I offer the following musings regarding constellations as being entities. No conclusions are offered, just some thoughts for consideration and lots and lots of questions.

We are taught that the twelve constellations are entities, cosmic lives, and living beings that have an informing Life. For example, the constellation Aquarius is a Life, as shown by the following quote: "Humanity is on its way to a right understanding of services; it is becoming responsive to this new law and is learning to react to the steadily imposing will of that great Life who informs the constellation Aquarius, just as our solar Logos informs our solar system and our planetary Logos informs our earth planet." (Esoteric Psychology Vol.II, pp. 122)

It can hardly get clearer than this. It would seem that constellations of the zodiac are indeed entities, and not simply arbitrary designations made by human beings. Now, what could this possibly imply? Excuse me, but my head spins.

It would seem to imply that a constellation of the zodiac is of a higher order, perhaps the next order up, from a solar Logos. No problem there. The problem is with the nature of how these constellation "Lives" are arrived at. It seems, from the human standpoint, that they exist because of the apparent association of stars as they appear to exist from earth, which happen to fall into the path of the sun through the sky. Indeed, in referencing the constellations, the Alice Bailey books often speak of the stars within these signs.

So let's see. These vast cosmic beings (a Constellation Life?) therefore have the following characteristics:

1. This group of twelve cosmic beings happens to have its location in the cosmos in approximate correspondence of the apparent path of the sun through the sky as seen from earth. Is this some kind of amazing coincidence? Is the earth actually at the center of some vast cosmic scheme? For this isn't simply heliocentric thinking, this is geocentric thinking ... that the earth is at the center of our local galaxy, and the plane of its axis affects the organization and locations of cosmic Beings. Perhaps I don't understand this but it seems to me to be exceedingly unlikely, improbable, and fantastic for this to be the case.

2. Are all the stars that are identified as a part of the constellation collectively the body of this life? From the writings, again, it would seem so. Thus I must assume that a Constellation Life may have as its manifestation a collection of stars that have no logical relationship to each other, from the cosmic standpoint. Indeed, the only logical grouping is the grouping arbitrarily made by a small group of people of an insignificant planet called Earth (and there are many differing groupings given the culture and society you are speaking of). Do earth humans from the ancient realm of Babylon (?) then control what centers a Constellation Life has? I would think not. But otherwise, how is it arrived at; how do we arrive at the nature of the outer form of a Constellation Life? Were the stars in each sign of the zodiac carefully selected to correspond with that of a Constellation Life? We seem to be simply accepting the designations given by the zodiac. Indeed the Teachings seem to do so. Perhaps it doesn't matter, since we are indeed geocentric beings. But what is the relationship, from a cosmic standpoint? I would ... hope? think? suppose? ... that it is different from what the zodiac would give us. But how would we tell? Apparently we cannot tell.

3. Is the fact that there are twelve of them a cosmic fact, or are there twelve simply because our zodiac has twelve constellations? One might think that there are twelve because it is a cosmic fact, and the selection of twelve signs of the zodiac is because we are responding to these cosmic lives. However, I understand that some astrologers suppose we had fewer constellations in the past, and will have more in the future. If we then add signs to the zodiac and make a set of, say, fourteen, does that mean we now have fourteen Constellation Lives? So perhaps there are not twelve constellations because it is a cosmic fact. Perhaps there are actually, say 16, or 323, and we only respond to 12. But if that is the case, where are the other cosmic beings?

4. I understand that some of the constellations of the zodiac are made up of stars that are very far apart in the cosmos. Some are close to us, and others are very far away. They only seem nearby because of the position of the Sun and the Earth with respect to these stars. Is it the case that these Constellation Lives include these highly distant stars in their own constitution? If so, how is this possible, given the distance? How is this likely, given that the association between these two stars is because of their apparent, illusory nearness based upon our position in the galaxy? And if these stars of a constellation of the zodiac are not all a part of a Constellation Life, how is one to select which are a part of the Life and which are not? And are we to believe that only the stars that are visible from earth within a particular sign are a part of a Constellation Life? Surely there are more ... but which ones?

5. Since all these Constellation Lives are in a plane which is not quite the same plane as the plane of our galaxy, does that mean the axis of these lives, and the axis of our earth correspond somehow with some local alignment that is not true through the rest of the galaxy? And that our earth's tilt and the line of the Constellation Lives are somehow mysteriously identical? What of the many varying axial tilts of the other plants of our solar system; they are mostly out of alignment with the Constellation Lives? How does this affect the other planets? Or is that correspondence actually only a local earth phenomena? Is, once again, the earth the center of our entire local universe?

6. The stars have their own motion. In ages past, the night sky looked exceedingly different. In ages to come, the constellations will appear differently as well. The stars that are close together (apparently) will no longer be so, etc. Thus the zodiac will be different. But if the zodiac is different, will the Constellation Lives be different? I doubt it. But are the stars of the Constellation Lives then fixed and determined by this tiny moment in history? I doubt that too. Do Constellation Lives exchange stars based on the appearance of the stars from earth? Not likely. How then can we determine the stars that make up a Constellation Life? Really? All the answers seem completely impossible.

Such are the thoughts that are buzzing around in my brain. No one that has been asked these questions has even begun to supply an answer. If you have some comments on these matters, I would appreciate some light on the subject.