days, showed distinguished visitors his priceless planetarium, in which the sun, moon and stars moved in mysterious harmony."

- Frederick the 2nd 1194-1250
by Ernest Kantorowicz (p. 195)

"Night her sable dome scattered with diamonds"

"The ambassadors of the ' Old Man of the Mountain, ' the head of the Assassins, came to find Frederick, and the ambassadors of the Sultan of Damascus who brought a planetarium made of gold and jewels."

- Frederick the 2nd 1194-1250
by Ernest Kantorowicz (p. 195)

(p. 388)

"Between Cassiopeia and Cygnus lies Cepheus (The King) while Lacerta (The Lizard), lies just above Cepheus."

- Navigating With Constellations

"Wonders of a lifetime, right there before your eyes
Searching with this life of ours
You've got to make the journey out and in
Out and in, out and in."

- Mike Pinder, Out and In

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