#algorab

The constellation of Corvus, the Crow // E. Slawik/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Zamani

Click below for its mythology, an annotated image, and the named stars!

FIXED STARS

edit august 2025: I just edited this entire post because I felt inspired. I did a more in-depth analysis of the fixed stars from the film Bacurau and gave more tips on how to research fixed stars. I hope it encourages you to watch it and look for more. Soon I'll be posting about more films with fixed star activations.

It is not complicated to find good information on the fixed stars. I don't know if I'll describe your case, but I'll tell you why most people think this is hard. The best place for this is the Constellation of Words website. It not only gives you all the information, but also gives you its sources.

People go there on the list of fixed stars and find the degree they're looking for on the "Long 2000" column, right? For those who don't know, you look at the degrees of longitude when you want to find if there's any fixed star conjunct something in your chart, and the fixed stars move roughly 1° degree every 70 years, so on the "Long 1900" column you'll find the degrees for the fixed stars in the year 1900.

Let's say someone has their Sun at 26° Taurus. They'll soon find out that's where the fixed star Algol is. So they go to the page for Algol on the Constellation of Words website and look only for the interpretation for the Sun with Algol. A lot of people do this, they'll ignore all the rich information that site offers, ignore the sources, and definitely nevermind what the arabs, or the hindus, or the chinese had to say about that star, because those guys don't know anything, right? They only see this:

With Sun: Violent death or extreme sickness. If also in no aspect to a benefic, or there is no benefic in the 8th house, and the dispositor of the Sun in a day nativity or if the Moon in the night one is in square or opposition to Mars, the native will be beheaded; if the luminary culminate he will be maimed, mangled, wounded or torn to pieces alive; and if Mars is at the same time in Gemini or Pisces his hands or feet will be cut off. [Robson, p.124.]

That's not only scary, but useless if they haven't read the entire article. They won't understand why those things were said. If they would only read the whole page, they'd have a lot more insights. They would know, for example: that Algol is said to be similar in nature to Jupiter and Saturn; it's an eclipsing binary and that's relevant for interpretation; it's the star that the greeks associated with the head of Medusa, which is being held by Perseus' hand and you can't ignore that; they would understand its name and etymology, its history, what different traditions said about it etc.

The more they'd find, the more they'd have questions, they'd start exploring the site and its sources. And of course, they'd click on "Perseus" to understand the whole constellation and not just one little star of the constellation. You don't understand Aries by just looking at what the ancients said about Hamal, right?

Perseus is a defiant hero, called the champion, the rescuer; he's a rebel, who questions authority and overcomes seemingly insurmountable challenges. In my opinion, the myths are not everything, and – if you're only considering the hegemonic greek narrative – you should not analyze them so deeply and hold on to their hermeneutics like it's holy grail of a fixed star's interpretation, but they should be considered as great tools to understand and remember the nature and effects of the stars.

According to Ptolemy, Perseus is like Jupiter and Saturn. It is said to give an intelligent, strong, bold and adventurous nature, but a tendency to lying. [Robson, p.56.]

A lot of these statements were made for when the star was rising, which would describe the nature of the person. So, not every fixed star you have activated by planets will mean something about your character. It will most definitely mean something about events in your life.

But this is Perseus. Algol is the head of Medusa, which is almost treated as separate, but not quite. Algol will focus on the more violent aspects of the constellation.

Of the nature of Saturn and Jupiter. It causes misfortune, violence, decapitation, hanging, electrocution and mob violence, and gives a dogged and violent nature that causes death to the native or others. It is the most evil star in the heavens. [Robson, p.124.]

And still, those were exaggerated truths. Altough we see literal manifestations of this, a lot of things will tend to show as much more metaphorical or symbolic, and especially in modern day natal charts.

But I don't want to focus on nativities here, because Algol is too interesting for that. This is mainly a story about decapitation, capital punishment, so, a lot of the themes are about justice, of a very violent kind. It's Saturn and Jupiter, as Ptolemy says. Justice, but also mercilessness, cutting evil off at the roots. At the same time, the greatest consistency found in Algol's associations across many traditions lies in its connection with the dead, mass death, and evil spirits. Algol is called "the demonic star".

I think that watching movies released during a fixed star's activation is the most interesting way to explore the themes and understand how they show up with nuance. One of my favorite cases is the movie Bacurau, because of the amount of fixed stars activated in the chart of its premiere in the Cannes Film Festival, on the 15th of May 2019, at 10pm. Algol gets activated by the Sun, but it's not only about the decapitations in that movie, you can see the underlying themes of Perseus and it's much deeper. Lunga is Perseus: in the scene where they finally bring justice to Bacurau, she seems to be wearing a necklace with a fig pendant. The fig is a hand gesture used to ward off evil that has much of the same apotropaic functions as Algol. In Brazil it's tied to religions of african origins. I already wrote a whole post about Algol here, so go there to get more of my takes on it.

The chart also gives us a Sagittarius ascendant, with the star Antares on it, another violent one, also known as "the heart of the scorpion".

'By virtue of its tail armed with its powerful sting, the Scorpion creates natures ardent for war and active service, which rejoices in plenteous bloodshed and in carnage more than in plunder. Why, these men spend even peace under arms: they fill the glades and scour the woods; they wage fierce warfare now against man, now against beast, and now they sell their persons to provide the spectacle of death and to perish in the arena, when, warfare in abeyance, they each find themselves foes to attack. There are those, too, who enjoy mock-fights and jousts in arms (such is their love of fighting) and devote their leisure to the study of war and every pursuit which arises from the art of war.' (Manilius, Astronomica)

Manilius describes the main thing we understand about the movie pretty clearly: rejoicing in carnage. In myth, the scorpion is sent to kill the giant Orion, who tried to rape Artemis, or, in other accounts, threatened to kill all living creatures just to prove his strength and hunting skills. Mars, who is in the 7th house of enemies, is conjunct the Orion's star called Betelgeuse. Like Orion, the white invadors are there just to do some sport hunting, and the people of Bacurau are the prey.

But the scorpion is a well prepared animal. The community enjoys fighting almost as much as its invadors: at night, the people gather around watching video edits of Pacote's killings on a big screen, and then practice some capoeira. Capoeira is a martial art desguised as a dance, which was created by enslaved africans in Brazil to defend themselves from their masters. Over time, it became a complex cultural expression of resistence, and you can see it's interestingly very scorpionic in its history. Lunga, Pacote and company are of a band of killers and criminals, seen in Bacurau as necessary evils, antiheroes, because, ultimately, they help and protect the community. Their charaters are a reference to the Cangaço, a late 19th century banditry phenomenon in the northeast of Brazil.

The scorpion is sent by Artemis to sting Orion in his heel and gets put in the sky for it. It always makes me think of the people of Bacurau, who, threatened with anihilation, come out of the holes to trap the enemy and sting them from behind.

Bacurau is like that because it's ruled by Jupiter, the locals know their own history, the people have wise elders, healers and teachers, and they invite tourists to visit their museum to get to know them, which only on a second watch will sound very threatening.

The scorpion's venom is most times present in Antares movies, but this one even more so, because Jupiter as the ruler of the ascendant is also activating the fixed star Ras Alhague of Ophiuchus, the serpent's charmer.

"When Ophiuchus, encircled by the serpent’s great coils, rises he renders the forms of snakes innocuous to those born under him. They will receive snakes into the folds of their flowing robes, and will exchange kisses with these poisonous monsters and suffer no harm." (Manilius, Astronomica, 1st century AD, book 5,  p.333). "It is said to give a passionate, blindly good-hearted, wasteful and easily seduced nature, unseen dangers, enmity and slander. Pliny said that it occasioned much mortality by poisoning. This constellation has also been called Aesculapius and held to rule medicines". (Robson, p.54.) "[Ras Alhague] has a Saturn like character, and some of the undesirable Venus qualities are also present. Connected with these are Neptunian tendencies, making the native especially prone to infectious contamination caused by toxins. People thus influenced are easy going in the use of medical drugs, hallucinatory drugs stimulating foodstuffs, too much good living and overindulgence in tobacco and alcohol..." (Fixed Stars and Their Interpretation, Elsbeth Ebertin, 1928, p.72-73.)

The people of Bacurau are much in favor of using psychotropic drugs, notably during their funerals and during armed conflict. I believe drugs, poisons, venoms, medicine, can be associated both with the Scorpion and Ophiuchus, but people connect it a lot more to the stars in the tail of the scorpion, not much to its heart.

Jupiter already signifies wise people and keepers of knowledge and memory, and Ophiuchus also famously makes doctors and healers sometimes, because the constellation is associated with Asclepius. The first character we see is Teresa arriving to Bacurau to bring them medicine. She brings them to Domingas, the doctor of Bacurau, who has an important role as a protector of the community. Jupiter shows up in the teacher, the doctor and especially the late matriarch Carmelita, who is almost like Bacurau herself, as the mother of many who have built Bacurau and still contribute to it.

Finally, there's also the Moon conjunct Algorab, of the constellation Corvus, and this is no doubt the most interesting fixed star activation for this movie. The raven is described as an ominous bird and a procratinator. It has two main stories. In the first one, Apollo sends the raven to fetch water and when it fails to do so, it gets punished to be forever thirsty and unsatisfied.

Apollo gave a feast to Jupiter and requiring water sent the raven with a cup (Crater) to fetch some. On his way the raven noticed a fig tree, and, resting there until the figs became ripe, feasted himself upon them until, remembering his errand and fearing the anger of Apollo, he picked up a snake (Hydra) and on his return gave as an excuse that the hydra had prevented him from filling the cup by having kept the spring from flowing, this being the cause of the delay. The god was not deceived by the lie and ordained in punishment that the raven should never drink so long as figs were not ripe. Apollo placed the raven (Corvus), cup (Crater) and snake (Hydra) in the heavens as a memorial, where the Water-snake guards the water from the everlastingly thirsty Raven. Corvus now sits within sight of the Cup of water, but he can never drink.

"Ravens, crows, and rooks, go ‘kraa kraa’. The call of the crow is a nasal caw compared to the deep, guttural croak of the raven, although both species have extensive and varied vocal repertoires. The cawing of the ravens or crows was heard as 'Cras! Cras!' by Latin speakers, and was thought to mean 'Tomorrow! Tomorrow!' We get the word procrastination, 'postpone until the morrow”, from Latin cras.'" Constellations of Words.

Interestingly, "Bacurau" is the name of a brazilian bird, also known in some places as "amanhã-eu-vou", which means "I'll go tomorrow". Bacurau is a nocturnal hunter, attentive to it's surroundings, while ravens are really smart scavengers, same as the people in the movie. The second story of the raven is not as relevant to Bacurau, but it involves getting bad news and a lot of grief, which is just like the general climate in Bacurau where the people are always grieving.

[Algorab:] Of the nature of Mars and Saturn. It gives destructiveness, malevolence, fiendishness, repulsiveness and lying, and is connected with scavenging. (Robson)

The Corvus is a constellation situated near the Virgin, in the very dry transition between summer and autumn. Since Babylonian astrology this portion of the sky has had a raven whose job was to announce the return of the rainy season, like Apollo's raven was supposed to bring the water to the gods. The movie starts and the very first scene is of a water truck coming to Bacurau and passing by a road accident with another truck that was carrying coffins. One of the main problems faced by the community of Bacurau is the lack of water, caused by a blockade in their river, built by militias with the complicity of the mayor. The water truck was requested because of this, and it arrives in Bacurau as the townspeople gather for the funeral of their great matriarch Carmelita. Teresa hallucinates that the matriarch's coffin is overflowing with water.

This is amazing astrological symbolism and it's just the first few minutes of the movie. That's why fixed stars really fascinate me.

The northeast region of Brazil historically suffers with incredible droughts, which used to be particularly devastating before president Lula. In the beginning of the movie, Lunga, aka our Perseus in this story, has a bounty on his head and is hiding at an incredibly dried up dam.

The scenes were filmed in the real life Gargalheiras dam in the town Acari, RN. In 2024, Gargalheiras overflowed for the first time in 13 years. Fortunately, they keep the time, so we know it happened at 11:30 pm on April 3rd, exactly as the star Algorab crossed the midheaven. The event was a spectacle, celebrated by the people of Acari and the entire northeast with much joy.

I swear to you that all the information you need on fixed stars can be found on the Constellations of Words website. Of course I also love to look up their sources and I end up investigating charts of people, movies, books etc with those stars, and that adds to my knowledge too, but that website is all you need. Here are my favorite of their most cited books:

Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos book I chapter 9-11, because he's the earliest source and it's important to see the difference between how the hellenistics called and understood the fixed stars and how things changed after the persians.

Vivian E. Robson's The Fixed Stars and Constellations in Astrology (XX AD) is a must have. It's strictly astrological and teaches a method on how to interpret fixed stars, which is interesting, though you don't need to follow it necessarily.

Marcus Manilius' Astronomica book 5. I always make sure to read attentively Manilius' poetry about the constellation I'm researching. It's always incredibly useful, never disappointing.

William Tyler Olcott's Star Lore: Myths, Legends and Facts (XIX AD). This is a great one to get a lot of the different stories and histories of the stars. It really helps you to understand the symbolisms in depth.

It's also always incredibly enriching to my research to try to understand the babylonian constellations. For those, the website is not going to help much, you'll need other sources. I always go to Gavin White and his articles on "The Babylonian Zodiac" that are available in PDF on Skycript almost at the end of the page.

I advise anyone to limit their knowlegde of stars. Have you seen how many there are? Not all in the catalogue wil be important. And if you worry about knowing a lot of them, you'll never really know them. So how do you know which are important? You watch for magnitude. The brightest stars are the most important and they were studied a lot more.

The smaller the number on magnitude, the brighter they are. Some of them are even negative, like Sirius, which is -1.46 on magnitude. Sirius is the brightest star in the sky. Algol is 2.1, as you can see above. I don't consider the stars with a magnitude number higher than 3.5. Unless I see them manifest pretty clearly, which is not common. They start getting invisible to the naked eye, correlating to weaker effects.

Take it with a grain of salt. A Fixed Star need more significators for it to be working on charts.

Some fixed Stars also have different meanings requiring a nice interpretation for the chart as a whole. Fixed Stars are important to Traditional Astrology. That being said:

(Orb of allowance is the minimum always max 2º, I allow more for the bigger ones, like algol with the biggest orb 5º)

ACRAB: gain of money but to pay ones debts.

ACUBENS:lies.

Fixed stars

A lot of the fixed stars are also nakshatras in jyotish and lunar mansions for the arabs, and the meanings all those different cultures gave to the stars always overlap in a lot of ways. Maybe due to a lot of cultural exchange between them, or maybe just because astrology is real and they were able to draw similar meanings from the same stars.

The Guaranis for example, an indigenous people from South America- who didn't have any contact with those other cultures until the 1500's - have a whole cosmology around the Tapir (Mbore) as the symbol for the start of their winter (then corresponding to Cancer). Mboré is a constellation that has a myth about the birth of the cosmos that makes you immediately think of the Thema Mundi, which starts with Cancer.

Corvus Wears Prada

Ravens work too hard. Imagine going around the world to deliver messages and secrets to Odin's ears. Apollo's crow is no different. Apollo was in love with Coronis, but he knew the girl was interested in a mortal. He left his raven to watch her, but when the bird reported back about the betrayal it witnessed, Apollo was fuming with fury and cursed the raven. The once silver hue bird, was now turned black.

The god's wrath is due to different reasons depending on the version you’re hearing. For some, Apollo first sent his sister Artemis to kill Coronis, but he felt deep regret and struck the bird for telling him the truth.

For some, he was furious because the crow didn’t try to stop the betrayal and peck the traitor's eyes. For others, he already knew, after all, he is the god of divination and knowledge, but he still took out his anger on the poor raven, just because he didn’t want to hear the story. From then on, the crow becomes the Dionysian creature we see in his other myth about the Crater. Full of regret, Apollo attemps to cure Coronis, but it’s too late, and from that Aesculapius is born.

On another occasion, Apollo was giving a feast for Zeus and he sent the raven with a cup (Crater) to fetch water. On his way, the raven, who was a procatinating creature, distracted himself with a fig tree and stayed there to watch the fruits become ripe. When he finally realized he was late, he decided to come up with a lie. He found a snake (Hydra) in the river and took it to Apollo to say it was all her fault. Apollo was not fooled. Furious that he had waited so long, he cursed the raven with a unending terrible thirst, by placing him in the sky next to the Crater constellation, and the Hydra, preventing him from satiating.

Anne Hathaway was born with the Moon in the star for the wing of the Corvus (Algorab) in the 11th house. Many of her roles are as a raven-like character, but at age 22, profection activated her Moon and she filmed "Devil Wears Prada". It’s comical how the movie seems like a modern parody of the dynamic between Apollo and his raven.

Andy wants dignity, she wants to work without her boss's glare, but she hides in the shadows and makes sure to remain indifferent towards the solar work of appearances. Runway works with an Apollonian logic that doesn't interest her and she just tries her best to deliever the messages. But it's almost like she does the raven's inverse path by gradually giving in to this world, trying to perform impossible heroin labour, like one who carries a cup of water whilst being just a bird.

Runway is the Sun’s path according to Nigel, who describes the magazine as the "beacon of hope" for a boy pretending to go to football practice. Meryl Streep has a Leo ascendant and as the Apollo in this story, she takes the character's narrative for herself, being the great conductor for the filming process, inspiring command, adoration and despair.

Miranda has a very solar name which means “the one to be admired”. Everyone is one of her ravens and they burn by standing too close: Nigel was the first. In Andy’s case, like the crow when he got burned, she blushes when she realizes that betrayal is not new to Miranda. There’s no need for the raven to rush to tell the news. And in the end, only Apollo can do his job of bringing light every day. The raven is Apollo himself and the most difficult thing is to face yourself after finding yourself alone. Andy is looking into a mirror in front of Miranda Priestly's ego. It might be better not to obey anymore and just loiter at fig trees.