In this post we will learn:
- How to find the star constellation Pegasus in the night sky
- How Pegasus and Medusa are connected in Ancient Greek mythology
- How Pegasus and Medusa are connected in the stars of the night sky
- How to find Medusa in the night sky
If this is your first time with us, this piece is part of a go-at-your-own pace Alternative Astronomy course for beginners. You can check out our Table of Contents page (click here) if you need to get caught up where we are learning to identify the star constellations of the Northern Hemisphere sky by season. We are going to be picking up on things we’ve already learned in previous lessons.
We start by facing South and looking up at that special place in the sky we’ve nicknamed The Real Oracle or The Real All-Seeing Eye. This time we choose to look on January 1st, commonly known as New Year’s Day and we’re looking at the hour after the sun has set.
Notice first in this image that all of the constellations that we have tracked throughout the Fall season are now found more westward along their journey traveling along the arc of the ecliptic and taking center stage now are Cetus The Whale and Pisces The Two Fishes.
How to find Pegasus in the night sky
Because we have already learned to identify both Cetus and Pisces, this makes things much easier for us now to find Pegasus The Winged Horse in the January night sky. Just look slightly above and to the West (your right) of where you see Pisces, to find Pegasus.
When you look at the way that Pegasus is shaped in the sky, it’s difficult to see how our ancient ancestors say a winged horse in this constellation, but because Pegasus is a large, full of bright stars constellation it does make it easy to find.
We will be learning in future posts how the story of Pegasus intersects with many other characters from Ancient Greek mythology, but in this post we are going to start with the first which is how Pegasus got his start. Pegasus’ birth you could say was divine, as Pegasus was born out of his dead mother Medusa.
How are Pegasus and Medusa connected in Ancient Greek Mythology?
In all of our Alternative Astronomy lessons we are learning more about how famous stories, like those found in mythology are actually telling us about the stories about how everything in the sky moves cyclically above our heads.
Remember that because many of these stories go back to a time before we as people had invented writing, they had to be created in a way to make them stick in the memory.
In oral traditions, we see that the stories would often have dramatic details within them as this aids in making them more memorable to the listener. Memory was the only way we had to pass down the knowledge one to another, so you can imagine that creating memorable stories would be of sky high importance.
This is why in this story about Pegasus’ birth, we see common elements of shock, some gore and lots of strangeness. These elements make the story more memorable and impresses on the mind of the listener the real sky story above our heads, even if the listener has no idea that the knowledge of the sky story has been hidden within it.
Many are familiar with the character called Medusa from Ancient Greek mythology, at least to the extent of having heard of the cursed woman with snakes for hair who will turn anyone who looks at her to stone.
We will be looking more into Medusa’s story in a future post, but where the story intersects with Pegasus is at Medusa’s end.
Medusa’s death is caused by the Ancient Greek hero, Perseus. We will be looking more at Perseus in a future post as well, but notice here on the New Year’s Day sky story at sunset we can see the constellation Perseus there on the East side of the special cross of the N-S Meridian Line and the arc of the ecliptic, while Pegasus is found to the West of that special cross.
The story goes that at the moment Perseus cuts off Medusa’s head, it is either from her head or neck in some versions, in other versions it is from Medusa’s spilled blood is born Pegasus. This you could say is a sort of divine birth story given Pegasus, born from his dead mother.
How are Pegasus and Medusa connected in the night sky?
Ancient Greek mythology is well known for many of the stories about the characters within them ending up with The God’s honoring them by making them star constellations of the night sky, just like we see with both Perseus and Pegasus.
We can point to both constellations of Perseus and Pegasus here in this image of New Year’s Day at sunset, but where is Medusa?
Remember that a big part of Medusa’s story is that you are not supposed to look at her, right? In other words, Medusa is to be kept hidden or occulted from sight.
This hiding things in plain sight has worked very well for a very long time, but with the discoveries we made about The Real Oracle or The Real All-Seeing Eye in the sky, you could say it significantly improved our ability to see better in the dark. It also gave us the ability to decode what stories like this one is all about.
It is believed that Medusa was not honored by The Gods after her death like so many others from Ancient Greek mythology because you won’t find any constellation in the night sky called Medusa, but that is because she has been kept hidden in plain sight.
How to find Medusa in the night sky
The reason you won’t find a star constellation called Medusa is because she is not one constellation, but as we’ve seen before, Medusa is a combination of two constellations.
The combining of Cetus and Pisces again brings to light in this story who Medusa is and where she is located in the night sky. Cetus is Medusa and Pisces that is always found on top of Cetus’ head and because of the way that Pisces is shaped is Medusa’s hair turned into snakes.
As you look at the sky story of New Year’s Day at sunset, you can see out of Medusa’s head was born Pegasus to the West in the real All-Seeing Eye in the sky, after Perseus found just to the East, killed her.
You can also see why the sky story about New Year’s Day fits this ancient myth. When the old year dies – Medusa, the new year is born – Pegasus. This myth now makes much more sense once viewed through the correct lens, right?
There is always much more than meets the eyes in these stories and learning how to see better in the dark is what we do here. If you would like to see more free Alternative Astronomy lessons like this one, check out our Table of Contents page click here.
For books to learn the star constellations of the Northern Hemisphere click here.
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Until next time…stay lit and be well,
shannon
If you would prefer to watch the video version of this post, you can find it below.