Sword of Orion/ March 2021 from The Streichfett Sessions

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Toledo

Streichfett Sessions Installment 5 March 2021

Orion's Sword is a compact asterism in the constellation Orion. It comprises three stars (42 Orionis, Theta Orionis, and Iota Orionis) and M42, the Orion Nebula, which together are thought to resemble a sword or its scabbard. This group is south of the prominent asterism, Orion's Belt. Fables and old beliefs are in Europe dominated or widely influenced by those of the Greco-Roman narratives.

Beyond Europe this grouping is quite widely referenced as a weapon just as the majority of cultures perceived Orion's standout asymmetrical "hourglass" of seven very bright stars as a human. In his De Astronomia, Hyginus describes the constellation Orion having three faint stars where the sword is depicted. Aratus goes into significant detail about the Orion constellation as well, proclaiming: "Should anyone fail to catch sight of him (Orion) up in the heavens on a clear night, he should not expect to behold anything more splendid when he gazes up at the sky.” Cicero and Germanicus, the translators of Aratus's Phaenomena, expressed it as ensis, Latin for "sword". Arabic astronomers also saw this asterism as a sword (سيف saif), calling it Saif al Jabbār, Sword of the Powerful One or Sword of the Giant. Orion is one of the few constellations to have parallel identities in European and Chinese culture, given the name Shen, the hunter and warrior. Chinese astronomers made the sword a sub-constellation within Shen called Fa.

In the myths of the Nama of Namibia and the western Cape, this was the arrow of the husband of the Pleiades, daughters of the sky god, who was represented by Orion's SW main star Rigel. When he fired his arrow at three zebras (Orion's belt) and missed, he was too afraid to retrieve the arrow due to its proximity to a fierce lion, represented by Betelgeuse. Therefore, he sits in the cold, suffering from hunger but too ashamed to return home. Regionally the prevailing cold breezes and currents come from that direction. The Tswana to the east traditionally call the unusually bright nebula and its companions dintsa le Dikolobe, three dogs which chase the three pigs (the belt). This serves as an etiological myth for why pigs have their litters in the same season Orion is prominent in the sky. -wikipedia

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Piano, Streichfett Alchymie

Mixed & Mastered Laila Kalantari

Recorded August 2020

Enjoy, Sword of Orion