The concept and the imagery of the north star keeps showing up in my life. And at this point, I can’t pretend it’s not a message. While I feel confident that it is no longer a coincidence, I am not sure if I know yet what the message is. Sometimes these things take time to figure out.
The idea of the north star is not a new concept for me. I’m not saying that I had never considered the north star before recent events. But when something that you never think about starts showing up in the books you read, the conversations you have, gifts you are given and tarot readings you do, it might be time to seriously think about it and what it might mean.
The North Star as a Gift
The north star first showed up this year when I was at Spring Mysteries Festival in March. Towards the end of the festival, after our big initiation, everyone was given a north star necklace. I never learned what this necklace meant, although I know the festival organizers chose it for a reason. As I said, the north star wasn’t something that was on my mind at the time therefore receiving the necklace did not seem overly significant.
The North Star in Conversations
My best friend and I have been having some conversations about the Norse god Tyr recently. Although I work with many of the Norse deities, Tyr is not one I have spent a lot of time with personally. So I started looking more into Tyr and learning about him.
Tyr, like most gods, is multifaceted. And a lot of his lore has been lost to history. He is not the most popular of the Norse gods with modern Pagans but he does seem to have a growing number of devotees and people interested in learning more about him. Like many Norse deities, Tyr is a god of war. But he is also a god of justice, of honor, service and of sacrifice. It is also believed that Tyr was once one a sky god. In Indo-European cultures, the sky gods were typically the chief of the gods (think Zeus in Greek mythology or Anu in Mesopotamian mythology). So Tyr could have been considered foremost of the gods in the places he was heavily worshipped, such as mainland Europe. In contrast, a lot of Norse mythology and history comes from Nordic countries and their religion may have had a different focus. However that is a blog for another time.
One of Tyr’s symbols, albeit a modern one, is the north star. It is associated with the introspective nature of Tyr. It represents the guidance that comes from reflection. Tyr being a sky god lends some historical credit to the idea of the north start being one of his symbols.
The North Star in Tarot
Spring is festival and show season. We have been vending at a lot of events this year and I have found myself doing more tarot readings than usual. In doing so, I have noticed The Star card showing up more often. Enough so that I notice it every time it comes out in a reading, but not enough that I think it is my new stalker card.
In tarot, The Star card comes after The Tower card, making it a welcome reprieve from the disruptions of the tower. You have endured many challenges and stripped yourself bare of any limiting beliefs that have previously held you back. You are realizing your core essence, who you are beneath all the layers. No matter what life throws your way, you know that you are always connected to the Divine and pure loving energy. You hold a new sense of self, a new appreciation for your soul and it’s work.
The Star brings renewed hope and faith, and a sense that you are truly blessed by the Universe. This is a time of significant personal growth and development as you are now ready to receive the many blessings of the Universe.
With The Star card, anything is possible and the potential for everything is flowing around you. The Star represents that you have found your hope. Your spirit is uplifted, and you realize that your dreams and goals can actually come true. You just have to hold on to that feeling, to that faith and stay focused on your desires.
The North Star in My Reading
And the thing that finally made me say, “oh, this is a sign” is the book I am reading called The North Star. It is the fifth book in a series that I dearly love called The Wilde Grove series by Katherine Genet. I highly encourage everyone to read this series. It is about a group of Pagans, although they never use that word, living in balance with nature in a small village in England. And the readers are introduced to the village through a new character, which is fairly standard with a lot of world building series. The new character is then taught about meditating, trance work, living in harmony with nature, spirit work and so much more. The author is a practitioner herself and is essentially teaching her readers how to perform the same skills and live in harmony with nature just like the characters in her books. I cannot say enough good things about this series. In fact, I have considered using these fictional books as teaching aids in some of my classes and having students read them.
I am savoring the book, so I have a few pages left in it, I have not completed it. But the gist of the book is that the characters are being called to return to this village and to the work that their souls began many lifetimes ago. The concept of the North Star in the book is the Great Work that they are all supposed to be doing collectively.
The book series also closely follows real life and the challenges we are facing today such as climate change, capitalism and the destruction of the earth. And for those of you who also believe or are familiar with the Tower Time, the series does get into that. Which is confirmation for me on some of my rather fringe beliefs that luckily we don’t have time to get into here.
What Does the North Star Mean?
What does this all mean? I still don’t know exactly. It is something that I am going to continue to meditate on and hopefully find some answers to. But I do believe that collectively, for those of us who are working on ourselves, making the world a better place, making a stand and fighting for a more equitable world, the north star can be an important symbol.
The north star is a guiding star. Like the tarot card, this is the goal or the reason we are doing what we are doing. Sometimes life happens to us, and we have to pivot, change directions, focus on something else for a while. That’s life. But our north star is there to remind us of what we are ultimately working towards. We must keep our eye on the prize, on that north star, that will show us how to get where we want to be. The north star is our hope and it is what drives us on when things are challenging. Find your north star and never let it out of your sight.
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