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Star Symbols and their Meaning
Stars are important in every culture throughout the history and have been used in religious practices, navigation, orientation, and to predict the future.
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Ancient sky watchers believed that the position of the stars (and other celestial bodies) is related to human affairs. The modern theory is that the cosmos acts as a single entity and that anything happening in one part will reflect in another part. From this theory derives the idiom ‘it is written in the stars’. All over the world, star formations became the basis of astrology and ‘wise men’ were consulted to read the signs in the stars.
The symbols of stars do not have a common interpretation, but every star has its own meaning in its own context. The meaning of stars also depends on the number of points or rays the star has. Some star symbols, however, have become very popular and are recognized by large groups of people, for example the five-pointed star (pentagram) and the six-pointed star (Star of David).
The five-pointed star is a very common symbol in the western world, also called a pentagram. The pentagram is a positive symbol in most cultures and symbolizes perfection, divine power and protection against evil. Five is a very important figure in many cultures; five elements (wind, water, earth, fire, and heaven), five senses (symbolic meaning to Pythagoreans), five fingers, five toes, five wounds of Christ, five pillars in Islam. The pentagram is described as perfect; it can be drawn in a continuous line, with five identical angels and five lines of the same length.
Another widely accepted meaning to the five-pointed star has to do with power and ranking. The earliest known use of the pentagram dates back to Ancient Mesopotamia, where it was a symbol of imperial power. It is still widely used as a symbol of power, bravery, and authority. These symbols can be found on police badges and military vehicles. And the five-pointed star is used on national flags, especially of communist countries.
A six-pointed star can be formed of two interlaced triangles. An upwards pointing triangle symbolizes the masculine or the element fire, and the downwards pointing triangle symbolizing the feminine or the element water. The six-pointed star is the image of divine balance between feminine and masculine, or the balance between the elements fire and water. This star is also known as the Star of David, for David carried a hexagram-shaped shield during his defeat of Goliath. The Shield of David is a strong symbol of the Jewish and also associated Christianity and symbolized the interaction of the Divine with the mortal. In other sacred traditions the Star of David is referred to as Yin/Yang or Shiva/Shakti and creates an ultimate balance in feng shui.
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