7. dhirā’ ذراع • the lion’s paws
Mysterious Twins by Gianni de Conno, 1957
Tropical coordinates: 12º14 Cancer - 25º05 Cancer
Letter: ز zāy
Indicators: Castor and Pollux are often reported as the primary indicator stars, however Procyon and Gomeisa also have a role in this station (see the starlore section below)
Plants: Al-Buni tells us that nettle and flaxseed are its incense. Hamade’s Procession of the Night Theatre teaches us that the 7th station is associated with bamboo in the Indic tradition. I have experimented extensively with rice and oats, but perhaps we could also try papyrus, lemongrass, vetiver, sugarcane and other culturally important monocots which contain lots of long parallel structures. You could experiment with all the grasses, really.
Substances: Things that are long and thin, things which are collected in bundles or sheaves. Things from religious centers such as churchyard dirt as well as spiritual icons or relics and things associated with them. Writing utensils, especially ink pens, and writing substrates, especially paper. Perfumes, especially those from grasses (like vetiver or lemongrass).
Animals: Especially dogs but wolves, foxes, and all other canines too. Also raccoons and other procyonids. These animals are distant relatives in the Caniformis suborder and you could probably experiment with any of those animals (so also bears, weasels, stoats, sealions and all the other “dog-like” carnivores)
Angel: شاءلك Shā’lak
Dhirā’ is an Arabic term that refers to the arm/leg of any animal or the forearm of a human. In this case, station 7 represents the first of 6 stations which represent portions of the enormous pre-Islamic Arab Lion constellation (who was much larger than the Hellenistic Leo that we’re probably more familiar with). Covering nearly 103º, the 8 stations of this ancient Lion would have represented just over a quarter of the entire ecliptic.
The Lion was envisioned sprawling out with one paw curled up next to his body and the other stretched out in front of him, perhaps flexing to show off his claws. Dhirā’ refers to these front legs.
Station 7 is one famous among magicians for “the acquisition of all good things,” a label that is shared with station 3 Thurayyā. It is, overall, a positive, helpful and beneficent station. It is especially well-suited to any kind of physical or spiritual healing or maintenance as well as any kinds of religious goals or scholarship, the kinds of work that are done as part of a larger institution (particularly one that is old and well-established). When this station is activated, it’s good to make requests from those with institutional power. Trust any kind of social connections formed under Dhirā’. Al-Buni teaches us that its ruling spirit, Shā’lak, is virtuous, yielding and giving.
Some general themes which emerge in relation to station 7 include:
The role of the scholarly spiritual leader, exemplified in that of the imām or rabbi
The care and maintenance of the body and spirit through care for the hair/skin/nails, perfumery and any kind of spiritual hygiene
Commerce, research, measurement, writing, architecture and the instruments used for such endeavors
Loyal connections with supporters, especially within an institutional environment
my personal gnosis
The 7th station was the first station I ever interacted with, it was actually my first proper astromagical working. I had dabbled in all kinds of astromagic previously, performing invocations of the planets and even producing talismans and other charms of a sort, but this working was my first after encountering Christopher Warnock’s work into Picatrix-style elected magic.
In the spring of 2019 when the Moon rose in al-Dhirā’ I filled a jar with yarrow, comfrey, plantain and colloidal oats and covered them with the nicest Palestinian olive oil I could find. After suffumigating and praying over it on my election, I allowed it to macerate for a month. I strained it and turned it into a bunch of skincare products for myself and my partner, including lotions, balms and salves. We also used it directly on our skin and hair. I even made a salad dressing with it once! My partner and I have natal Moons afflicted by Mars which has led to a number of dry, irritated skin conditions, and this oil was such a blessing to us. Sometimes after a hard day at work when I felt spiritually eroded from my service industry job, I would massage it into my forehead and temples and it seemed to have a restoring effect on my energy body.
At this point I almost had no idea what I was doing—the grimoire said this station was for all good things, so I used its talismanic oil for every challenging thing I wanted to be good, and it brought me so much relief. I found its spirit moisturizing, calming, and refreshing.
After I’d used all of that up, I proceeded to simply use the evening the Moon found herself with Dhirā’ each month to make herbal medicine whenever I needed it. I did this relatively indiscriminately to great results. Over the process I got so much better at the skills required to make these kinds of medicines. At the beginning of my studies Shā’lak was the perfect companion for all these studies of the beneficial, healing magic that myself and my family needed badly at the time.
I could tell my Dhirā’ stories all day. I have such gratitude for this station and its spirits.
When it came time for my gnosis session with Dhirā’, on the emergence of the crescent Moon in late June 2023, I took myself out to fire-escape at my girlfriend’s apartment. We performed the Invocation of the Moon and added the Hymn of Hekate preserved by Porphyry, my favorite Hekatean prayer which ends with the line γαῖα δ’ ἐμῶν σκυλάκων δνοφερὸν γένος ἡνιοχεύει which I’d translate most clearly as something like “the reins of the Earth heaped before my black brood of puppies.” The hymn clearly names Hekate as the shapeshifting Moon and us, her supplicants, as her brood of puppies with the powers of the Earth in a pile in front of us waiting to be taken in hand (or paw).
Taken by the moment, we howled at the thin crescent of the Moon under the quickly darkening sky. As the vision, a large number of black dogs playing with each other, began to form in my mind’s eye I was snapped out of my focus.
Another group of people drinking beer and smoking cigarettes at the park down the street were barking and howling in response to us.
That night we had plans to drive up into the mountains nearby, dormant volcanoes well-known for having some of the darkest skies in all of North America to gaze at the stars. When we loaded up our supplies into the car the sky was clear. When we arrived at our desired location on the edge of the caldera, the thickest clouds had covered the sky blocking all the stars (a very rare occurrence that time of year in our neck of the woods). Once we settled in and turned out our flashlights, it became the darkest place I had ever experienced my entire life. Instead of stargazing, we spent the night quietly talking while the wind whispered through ponderosa pines that lined the caldera.
Although literally nothing about this night went according to plan, I had one of the most memorable nights of my life. As always, Shā’lak was soft and gentle, provoking me to stay up til the sun began coming up talking and talking and talking with one of the most precious people in my life.
Janelle Monáe’s fourth studio album, The Age of Pleasure, came out a little over a week before this gnosis-gathering session and was in constant rotation for me that entire summer. “Float” was the main single from it and, when listening to it on the drive into the mountains, I was struck by how well it fit the energy of the moment walking away from that session.
A toast:
To the lives we lead!
To the dreams we chase!
To the moments that we make!
And the fucked up shit we cant erase!
a collection of starlore
A lion with one paw curled and another extended
The many stars under consideration here are some of the brightest and most lore-filled of any stars in the entire sky. I could write an entire essay about each of these stars and my typical approach of diving deeply into the indicator stars of station 7 is way more than this station essay can hold. Out of an effort to streamline my process a bit, I’d like to offer a streamlined selection of starlore focusing on one point: the 7th station is closely related to that of the Dog Stars (Procyon and Sirius), though it might take a bit of digging to fully make the connection.
As I explained above, the great Lion of Arab star lore is much, much larger than the Hellenistic Leo constellation. We’ll be discussing this constellation and its components for months but to begin with I think it’s useful to draw the connections between Dhirā’ and other groupings of stars:
Stations 7 - 12 represent the parts of أسد Asad, the Great Lion. Asad is not the same as Leo, however much of its lore was collapsed into the Greco-Roman Leo due to the prominence of Hellenistic astronomy in the later Islamicate empires
Dhirā’ is connected to 6 Han’a through Hellenistic lore—Dhirā’ is the two heads of the twins of Gemini and Han’a represents their feet. These stations and their stars represent different kinds of pairs.
The most ancient form of Dhirā’ included a second leg, curled under the lion, represented by the constellation the Greeks called Canis Minor. Through this relationship we can also draw Sirius into this station due to its ancient pairing with Procyon.
A diagram of The Two Forearms, from the Arabic Star Catalogue by the Two Deserts, One Sky project
The Two Deserts, One Sky project elucidates the relationships between the two forearms of the ancient Asad constellation, exemplified beautifully in this image they prepared, depicted on the left. The Lion was seen to have one paw stretched out with its claws flexed and its other curled under it. The Extended Forearm was Castor and Pollux (with the stars of Han’a perhaps being its extended claws). The Clenched Forearm referred to Procyon and Gomeisa, the Alpha and Beta of the Greek Canis Major constellation. Over the centuries, as the system of the 28 stations became more clearly defined, The Extended Forearm became the sole indicator of this station. It’s interesting because the ecliptic moves between these two asterisms but the creator of Two Deserts, One Sky does observe that it’s perhaps a bit closer to Castor and Pollux.
Al-Biruni, writing in the 11th century, corroborates the role of The Clenched Forearm and perhaps represents the transition to the formalization of The Extended Forearm as the only indicator of this station. He says that the stars of the extended forearm are the indicators for the station but he names The Clenched Forearm in his entry on the 7th station suggesting that it’s another thing entirely.
The symbol of the cubit is integral to the starlore of Dhirā’, a symbol that would have been very obvious to ancient people but is less meaningful to us today. In the ancient world, the cubit was a system of measurement that represented the forearm. It was integral to ancient Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Mediterranean cultures, particularly used in architecture. In the ancient Mediterranean world there were two standard cubits—the full cubit (which measured from the elbow to the middle finger) and the short cubit (which measured from the elbow to the knuckle of a closed fist). In Greek the full cubit was called πῆχυς pēchys, meaning ‘forearm’ and the short was called the πυγμή pygmē, meaning ‘fist.’
And the Arabic name for the cubit? The dhirā’! I believe that The Clenched Forearm (Procyon and Gomeisa) refers to the short cubit and the Extended Forearm (Castor and Pollux) to the full/standard cubit. The Jewish Talmud includes an interesting note about this in that there are observed to be 2 different cubits used in the Torah. The standard cubit was used for typical construction projects, but a shorter cubit was used just for building the altar in the temple. Perhaps that’s something to inspect, could Procyon’s Short Cubit have a particularly esoteric significance in comparison to Castor and Pollux’s Full Cubit?
Finally, I want to speak on the relationship between Sirius and the 7th station, which is perhaps a little more distant. In pre-Hellenistic Arab starlore, Orion was called Jawzā’, the tragic harbinger of winter who died on her wedding night. As the story goes, her husband, Suhayl fled across a river after her death. He’s represented by the star Canopus (who is also called Suhayl in the Arabic-speaking world). In this ancient story, Sirius and Procyon represented his two sisters—one sister crossed the river (represented by the Milky Way) with him while the other sister stayed behind. The Sister who Crossed is known to us as Sirius and the Bleary-Eyed Sister (who cried her eyes out because she was left behind) is our Procyon.
Beyond just being the two dog stars, as they are well-known in later Hellenistic astrology, Sirius and Procyon have a long history tying them together despite their distance.
To close this section I wanted to offer a table of the tropical degrees of all the stars we’ve been discussing. If you compare this list to this station’s boundaries, you will find that all of them fall within the station except for Procyon who stands just a single degree outside of its boundaries. This is another compelling reason to read them all together:
Sirius: 14º25 Cancer
Castor: 20º35 Cancer
Pollux: 23º33 Cancer
Gomeisa: 22º32 Cancer
Procyon: 26º08 Cancer
thoughts on al-dhirā’ • الذراع
Instruments, taken as a whole, are one of the most salient symbols of Dhirā’. So much so that its name, as described above, is simply the name of one of the most ancient and widespread forms of measurement in history. The Dhirā’ is essentially the ancestral meterstick. Taking in the Hellenistic side of things I think this makes a lot of sense—Castor, as the Alpha star of Gemini, is also essentially the indicator of Gemini, Mercury’s sign, as a whole.
Another really powerful correspondence of Dhirā’ in my experience with it is hygiene. Certainly this station would be great to work with for producing skincare products or monthly routines involving caring for the hair or nails, but it can also be called on for spiritual hygiene. Fostering a healthy spiritual microbiome is so much of what magical protection looks like in a material sense. Dhirā’ can help us clear malevolent energies and spirits from our spaces with a particular focus on those that root into our physical bodies. Following this angle I have used the Moon in Dhirā’ to perform the various kinds of magic that remove the evil eye and protect the body itself from absorbing the destructive energy that extreme visibility can attract.
Al-Buni conveys two specific notes to us. The first comes to us in the form of the rhymed aphorism (called a saj’ سجع in Arabic): “When Dhirā’ rises, the Sun unveils its rays, and mirages glisten everywhere.” Doesn’t that sound beautiful? It reminds me of the energies we’ve associated with 3 Thurayyā, the Pleiades, which is the other station said to be good for the “acquisition of all good things.” Perhaps illusions are a kind of sight associated with this station—this brings to mind my story above about the cloudy sky the night I attempted to go stargazing under Dhirā’.
The second thing that stands out from al-Buni’s work is his recommendation to engage in i’tikāf اعتكاف under Dhirā’. This word refers to spiritual retreat, the kind that sequestering yourself into a mosque provides (as opposed to the seclusion of the wilderness or seclusion inside of your house). Communal spiritual retreat is very well-indicated by this station. Perhaps we could plan nights of spiritual retreat when the Moon alights in Dhirā’? Ibn al-Hatim’s treatise on the stations (and its descendants in Picatrix and Agrippa) tells us that we can make a talisman for Dhirā’ using the symbol of a man raising one or both of his hands in dua.
I feel very confident with the plant and animal correspondences I’ve shared in my list above after much experimentation. I wasn’t familiar with a specific tradition of plants with the stations until J.M. Hamade’s work on the plants associated with the Nakshatras and was pleasantly surprised to see bamboo selected as the plant for station 7. My most well-trod plant correspondences for this (or any station) are that of rice and oats, which are both common plants in the grass family that have many similar morphological structures to bamboo in terms of their leaves, branching patterns and seeds. Following that realization, I’ve begun to experiment with all the grasses and have found that I love working with vetiver and lemongrass for Dhirā’ as well. Try any other grass you like!
Petroglyph depicting two dogs hunting from Tassili n'Ajjer, Algeria
The strongest animal association I’ve found with Dhirā’ is with dogs. Obviously there’s the connection of Sirius and Procyon to this station that I explained above, but my experience of the canine connection actually originates with the Greco-Egyptian Invocation of the Moon, a spell in which the practitioner ritually recites the names of 28 lunar symbols in a sequence and that many have associated with the lunar stations (through gnosis, not necessarily history as they likely wouldn’t have been exposed to the stations in Hellenistic Egypt). In this spell, position 7 is the symbol of the dog. It’s been really amazing to see this correspondence grow over the years of my work with this station and to eventually stumble on the ways that they all connect together through Arab starlore.
At first the connection between the two seems a bit out of step—dogs often represent the wild, animal nature of humans while Dhirā’ quiet, peaceful cultivation feels totally different. As a part of my own spiritual exploration of the symbol of the dog, I came across the Wikipedia article on the Domestication of the Dog, which convinced me that our companion species are one of the most complex symbols of human cultures past and present. Consider that the dog was the first domesticated species of all time, that we developed into our current state roughly concurrent to these ancient wolves becoming our companions. Many of our behaviors resemble the dynamics of wolf packs more than they do chimpanzees, our closest biological relatives. Did we domesticate dogs or did we co-evolve into our current form side-by-side with them? When looking at the cultivated human significations of Dhirā’, I wonder if these are the dog symbols we could be drawing from?