I. The Most Magical Thing...

“Space is there, and we’re going to climb it,  

 and the moon and the planets are there,  

 and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there.”  

John. F. Kennedy

By all accounts the new Astronomer Royal was an energetic man and much loved; a hearty and jovial figure who secured this most prestigious position in 1720. From his Royal Observatory in Greenwich it was about a 4 mile journey into London by boat along the Thames to Child’s Coffee House close to St Paul’s and the College of Physicians... 

London Coffee House

And at many a raucous Thursday afternoon get-together his eager and admiring peers and proteges doubtless quizzed him on that event which he had predicted in a publication back in 1705 wherein he had shown that a celestial object was at that very moment in the 1730s hurtling along its return journey towards our Earth, blazing through the cosmos, and scheduled to arrive approximately 76 years after its last appearance in 1682…

Another 77 years on, in 1835, people held their breath waiting for the apparition which now and for the first time bore Halley's name. This new society was increasingly enamoured with the natural world and the comet's grand return captured the collective imagination to the extent that jewellers began making commemorative brooches, in myriad styles and designs, to be worn in honour of Halley's prediction. It was a new era: of science, of the steam train, of Michael Faraday and electrical fields, of theory becoming visible and tangible in practice.

Even the human relationship with the heavens was changing. It was becoming infused with a knowledge derived from experimentally tested scientific method. And with this knowledge came a new kind of awe and humility before the heavens: the sense that the most magical thing about the universe is that it is not, in fact, magic. ¹

It was an era in which mathematical theory was extending upwards into the heavens, and to those gathered in 1835 to see Halley’s Comet, theory demonstrated its awesome magiclessness.

Lost Owl (Archive): Halley's Comet Pin (circa 1910, 29th recorded appearance)

II. Embedded in the Starry Firmament 

 “I had… an experience… 

 I can’t prove it, I can’t even explain it, 

 but everything I know as a human being, 

 everything that I am tells me that it was real!” 

 Dr. Arroway

Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn, and of course the Sun, the Moon and the Earth, have been fixtures in celestial models for roughly 4000 years - around 1/4 of the lifetime of Halley’s Comet which in 1910 made its 29th recorded return to Earth.

From the late 1800s political revolutionaries from the Ottoman Empire were living in exile in Paris. Islamic and Middle Eastern art pieces were flowing out of the declining empire in the east into European collections and exhibitions.

Not unlike Castellani and Etruscan motifs in the previous century, jewellery makers and their clients were keen to adopt these symbols which were perhaps in part a symbol of solidarity with those progressive, exiled liberal revolutionaries from Turkey. Inspired by Henry Mazzini's "Young Italy" movement (see "Castellani's Revolution" blog post) the Young Turks were then plotting the overthrow of absolutist Sultan Abdul Hamid II. 

Lost Owl: 1. Victorian Crescent Moon Brooch; 2. Georgian Halley's Comet Brooch (1835); 3. Edwardian Halley's Comet Brooch (1910);

4. Lost Owl Crescent Moon Pendant; 5. Vintage Orbital Ring; 6. Victorian Start Locket; 7. Victorian Orion's Belt Ring

So, in 1910 Halley's Comet arrived at a time when Europeans, but more importantly, Louis and Jacques Cartier, were casting their creative and entrepreneurial imaginations eastward. But Jacques Cartier, unsurprisingly, would cast his gaze that little bit further, and in 1911 made his fateful journey to the far east...

1. Cartier: Hindu Leo Brooch, ca. 1930 (MET); 2. Lost Owl (Archive): Georgian Halley's Comet Brooch

In Hinduism, the Sapta-ratna is the group of seven stones representing the planets, which in many languages share their names with the days of the week. “There are several ways” notes astrologer Richard Shaw Brown “to strengthen our planetary karma”. Perhaps the “easiest” according to Brown is “...to wear gemstones which attract the pure vibrations of the planets”... that is to say: wear the right gems gems at the right time. The Sapta-ratna are, for example, “to be worn successively on each corresponding day of the week” ...

I refer here to Richard Shaw Brown (see bibliography)

Brown goes on to highlight how such gems heighten the influence of “planetary powers”.  

1. They add “cosmic colour to one’s own aura”.   
2. They enhance “their associated area of one’s life” e.g. the pearl, through its association with the moon, “influences mind and emotions”; the diamond, through its association with Venus “rules art and sex”. 
3. The gems attract “the attention of their ruling planetary deities”.  

Hard to deny it in these pieces by Cartier...

Blue Sapphire for the god SHANI, Saturn, and for Capricorn or Aquarius ; Emerald for the god BUDHA (not the Buddha) and for Gemini or Virgo.

Over the decades to come Cartier would incorporate this ancient cosmology of his noble clients in British India into the Art Deco tastes of the west...    

Cartier London: Nawanagar ruby necklace, 1937; Platinum, rubies, and diamonds (The Al Thani Collection / Christie’s Images Ltd) 

The signs of the zodiac and certain gemstones are ruled over by the celestial bodies. These nine stones - birthstones - across east and southeast Asia are known as NAVARATNA.  

 “But!”  - the astute reader cries -  “the Sapta-ratna only accounts for seven gems!”  

Yes, however, to arrive to the nine of the Navaratna one must take into account the two shadow planets: Rahu, which obscures the sun during a solar eclipse (represented by Hessonite) and Ketu, which obscures the moon during a Lunar eclipse (represented by Cat’s eye). These nine astral gems can be combined on a single piece, representing the NAVAGRAHA, the "nine celestial deities". 

Such a piece imbues the wearer with “complete cosmic harmony”. 

With the caveat…   

“...that gemstones selected for astrological and talismanic use should be flawless (eye clean), as defective stones are considered a source of misfortune. According to Vedic authority, the qualities of fire (color) and water (clarity) are the most important factors in choosing gems” 

Oocha Mani: Custom Navaratna Ring, 22K

Cartier did not always adhere strictly to “Vedic authority” . He mounted ruby on platinum when it should be on gold and combined birthstones but chose not to place the ruby (the sun) in the centre. Regardless, this eastern system of astrology (Sidereal Astrology) inspired what is often considered to be among Cartier’s finest and most enduring work. 

Brown, says of Sidereal Astrology that it is based “on the position of the belt of fixed stars and constellations in the heavens”. 

But what is this notion of “fixed stars”? Kepler referred to them in 1596 as "sphaera stellar fixar," as did Edmond Halley in his work “Considerations on… the principal fixt stars”. 

Halley’s Comet made its first predicted flyby of planet earth in 1758 when Marie Antoinette was only three years old. Perhaps, though, the milestone event left an impact upon her, as she is said to have popularised the “firmament ring” later in her short life... 

Lost Owl: 18th Century Ring of the Heavens (Bague au Firmament)

Back then, the universe was a small place. Even when Cartier first set his eyes eastwards in the 1910s, there was not yet any knowledge of other galaxies. The stars of Marie Antoinette’s 18th century Rings of the Heavens (bague au firmament) were fixed in place on the deep blue celestial sphere in the constellations of the zodiac which in the East were ruled by the planets of the Navaratna. There were only the planets and beyond them the celestial sphere rotating and the stars themselves, those “shining glorious lights”, were motionless… 

Weren’t they?  

Watch; Firm of Bautte et Moynier; with Egyptian zodiac symbols (MET)

III. House of the Bull

“Some… celestial event…no

no words.. no words to describe it.

Poetry.  They should have sent a poet.

Beautiful... so beautiful.

 I had no idea.”  

Dr. Arroway.   

Edmond Halley was gazing at the stars. Three stars, to be precise. More precisely still, Halley was gazing at Sirius, Arcturus, and Palilicium, and he was charting their locations. By observing how their positions had changed, he showed in 1717 that the starry firmament was not at all “firm”. Independently of the “celestial sphere” and the zodiac, the stars too were in motion. This is known as “proper motion” and in the early 2000s it helped predict the presence of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* at the centre of our Milky Way galaxy, a prediction which won a Nobel prize.

One of Halley’s stars - Palilicium, in the Taurus constellation - is today known as Aldabaran or “The Bull’s Eye”. 

Aldabaran is a red giant star approximately 44 times the size of our sun, and is the brightest star (the eye) in the head of the Taurus constellation.  

Van Cleef and Arpels: Zodiaque medal Tauri (Taurus) 

JWST photographed The Bull giving birth... 

A monstrous cloud of dust hurtling around an ever-densening centre is collapsing into a belt-like core where pressure and heat are rising. From this swirling chaos in the Taurus Molecular Cloud, from this massive tornado larger than the diameter of our entire solar system, a new star is being born...    

JWST; L1527 in the Taurus Molecular Cloud (NASA)

This region of space is called L1527. But we might call it “the Little Bull”, or “the Calf”, if only for narrative purposes. 

The Calf is (roughly) located between Aldebaran and Pleiades in the closest known region of space currently giving birth to new stars. The Little Bull is a protostar, a baby star: it is still feeding on the gas and dust in its orbit; its core is not yet capable of nuclear fusion to generate the energy of an “adult” star like our sun, but it'll get there... in another couple of hundred-thousand years or so.

1. Antique Jewellery Company: Signet Ring with Bull Taurus Intaglio; 2. Taurus Molecular Cloud location; 3. Aldebaran and Pleiades

Humankind and Taurus, and The Little Bull, it would seem, are the oldest of old friends. They are in a sense our first celestial companions...  

For the ancient Greeks and Sumerians, Aldebaran (Al Dabarān - arabic for The Follower) represented harvest time. It rose above the horizon to mark the equinox in March and September and faithfully pointed sailors towards the true east. The Minoan Civilisation, among the great seafarers of ancient cultures, venerated the Bull. 

In its parent cloud in Taurus, the youngest known protostar, our Little Bull, started emerging 100,000 years ago, at which time modern humans were migrating out of Africa. 

And somewhere in between these events, an icy mudball was ejected from the giant cloud of icy mudbulls known as the Oort Cloud which surrounds our solar system. The icy mudball (or muddy iceball according to some) was sent hurtling towards the sun but instead fell into an elliptical orbit of planet Earth, around which it still spins every 76-years or so…   

1 & 2. Lost Owl, Edmond Halley Intaglio Seal Fob; 3. Halley's Comet orbit

IV. Jodie, Vera, and The Celestial Era

There is, apparently, a concept called “an astrological age”. Those cave paintings of pleiades and the bull in the Lascaux cave in France mark the first astrological age of Libra. The bull cults, and the bronze age correspond to the Age of Taurus. And since year one of the common era, since Christ, since the beginnings of Christianity and Islam, we have occupied the age of Pisces. 

Van Cleef and Arpels: 1. Zodiaque medal Piscium (Pisces); 2. Zodiaque medal Librae (Libra) 

But I wish to propose a different, unrelated concept, a new one: The Celestial Era. 

This would not be an esoteric astrological concept or measurement of time, but a new cultural moment - one that is just now dawning and which should be characterised by a closer appreciation of our self-awareness as “matter contemplating itself”², as our being “made of Starstuff”.  

...or it could begin earlier with the first detection of gravitational waves at LIGO (read the Platinum Collection for more on that..), the reverberation of black hole and neutron star collisions... 

1. Explosion from Neutron star collision (NASA);  2. Supermassive Black hole M87(Event Horizon Telescope); 3. Modernist Supernova Brooch (Lost Owl)

... or even when the Event Horizon telescope produced that first blurry image of the supermassive black hole M87, in the Virgo constellation, 53 million light-years from earth...

...but maybe this era should be said to start this year, in 2025, with the coming online of the Vera Rubin observatory in Chile.  

Vera Rubin (1928-2016) studied the rotation of galaxies and provided the earliest evidence for the existence of dark matter - those elusive, massive, but invisible particles permeating our universe of which, as yet, we know almost nothing other than that they exist. (Galaxies spin at such speeds that if it were not for the presence of dark matter weighing them down a bit, they would be thrown apart from the momentum...)

The observatory named after Vera Rubin is essentially the largest and most advanced digital camera ever built.  

Among Vera’s goals are:

1. To study dark energy and dark matter  
2. To better map the solar system and the Milky Way 
3. To document mega-events in deep space: supernovae, gamma-ray bursts etc.

The camera is expected to take over 200,000 pictures per year (around 547 per day), the study of which will require a massive and unprecedented world-wide effort of collaboration. Let’s hope that these astonishing human achievements, from JWST, to LIGO and Event Horizon, to Vera will not only herald a new day for Celestial Motifs in jewellery, but also, as Halley’s discoveries did, have further repercussions for how we see ourselves and the human project: an incredible consequence of the fundamental laws of the universe to which we all have an inalienable right and responsibility to be and to feel part of. 

"For", again quoting JFK but with a small amendment, "in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal. starstuff".³

So to conclude The Celestial Collection, and to wrap up Season 1 of The Starstuff Stories, we return to where we began, to Carl Sagan and a fundamental idea, philosophy, or tenet, for our new Celestial Era:

“I was given something wonderful, something that changed me forever:  

 a vision of the universe that tells us, undeniably, how tiny and insignificant, 

how rare and precious we all are;  

 a vision that tells us that we belong to something that is greater than ourselves, 

 that we are not, that none of us are alone!  

 I wish I could share that.  I wish that everyone, if only for one moment, could feel that awe, humility and hope.” 

 Jodie Foster / Dr Ellie Arroway  in Carl Sagan’s Contact

Lost Owl: Blue Orb Earrings

Currently in the Lost Owl shop are these wonderfully elegant little "celestiall orbes". 

Does the natural blue clarity evoke Saturn (hence the rings, perhaps?), and therefore SHANI - Saturn - for Capricorn or Aquarius, enhancing leadership, justice, discipline, and ambition? Saturday's earrings, therefore.

Or is that clarity of the enamel, together with the diamonds and platinum, to attract sensual Venus -  SHUKRA - for Taurus or Libra; for art, for luxury, and for sex? A Friday affair, then?

You decide. 

Perhaps they're fine for the whole weekend...  (see them in store)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PART I. 

• Hughes, D. W; Edmund Halley Scientist; Journal of the British Astronomical Association, Vol. 95, Issue 5, p.193, (1985)
• Brandt, J. C. St. Helena, Edmond Halley, the discovery of stellar proper motion, and the mystery of Aldebaran;  Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, Vol. 13, No. 2, p. 149 - 158 (2010)

PART II. 

• Brown, Richard Shaw; ANCIENT ASTROLOGICAL TALISMANS & GEMSTONES II, The Complete Science of Planetary Gemology; Hrisikesh Ltd. (2007)
  
• Stewart, Courtney A.; In the Stars: Gems and the Indian Tradition; MET (2015) (link)
  

PART III. 

• Halley, Edmond; "I. Considerations on the change of the latitudes of some of the principal fixt stars" (link)
• Brandt, J. C. St. Helena, Edmond Halley, the discovery of stellar proper motion, and the mystery of Aldebaran;  Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, Vol. 13, No. 2, p. 149 - 158 (2010)
  
• Betz, Laura et al.; NASA’s Webb Catches Fiery Hourglass as New Star Forms; NASA (2022); (link)
• Beckmann, Sabine; THE MYSTERY OF TAURUS—KNOWING THE WAY POSSIBILITES FOR ASTRONOMICAL KNOWLEDGE IN THE BRONZE AGE; Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences Vol. 91, No. 1 (Spring 2005)
  

PART IV. 

• https://rubinobservatory.org/

REFERENCES and QUOTATIONS

1 + 2. I attribute these notions to Sean Carrol (physicist / natural philosopher)

3. John F Kennedy: COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS AT AMERICAN UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, D.C., (June 10, 1963)

First epigraph: John F Kennedy: ADDRESS AT RICE UNIVERSITY ON THE NATION'S SPACE EFFORT, (Sept. 1962)

All other epigraphs: from Robert Zemeckis 1997 film Contact (Story by: Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan)