I have a nifty little app on my mobile phone, which I find myself using on a very regular basis. The app is Google’s Sky Map, and very often, usually when I’m waiting for something, I’ll have a quick look at it to see where in the sky I would be looking, if I could actually see the sky.
Lately, I’ve been looking south, towards the Southern Polar Region of the galaxy, and have been noticing the constellation Phoenix, and it’s brightest star Alpha Phoenicis, otherwise known as Ankaa. This constellation first appeared in a star atlas called the Uranometria, produced by Johann Bayer in 1603.
Ankaa is the star that is situated in the neck of the Phoenix. In Arabic, its name is Al-‘Anqa’, which simply means ‘the phoenix’, but it also has another name, Na’ir al Zaurak, which means ‘bright one in the boat’. To me, whenever I see the name Ankaa, I instantly think of the Egyptian Ankh, which represents the key of life. Whether these two are connected or not will need some further looking into on my part, but as I’m finding out lately, everything is connected in one way or another.
The phrase ‘bright one in the boat’ seems to be a strange one, considering the phoenix is a legendary bird associated with fire, but not when you realise that the word phoenix comes from an ancient civilisation, Phoenicia. The Phoenicians were great sea traders of the Mediterranean, who invented the Bireme, a galley with two levels. The galley was a ship that was widely used for centuries, until the introduction of the Broadside sailing ship into the Mediterranean in the early Seventeenth Century.
In my previous post, I mentioned, half-heartedly, that I have the body of the Greek god Adonis, which may or may not be true (that isn’t really important at this time). In Phoenician, Adonis means ‘lord’. Adonis himself has a lot of mystery surrounding his birth, but it seems he has a link to Paphos on Cyprus. He is the son of Phoenix and Alphesiboea. Alphesiboea now has links to the Jovian Moon, Europa, which was discovered by Galileo and independently, but at the same time, by Simon Marius in 1610. Galileo died in 1642, which is the year I am inexplicably drawn to as a result of a dream featuring a ship.
The reason I mentioned Paphos is also partly due to another thing I haven’t been able to explain, but ties in with the above in a random way. I went on holiday – it was a cruise actually – and we called off in Cyprus for one of the day stops. We went to Paphos, a very gorgeous place to visit, I must add, and I knew my way around. I had never been there before, but I knew where everything was. It was quite a surprise for me, as well as the people I was travelling with. I’ve experienced quite a few things throughout my current existence which can only be classed as strange, and visiting Paphos is among the top five of strange experiences. In a good way, of course!
Oh, and in my research for this post, I found a link between the Ankh and the Phoenix. The Ankh was featured on coins in ancient Cyprus, which, by itself doesn’t sound very impressive. The Ankh is also the symbol for the planet Venus. The goddess Venus is also named Aphrodite, and Aphrodite fell in love with Adonis.
Like I said earlier, everything is connected. Joining the dots is a fascinating way of looking at the world without the normal constraints of time. I’ve found myself travelling far back into history and back to the present day for connections to 1642. I’m still a long way to finding THE connection that I am looking for, but the other connections I am finding are making my quest all the more worthwhile. Well, I think so, anyway… !
The Mansionic Perspective 
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