Join IAAM for a conversation with Con Connor, a senior Celtic Druid and self-taught Astrologer from Ireland, who will share his research into a calculation formula for reanimating the Magical Beasts of Ancient Ireland’s ever living calendar.
https://astromagia-org.zoom.us/j/89559873601?pwd=ZkTuJd6vKLBPThnUBSxk1A384oi6sF.1
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In this talk and slide show, Con Connor will introduce his understanding and appreciation of the Eightfold Year, aka the Wheel of the Year and its calculation of the correct times for ceremonies in ancient and modern Ireland. He will show that four of these major rituals were timed to the helical setting of the four bright stars. These 4 helical settings refer to the Sun and Dark Moon having set and each of the four bright stars becoming illuminated in the twilight sky before it too sets. In these magical moments, the stars are Antares, Fomalhaut, Aldebaran and Regulus. Four very special observable floating events in the turning of day to night. They make up half of the Eightfold Year calendar of ancient Ireland. These 4 stars have Arabic, Greek and Latinised names today but Con believes he has identified the Irish Magic Beast names for each of these constellations. This equivalent naming system turns ‘the man, the bull, the lion and the scorpion’ into ‘the queen bee, the bull, the hound and the salmon’.
After many years of methodical work with primary sources i.e. the stars and integrating starlore from around the world with mythological evidence from ancient Irish manuscripts, Con Connor has been able to reconstruct the constellation system that he believes the Celtic Druids in Ireland saw when they looked up. This is separate from the Sumerian, Egyptian and all other ancient starlore systems. There are some connections — but then again we are all looking at the same stars.
Although the so-called wheel of the year ceremonies are widely acknowledged to originate with Celtic peoples, setting a rhythm to the year for many contemporary practitioners, today’s iterations - like sponges - have absorbed many elements that are not connected to ancient Druidic and Celtic traditions. Not all Celtic traditions across a vast swath of history and in different locations perfectly align either, so Con is not suggesting that there was or is one singular system for all of the Celtic and pre-Celtic world. This is directly connected to the latitude of the observer’s location — Ireland’s latitude is between 51.5 ° and 55.5°N. So, the Irish night sky is different to Glasgow at 55.8617°N especially when we are using ‘observational astronomy’ as our ancestors did. So, there are variances between Scottish and Irish Celtic traditions
One particular dilemma is that contemporary astrological magic rituals designed to coincide with the wheel of the year’s celebrations often flow from the canon of Greek astral mythology, more or less codified by Eratosthenes (276 - 194 BC), the third chief Librarian at Alexandria, as well as astrological notions of the signs as the sun moves through the tropical zodiac, which flow from greco-roman horoscopic astrology. With all due respect to today’s many well intentioned practitioners, during the Iron Age (400 BC- 400 AD), Irish Celtic Druids did not see the sky through the lens of Eratosthenes, nor did they practice the form of horoscopic astrology that emerged from Alexandria, which did not reach Ireland until the Middle Ages. What if rituals for the wheel of year were honored and timed by the stars and constellations that the ancient druids could actually see?
Join us for a lively presentation about reconstructing a Celtic Druids’ magic view of the sky and their energetic experience of the stars.
Con Connor is a senior Celtic Druid and self-taught Astrologer from Ireland.