Capella, the Goat Star: a fixed star talisman ring in gold with yellow sapphire

Fixed stars are not planets, and that is the point

Most astrological work that people meet first is planetary work. Planets move, and their positions change from day to day, so a planetary working is often timed to a passing hour or a passing day. Fixed stars work differently. They are called fixed because, against the background of the sky, they hold their places relative to one another. Their influence, in the old books, is steadier and longer in character than a planetary hour. When you work with a fixed star, you are not chasing a moment. You are aligning yourself with something that endures. That steadiness is why fixed star talismans have their own tradition, separate from planetary talismans.

A planetary talisman is often made for a particular occasion or a particular need that will pass. A fixed star talisman is made to be carried as a standing thing, a piece of work that belongs to a longer stretch of a life. It suits work that is about character rather than about a single event: the way you carry yourself, the way you meet people of standing, the way you hold your ground when a situation turns difficult. Agrippa's treatment of the fixed stars, in his Three Books of Occult Philosophy, is the source used for the talisman in this article. Agrippa does not present the stars as decoration. He gives, for each star, a stone, plants, and an image, and he describes what the image is said to do for the bearer. The work of making a talisman, in that tradition, is the work of putting those correspondences together properly, in the right material, at the right time, and in the right form.

Capella, the Goat Star

Capella is the Goat Star, alpha Aurigae, the brightest star in the constellation of the Charioteer, and the fourth of Agrippa's fifteen Behenian stars. Agrippa gives Capella a nature of Jupiter and Saturn together. That pairing is worth thinking about, because Jupiter and Saturn pull in different directions in the old astrology. Jupiter is expansion, honour, favour, and largeness of spirit. Saturn is limit, discipline, endurance, and the weight of time. A star of both natures is not a star of easy good fortune. It is a star of honour that has been earned and held, of favour that comes with responsibility, and of standing that lasts because it has been tested. If you are drawn to Capella only for favour, read the Saturn side again. If you are drawn to it only for discipline, read the Jupiter side again. The star, in Agrippa's account, holds both.

Agrippa's image for Capella is a man making merry with musical instruments. That image is not what most people expect from a star of Jupiter and Saturn. Making merry sounds light, even frivolous, beside honour and discipline. But making merry, in the old sense, is not idleness. It is celebration done well: music, company, and good cheer in their proper place, after work done properly. A man making merry with musical instruments is a man who knows how to celebrate, who can be at ease in company, and who can carry himself with good humour among others. That ease, in company and in celebration, is part of what the talisman is about, and it is a different virtue from grim endurance. Endurance without merriment becomes hardness. Merriment without endurance becomes dissipation. Capella, as Agrippa presents it, joins them.

What Agrippa says the image does for the bearer

Agrippa says the image of Capella makes the bearer honoured, and exalted before kings and princes, and helps toothache. Those are strong words, and they are worth reading slowly rather than taking them as a slogan. Honoured, in the old sense, does not mean flattered. It means held in honour by others, treated with the respect due to your standing, and not passed over. Exalted before kings and princes does not, for most modern practitioners, mean an audience at court. It means standing well before people of authority and standing: employers, judges, patrons, elders, and anyone whose favour or judgement matters for your life. A talisman of Capella, in Agrippa's account, is therefore not a charm for showing off. It is a working for bearing, for standing, and for being received with honour by those whose opinion carries weight.

Helps toothache sits oddly beside honour and exaltation, and it should not be smoothed away. The old star books regularly join a high virtue with a bodily one, because in their world, the stars governed both character and body, and a star that exalted a man before princes might also ease a pain in his teeth. This article does not present a ring as a treatment for toothache, and it does not suggest that anyone with tooth pain should wear a ring instead of seeing a dentist. It notes the old attribution, in its own terms, because a practitioner who works with Agrippa should know the whole entry, not only the comfortable parts about honour. If you have tooth pain, see a dentist. If you are working with Capella for honour and standing, do that work, and let the old bodily note stay where it belongs: in the old book, not in a modern claim.

Gold, yellow sapphire, and the stone for the star

The ring offered here is a gold ring, with a yellow sapphire, made as a Capella talisman. Gold is the metal of the ring, and yellow sapphire is the stone set in it. Here, the star is Capella, the metal is gold, and the stone is yellow sapphire, and those three are the whole of the talisman's material form, apart from the herb and the engraving, which belong to the making.

A gemstone ring of this kind is a substantial object. That is an honest warning, and it should shape expectations. A ring stone of that size is large on the hand, visible, and present, and it is also a small surface for an engraver's tool. The image engraved on it will be hand drawn, with a jeweller's engraving tool, by Athena herself, and it will not be a perfect masterpiece in the sense of a machine-made picture. It will be a hand-made image, on a real stone, made at a chosen time, and that hand-made character is part of the talisman, not a flaw pasted onto it.

How Agrippa says a ring like this is made

Rings, he says, when they are opportunely made, impress their virtue upon us, in as much as they affect the spirit of him that carries them with gladness or sadness, and render him courteous, or terrible, bold, or fearful, amiable, or hateful, in as much as they fortify us against sickness, poisons, enemies, evil spirits, and all manner of hurtful things, or at least will not suffer us to be kept under them. The manner of making these kinds of rings, he says, is this: when any star ascends fortunately, with the fortunate aspect, or conjunction of the Moon, we must take a stone, and herb that is under that star, and make a ring of the metal that is suitable to this star, and in it fasten the stone, putting the herb, or root under it, not omitting the inscriptions of images, names, and characters, as also the proper suffumigations.

That rule has four parts, and all four matter. The time: a fortunate ascent, with a fortunate aspect or conjunction of the Moon. The materials: the stone and the herb under the star, and the metal suitable to the star. The form: the stone fastened in the ring, with the herb or root under it. And the inscriptions: the images, names, and characters, with the proper suffumigations, not omitted. A ring that gets the stone right but the time wrong, or the time right but the inscriptions wrong, is not, by Agrippa's rule, the same ring.

How Athena makes these rings

With each of these rings, Athena either purchases a new ring or makes a ring with a large precious or semi-precious gemstone setting, using the gemstones recommended by Agrippa for the star. She then cleanses the ring of all previous energies and influences, using various methods. Next she engraves the appropriate image onto the ring during the best election she can find in a particular time period. Lastly, still during the favourable election, she adds the specially prepared herb to underneath the ring, as stated by Agrippa. She also usually adds the star symbol onto the gemstone, either on the side or back, or even front if there is room. She uses the best election for the ring itself when deciding when to engrave them.

Two details in that method deserve emphasis. The first is the window. Athena uses a within 1 degree window, as she prefers it over even 2 degrees out, because, in her words, the energy does seem to definitely change in this time frame. A 1 degree window is narrow, and it means the engraving cannot be done at any convenient hour. It has to be done when the election is right, within that degree, and that narrowness is part of why these rings are made to order, and why they take time. The second detail is the tapping. For example, the memory ring can be inconspicuously tapped during a conversation to remember certain facts or literature. That tapping is a practical, discreet way of turning the ring's general standing into a particular act, at a particular moment, without drawing attention to it.

Wearing the ring, and the chart-specific option

A fixed star ring is made to be worn, not to be kept in a box. Wear it on the hand you work with, and let it be present through ordinary days as well as through formal workings. A ring worn every day, for every purpose, quickly becomes ordinary jewellery, and ordinary jewellery does not carry a working. A ring worn for the work, kept in a clean place with your other working tools when it is not in use, and put on deliberately when the work begins, keeps its association. If your practice calls for cleansing or consecration of a new tool, follow the instructions you already follow in your own system. This article does not invent a consecration for you. It only makes the practical point: a tool that is treated as set apart stays set apart, and a tool that is treated as ordinary becomes ordinary, whatever its star may be.

A free computer generated birthchart is included if you would like one.

When a Capella ring is not the right work

Sometimes the right answer is not a talisman at all. If the matter in hand is a meeting with a person of authority, a negotiation, a job, or a matter of standing before others, deal with that matter in the ordinary world as well: prepare, practise, dress properly, and know what you are going to say. A ring for honour before kings and princes is not a substitute for preparation, and a ring for merriment is not a substitute for learning how to be at ease in company. If you are tempted to order a ring because you have left the preparation too late, the honest first step is to sit down and prepare, and then, if you still want a ring, to order it from a position of having begun, not from a position of having avoided the beginning.

It is also worth asking whether the ring is the attraction, or the star is. A gold ring with a yellow sapphire is an attractive object, and there is nothing wrong with that. But if the object is the whole point, and Capella is an afterthought, then the ring will become ordinary jewellery, however well it is made, and the working will fade with it. If Capella is the point, and the ring is the form that carries Capella's image, stone, herb, and election, then the ring will stay set apart, because the star itself stays set apart. The difference is not in the gold. It is in the practice, and the practice is yours to keep.

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