A beginner's guide to fixed stars in parans ✨

Finding your natal fixed stars, and figuring out how to interpret it

When I got started seriously studying fixed stars, I was tremendously inspired and motivated by a few colleagues, chief among them Óscar Moisés Díaz and Amaya Rourke, who’d both studied with Bernadette Brady. I often credit Óscar’s Star Lords talk for getting me curious and excited about this technique I’d barely heard anything about. As for Amaya, her outlook has been instrumental for me in cultivating relationship to fixed stars over the years.

Amaya has retired from fixed star work, and has generously entrusted me with re-sharing some of her work, including an introductory article to fixed stars, “Finding Your Fixed Stars & Basic Interpretive Principles”. I’ve referenced this tutorial countless times over the years when English-speaking folks have asked me where to find their fixed star parans and what did it mean! Since it’s no longer online, I’m aiming for the following to serve the same purpose.

If you’re just starting out with fixed stars (or if you like fixed stars at all, tbh), I highly recommend following colleagues Maeg Keane of The Gleaming Feast and Chloe Margherita of Recent Bedroom, who regularly publish on the topic!

Maeg has just published the first article of a series about fixed stars specifically aimed at beginners, and it’s all about conjunctions—which is perfect, because I’ll be focusing on the other main technique for studying fixed stars in the following.

Photo by Gabriele Motter on Unsplash

Indeed, there are different ways fixed stars can stamp a nativity; conjunctions (of an angle or planet) to a star’s projected degree on the ecliptic¹ is one of them. If the previous sentence makes no sense to you, do read Maeg’s article, it’s not only gently didactic, it’s also dreamy and poetic—a treat to read regardless of your skill level.

Fixed star parans are another method for approaching fixed star emphasis. I’ll probably write about conjunctions another time, but I am very content to be able to point you to Maeg’s introduction for now.

If you’re looking for more technical details on how parans are measured, I’d recommend looking into Bernadette Brady’s classes and books. For the purpose of this article, we’ll stick to 1) how to find one’s natal parans 2) how they can be interpreted.

What are parans?

First of all, though, a short² definition! “Parans” is the common shortening of “paranatellonta”, which means to rise alongside (see image below for an example). This refers to a star rising alongside a planet—but “parans” is also used to refer to other star-planet relationships, as we’ll see later.

The Moon co-rises with fixed star Regulus: the Moon is in paran to Regulus

Here’s an animated version of the same Moon-Regulus rising paran.

Excuse the dubious quality, I’m afraid gif-maker is not my true calling, alas

The gist of the concept of parans is that over the course of the day when you’re born, the planets will hit angles; rising (Ascendant), culminating (Midheaven), setting (Descendant) and anti-culminating (IC).

For instance, as I’m writing this, Jupiter is rising.

During these moments when the planets are extra-goaded by the angles, we take note if stars are also on an angle. This simultaneous angularity is what constitutes a paran³.

You might imagine that when the Moon is culminating at the same time as a particular star, for instance, they’re both thrown on stage at the same time and tasked with improvising a skit commenting the day’s events. They’re working together as partners, accomplices, weaving different qualities tightly together.

For example, Octavia E. Butler was born with the Moon co-culminating with Regulus of Leo. Here’s what the moment of this specific paran looked like, below, as seen in Starlight: you can see the Moon on the Meridian just as Regulus is on it as well.

The MC line passes close to the Moon and Regulus at the same time.

Parans require a precise location, because the configuration of the sky is not going to be the same in Pasadena, California (where Butler was born) and in, say, Sydney, Australia. The path of the Sun does not appear in the same way, its bend is different. Some stars may not be visible in Pasadena, whereas they will be in Sydney. When the Moon culminates in Sydney on the same day, it’s not in paran to Regulus; instead, it co-culminates with Alphard of Hydra (see images below).

See how the sky looks upside down compared to previous image?

The MC line goes over Alphard just as the Moon culminates.

I find visual aids really helpful in wrapping one’s head around the concept of a paran, and I hope you do too!

Finding your natal star parans

So, how do you figure out what your natal fixed star parans are? You could learn advanced trigonometry and calculate it by hand (godspeed). Technically you could pull up your natal sky in Stellarium, and try to figure it out by observation, looking to when each planet hits each angle, and what happens at the same time when it comes to stars.

You can also get a list for free thanks to Astrodienst. Here’s a step-by-step guide!

Go to astro.com and click "Free Horoscopes".

Scroll down, find, and select "All At A Glance".

Select "Extended Chart Selection".

If you do not have an account with Astro.com you’ll need to enter your personal birth data at this juncture. This will not save after you exit the window; if you’d like to save, you’ll need to sign up for a free account⁴.

Once your birth information is filled out and you return to the main "Extended Chart Selection" screen, you need to go select the "☆ Special" tab.

In the "☆ Special" tab you need to click on the drop down that says "Transit Calendars".

In the drop-down, select "Parans According to Bernadette Brady, PDF" or “Parans according to B.Brady, with Ur-Pl, PDF”⁵ and then click on "Show the Chart," which will generate a PDF.

The first page of the PDF is going to give you the general information of your traditional chart; for the purpose of parans, you can ignore it and scroll down to the PDF’s second page.

The second page of the PDF will give you a list of your fixed star parans, arranged into categories by the phase of the star. These are your natal fixed star parans!

Interpretation

Natal fixed star parans are vastly different than natal fixed star conjunctions, and you’re likely to encounter stars in your parans list that you’ve never heard about before!

The parans list can seem a bit impenetrable at first. What are “Stars in Lower Culmination”? What does “Cul-Rise” mean? Let’s get into it!

⭐ The Heliacal Rising star

You’ll find your Heliacal Rising star at the top. Most people only have one, but sometimes there are several.

This is the star that heralds dawn on the day on which you were born, announcing the Sun. It takes on strong calendar importance, and in terms of phase, this is a pretty triumphant posture for the star.

Amaya calls the Heliacal Rising star the title of your life’s screenplay, as it gives an overall idea of how you approach the trajectory of your life. She notes that in that sense, it is similar to how the rising sign is considered in “traditional” astrological charts. Your Heliacal Rising star is one whose attitude and attributes you often embody.

Let’s take an example: Aldebaran of Taurus is strongly associated with questions of integrity, power, fertility, generation of resources. It is generally considered an auspicious star who can grant boons and potent creativity, but the emphasis on ethics and proper protocol is important, and there are Aldebaran tendencies to charge through obstacles in a way that can make people seem bullish. What this looks like varies from individual to individual, but you do see daring, relentless, creative people, often buoyant and outspoken. When Heliacal Rising star, Aldebaran is delineated by Brady as “To face moral dilemmas which challenge one’s integrity and honesty on a daily basis. To depend on one’s principles and integrity as the compasss and foundation of life. To be the noble warrior”.

Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash

Among famous people who have Aldebaran as Heliacal Rising star, we find Kanye West, Teal Swan, Virginie Despentes, Diana Princess of Wales, Octavia E. Butler, Alan Turing, Jean-Paul Sartre… We couldn’t possibly summarise their lives and/or natal charts with just their Heliacal Rising star, and these are very different people. But can you see how each of them has had to contend with topics of integrity, risk-taking and creativity?⁶

Rapper Kanye West has been dubbed a creative genius, but has also become extremely controversial for his endorsement of fascism in recent years⁷. Guillaume Meurice is a humorist who found himself at the center of a huge polemic after making a joke about a genocidal tyrant; and he never conceded to his detractors, holding fast despite the huge hit to his career⁸. Teal Swan is a popular “spiritual influencer” who fancies herself particularly courageous and pioneering, but is also considered a dubious cult leader with dangerous claims around suicidal ideation and trauma-informed care overall⁹. Virginie Despentes is a feminist writer who has been both criticised and celebrated for her bulldozer-like wit. Diana, Princess of Wales was extremely popular and renowned, and particularly well-liked for her public support to charitable causes. And so on, and so forth!

The Heliacal Rising star’s themes can get even more obvious in someone’s life when it comes through in other ways, such as parans to planets (see below), or if it’s conjunct a natal planet, an angle, or a Lot¹⁰. So besides checking if your Heliacal Rising star shows up in parans also, you can look up your Heliacal Rising star’s projected degree in the zodiac, and check if there’s something close.

⭐ The Heliacal Setting star

Your Heliacal Setting star is the last one to set before the Sun rises on the day of your birth. It is considered to come back to the Earth bearing gifts from the heavens.

Amaya regards the Heliacal Setting star as indicating the overall mission or theme of your life’s screenplay; the wisdom you’ll come to embody as you move through life and gain experience. She notes that the loud call of the Heliacal Setting star is likely to be more felt after your first Saturn Return¹¹, driving your attention to a specific theme or idea.

Again, you can pay attention to other ways in which your Heliacal Setting star might be showing up in your natal chart. It will still be important if it doesn’t, of course! Being Heliacal Setting star is enough to matter. But if there’s a natal paran as well, it’s likely to be even more in-your-face.

Important note re: birth time

If you don’t have a precise birth time for yourself and you’re thus unsure whether you were born before or after dawn on the day, generate one paran file for before dawn, and one for after. The Heliacal Rising and Setting stars might stay the same between the two, but there’s a chance you were born on the day when they shift!

In a case of birth time uncertainty, you should also disregard the next section, “Stars on angles”, because this is a matter of a few minutes. Skip to “Stars in Rising parans”!

To figure out parans that you can be confident were present natally for you, compare the two files and see what the overlap is like; usually, parans to the slower planets stay the same over days or even weeks, so you’ll likely have at least one or two parans that hasn’t budged.

Stars on angles

This might not be the case for everyone (so don’t panic if you can’t see it on your own parans PDF!), but some people have stars rising or setting on the horizon or on the meridian line — that is to say, on literal angles. [And again: this requires a birth time as precise as possible.]

This is similar to a fixed star’s projected degree being conjunct your Ascendant, Descendant, MC or IC, but the approach here is visual.

For instance, if you were born with 27° Leo rising, that is a conjunction to Alphard of Hydra’s projected degree. This is the case for actress Jessica Alba.

Jessica Alba’s Ascendant, 27°56’ tropical Leo

Visually speaking though, this does not mean that Alphard had literally been rising at the horizon, at the minute of her birth. In fact, if you look at her natal sky in Starlight software, you can see another star, Regulus, is super close to the horizon, and will rise before Alphard: Regulus rises 4 minutes after her recorded birth time, but it takes Alphard approximately 20 minutes.

Jessica Alba’s natal Ascendant viewed in Starlight. The ecliptic is the magenta pink line, the green line is the horizon line; the Ascendant is at their intersection.

Regulus’ projected degree (0° Virgo) is also very close to 27°, and most people would consider this a significant conjunction, especially since the star is right on the path of the Sun. But sticking to projected degrees, you’d think Alphard is closer to the 27° Leo Ascendant than Regulus. It’s true when it comes to projected degrees, but not the actual physical sky.

[To be clear though, there is not one right way to look at this! I would consider both Alphard and Regulus to be important here. It’s not conjunctions vs parans, like one of them is wrong or inaccurate. I’ve witnessed both to be relevant both in personal experience, in research with celebrity charts, and in consultations for clients.]

In my experience, stars on angles (paran style) are extremely present and important in one’s life¹². Possibly the most in-your-face.

Amaya notes that these stars give us an additional note of tone in regards to the way that specific angle is expressed throughout life, as well as a special emphasis on that angle throughout the life.

For instance, I was born with a specific star setting and it keeps showing up in synastry with significant partners! People I love just tend to have parans to that star¹³.

Weaving it together

Amaya suggests a movie example to put together Heliacal Rising star, Heliacal Setting star, and stars on angles:

• Thor: Ragnarok is the title of a movie, and denotes a mythological hero trying to stop the end of the world;

• The theme of the movie though, is someone who must learn that leadership is about more than just being the strongest and most famous/popular person in the room;

• The tone is very quirky action-comedy.

Fixed star overwhelm

It’s okay if you don’t have utmost clarity rightaway by looking at these stars for yourself! For one thing, there might be lots to learn around mythology and folklore associated with each of them in order to get a grasp of their themes.

But even with pre-existent familiarity with the stars involved, this can be a lot to take in and articulate as a framework. Maeg touched on this eloquently in their article—

The stars are alluring. Their tantalizing nature makes people quite eager and then they try to learn everything about all the stars all at once (not possible). The stars are intimidating. They are huge and powerful and mysterious. When you combine the eager-urgency and the intimidation, it’s easy to understand why learning about the stars feels like too much.

Getting started with fixed stars ✨

That’s also why it’s interesting to consult astrologers, this is usually a process that can be so much more fluid when worked through with someone else¹⁴!

I definitely recommend taking your time. Divining on what to prioritise is also generally a great idea when it comes to relating to fixed stars, because there are just SO MANY OF THEM.

Photo by Carlos Kenobi on Unsplash

Planet + stars parans

Now, on to planet and star parans!

These are sorted through four different categories by Bernadette Brady, corresponding to how the stars involved hit the angles over the course of the day. It’s pretty straightforward:

• “Stars Rising” were rising at the Ascendant

• “Stars Culminating” were on the MC line

• “Stars Setting” were on the Descendant

• “Stars in Lower Culmination” were on the IC line

The planets involved might have been on the same angle, or another. This is what the notes between parenthesis included after planets and stars tell you, in the file (more on this later).

Amaya teaches these categories as outlining a three-act screenplay structure with a backstory, which I find very compelling.

Stars in Rising parans

These are parans in which the stars were rising; these stars are the main players in the first act of your screenplay. Stars in the Rising category are conceptualised as being “on” right off the bat: active throughout one’s life from birth, and particularly present before the first Saturn return.

An example below: Evan Rachel Wood’s Rising parans.

The first paran listed is “Sun, Bellatrix (LCul-Rise, 0°18’). This tells us the Sun was in Lower Culmination (the Nadir) as star Bellatrix rose, and the orb (less than a minute).

Stars in Culminating parans

Stars in the Culminating category are considered to fully kick in at the first Saturn return, around thirty.

Let’s see ERW’s example again.

We can see the Sun co-culminates with fixed star Dubhe within a very tight orb: Sun, Dubhe (Cul-Cul, 0°02’). There are also Sun parans to fixed stars Markab and Scheat.

Stars in Setting parans

Stars in the Setting category are thought to become more active from the second Saturn return, around sixty.

These haven’t yet fully kicked in for ERW at the time of writing, since she was born in 1987.

Her natal Sun had a lot going on while it was culminating, huh! On top of the co-culminating parans we already reviewed, Alcyone was setting.

Stars in Lower Culmination parans

Stars in Lower Culmination parans are foundational, legacy-defining, and active throughout one’s life, from birth until the end. If you’re only going to look at one category, this is the one¹⁵.

In Lower Culminating parans to the Sun, we find two stars we already saw in the Culminating category: Scheat and Markab. So this is something to consider: some of the legacy-defining stars for Wood are emphasised from her first Saturn return.

A sum-up

• ⭐ Heliacal Rising star(s): the title of your life’s screenplay, whose attitude and attributes you embody

• ⭐ Heliacal Setting star(s): the overall theme of your life’s screenplay, the wisdom you come to embody, especially after your first Saturn return around 30

• ⭐ Star(s) on angles: not everybody has them. They indicate tone of the story and emphasise the angle they’re on

  

• Stars Rising: active from birth until the first Saturn return in particular.

• Stars Culminating: kicking in at the first Saturn return, around thirty.

• Stars Setting: kicking in at the second Saturn return, around sixty.

• Stars in Lower Culmination: active throughout one’s life, from birth. Foundational, legacy-defining.

I’m hoping this article has been helpful. Let me know of your questions and remarks in the comments!

Deepest gratitude again to Amaya.

Until next time ✨

Selective sources and references

• Brady’s Book of Fixed Stars, Bernadette Brady

• Star and Planet Combinations, Bernadette Brady

1. The ecliptic is a fancy name for the path of the Sun in the sky from our point of view!

2. I swear that when I started writing this paragraph I thought it would be short. I did my best.

3. Acubens of Cancer was anti-culminating, and Aculeus of Scorpius setting, by the way; so Jupiter was in paran to both Acubens and Aculeus!

4. It’s definitely worth it if you intend to generate other parans file. There’s a 100 limit on the amount of data you can stock on a free account.

5. The second one includes parans to Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, while the first one shows parans to the seven planets visible to the naked eye only.

6. In the process of writing this article, I got obsessed with this song by Claire Laffut called “Vérité” (meaning, Truth) in which the lyrics go “Si j’mens j’vais en enfer”, “If I lie, I’ll go to hell”. She has Aldebaran as her Heliacal Rising star, lol.

7. Arguably he was already controversial before that, but I think him saying “I see good things about Hitler, also […] Every human being has value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler.” to Alex Jones was the final straw for a lot of people, and he doubled down on the explicit antisemitism recently after two years.

8. I wrote about Meurice previously in the article about Murzim, the Announcer star in Canis Major.

9. The 2022 TV documentary series “The Deep End” goes into it, if you’re curious to learn more.

10. For instance, my Lot of Spirit is conjunct the degree of my Heliacal Rising star, and I also have it in paran to an angular planet. So it’s loud-loud!

11. The Saturn return happens when Saturn has gone all the way around the zodiac, coming back to your natal sign, which takes about 30 years! Check out this episode of The Astrology Podcast for a primer.

12. Although it’s not necessarily obvious rightaway for the person born with it. I was born with two stars rising, and it took a me little while for it to really click, as I got to know the stars better. And I have no doubt that as time goes on, I’ll understand even more how these two stars inform who I am!

13. I have an article about stellar synastry in the works, stay tuned.

14. I’m not just saying this so you book with me, lol. If you feel called to, I’d be honoured, but it bears mention that I’ve been taking my own advice, here—I genuinely love consulting colleagues and have had huge breakthroughs in consultations as a client! Each of the astrologers I recommend in this article (Amaya, Óscar, Maeg, Chloe), has helped me in that way and I would trust them to guide you, too.

15. But please don’t, please look at all of them. Or, you know, pay me to do it for you. They’re all so juicy.