a special edition on Procession of the Night Theatre
a saltwater pearl
My copy of Procession of the Night Theatre :)
Early last year I began compiling my notes and research on the lunar stations to release on this blog which eventually became my introduction to the lunar stations. I wrote most of these essays during the spring of that year and began releasing them one-by-one in the second half of 2024, but in the process there was a huge development for station-studiers everywhere: Revelore published J.M. Hamade’s highly anticipated book on the lunar stations, Procession of the Night Theatre: An Exposition on the Lunar Stations!
I first heard about the book (I think) when I attended Hamade’s course A House of Stars: Exercises in Soul Design in 2023 in which they laid out their approach for interacting with the stars of the lunar stations through clusters of correspondences, things like images, sounds, plants and more. Their work was so exciting—I’d been so activated by a star-focused approach to the lunar stations but struggling to find any work that approached them that way. The star-focused approach seems so obvious to me, especially in seeing the marked overlap between the Arabic names of stars and the their stations, but for whatever reasons it’s been slow to grow particular among Western astrologers who primarily work with the tropical zodiac.
As soon as it became available, I placed my pre-order for Procession of the Night Theatre without even really knowing what it would be. I was just convinced by J.M.’s perspective and attitude to the stations and the stars that I was willing to read whatever it looked like in its final form.
What arrived at my doorstep last fall blew me away.
I’ve been researching the stations and their history with so much joy and excitement over these last years. More than anything I want my work to provide accessible entry points to other Moon-nerds. I want to contribute to the conversation about the mansions/stations in general but especially their sidereal approach.
One of the first essays I wrote was called Pearls on a String: My Favorite Works on the Lunar Stations which gave a list of the top 4 entry points I recommend to anyone coming to this study without a clue about this esoteric pattern of 28. I gathered my list from the list of things that were available in early 2024 when I wrote the essay. Of course, as soon as I got ahold of my copy of the Night Theatre, I realized that it would be a perfect addition to that list!
I would say that J.M.’s book is a perfect introduction to the star-focused approach to the lunar stations, especially for those who are interested in syncretic, multicultural approaches as well as natal astrology. I’m calling my review of it a saltwater pearl because these pearls are especially known for their lustre and value but take longer to form—a saltwater pearl is a lunar symbol of patience.
As best as I can tell, Night Theatre is one of the first works published in English about the stations to include extensive information about interpreting them in nativities—not just the Moon in each station either but all 7 of the traditional planets (with deference to the Moon’s prominent influence on the translation of the stations’ starlight, of course). I’m sure I’m not the only person who wants to know about the stations of their natal chart!
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Procession of the Night Theatre approaches the stations in a delightfully lunar way, looking through multicultural and multigenre lenses without regard for the stodgy dogma that so often underpins introductory materials on esoteric subjects.
It opens with a very insightful introductory essay framing Hamade’s work with the stations as a whole. They explain their motivation for such a multivalent approach: this work blends the insight of cultures who devoted special attention to the observation of the Moon with Hamade’s own astrological, magical, and aesthetic insight. They situate the stations in the realm of story as a kind of middle ground. If we see story as the root of the Moon’s passage among the stars, maybe it doesn’t really matter what sort of technical approaches we take?
Everyone has their own way of telling a story and even if the minor details change from telling to telling and teller to teller, the spirit of the story remains at its core.
The first section of the Night Theatre gives an example of this in Hamade’s own Moontale: a story modeled after the 1001 Nights in the frame of a 28 night journey. These vignettes neatly move between prose and p(r)oem. Here’s an excerpt of one of my favorites in the poem category, the 21st night (the night of my own nativity)—
I look out at the vista of humanity.
From the fish,
onwards to the apes,
onwards to the skyscrapers.
I am the bustle of a city.
The fruit of a culture.
The silent one, hooded,
walking about.
The gathering…
a crowd.
In 2022 and 2023 I ritually invoked the angel of the 21st station (named Kawyākifah by Ibn al-Hatim) 24 times, once each month when the Moon conjoined its indicator star. It’s a station I’ve been long mystified by because of its star’s relative obscurity and the minor and often contradictory details given by our ancestors in the texts we have available. This poem touched my heart, the same part of my heart that the station’s angel itself had touched dozens of times. I was moved to see a representation of this odd, minor station through J.M.’s eyes that so markedly synchronized with my own visions of it: the image of the hooded figure wandering through a bustling city.
This collection of visions are a tremendous tool for anyone seeking their own gnosis of the stations.
They are incredibly dense with symbol (some of which are obvious to me and others of which remain hidden for contemplation). I’ve read through the first section numerous times and each read through they open up a little bit more. Try reading them straight through, try reading them backwards. Try starting with the passage on the station of the emergence of the crescent Moon and ending with the station of the full Moon as she waxes. Try the same as she wanes into darkness.
The second major half of the book is a reference guide that will entrance any astro-nerd.
Hamade gives each station its own two-part name following the syncretic traditions they’re drawing from. For example, my beloved 21st station is called Jalal (Divine Majesty) / Silence. The 7th station, another of my favorites, they name Born Again / Die Again. They then go on to assemble an encyclopedia of cross-cultural references to the station under consideration, starting with the Arabic tradition (under the heading Manzil), then the Indic (under Nakshatra) and finally the Sinitic (under Xiu). These collections of symbols and lore themselves take up around 2-3 pages for each station and cover a notably wide range of topics.
For those of us who are quite familiar with station lore, we find the expected lists of indicator stars and zodiacal coordinates (the traditional ones in Arabic, Indic and Sinitic lore but also their preferred system of sidereally precessed tropical coordinates as well). Under the manzil section there are quotations from foundational sources like Ibn al-Hatim, al-Buni, Picatrix and others. Under the nakshatra section are found the traditional correspondences of god, animal, caste, sound pattern and planetary ruler. Going further than the majority of well-known works on the stations, Hamade also includes more information about the Chinese 宿 xiù than I’ve personally ever seen in English alongside the more familiar manazil and nakshatras. Even if some of these details aren’t hard to access, this is the first time I’ve seen such a comprehensive cross-cultural analysis gathered so neatly in a single volume for a reader.
Hamade goes a lot further than that, though.
In the encyclopedia pages I was surprised and excited to find:
Descriptions of a collection of 28 magic rings from a Solomonic Cunning Man’s Grimoire possibly syncretized with the magical uses of the stations
Extensive description of the plants associated with each of the nakshatras and their botanical and spiritual traits
A Tibetan take on each nakshatra that I’d never encountered before
A list of animal associations for the xiù and an explanation of these animals as esoteric symbols in Chinese culture
Two collections of correspondences between the stations and the 16 geomantic figures
Correspondences between the stations and the signs and symbols of the Moon from the Prayer to Mene in PGM VII 756 - 794 as well as a Greco-Egyptian deity
A freeform collection of words and symbols for each station that I have found especially rich to meditate on
After this substantial library of correspondences, they go on to offer a short essay for each station, an overview of the lore and correspondences of each station that has been provided. The list of correspondences engages the researchers among us, but these overviews provide an easy entry point to considering the nature of the stations across these three cultures, the passage of the Moon through the tropical zodiac against the backdrop of these sidereal stations and consideration of each station in its context of the broader constellations that their individual asterisms make up.
Hamade closes each section with a paragraph on each of the 7 planets in each station, as I mentioned above. These notes are especially keyed into natal astrology, a rich addition to the lore that’s been handed down to us considering how little of it relates to the stations in nativities. I’ve read through the sections on all the planets of my natal chart and I’ve shared with my friends and loved ones the sections on their nativities as well and we’ve found that many of these delineations really hit. I could see it being a great tool for client work, too.
J.M. closes their book with a reflection on story as a tool for re-enchanting the night sky. They ask us: are the stars more than dots in the sky? Is the Moon more than a rock? Is there a soul in all of this astronomical data?
Procession of the Night Theatre is an amazing addition to the scholarship on the lunar stations. Its approach is scholarly but not soulless. It integrates extensive historical and multicultural research with the author’s own mystical aesthetics and gnosis revealed through their research, a powerful combination. The Moon’s nature is that of a shapeshifter and, as she shifts her shape, she takes in all of these angles and reflects them back to those who venerate her without regard for contradictions.
Have you bought yourself a copy yet? Do it!!
Buy it straight from the publisher if you can, it usually supports the publisher the most to go that route. It also looks like Revlore is currently offering free shipping to all US orders!