What's Happening
Following the oneiric schemata of Hamade's Procession of the Night Theatre: An Exposition on the Lunar Stations, this 12-week laboratory will take students through the entirety of the Moon's zodiac in an observational, scholarly, and expressive fashion. Our live Monday gatherings will host open discussion of the week's lunar transits through the stations (lunar mansions), buttressing the established images, magics, and astrologies of the stations with a veritable hive mind of starry exploration. Through processes of journaling and chart application, our working group will attempt to bring the stations into daily practice as well as forming a helpful set of personal yet mundane significations. Certificates will be given upon full completion of the lab.
Where It's Happening
CAELi's virtual campus (& Zoom)
Your Instructor
J.M. Hamade
J.M. Hamade (starnightdwell) (they/them) is a writer, independent researcher/scholar, artist, diviner, and educator based in New York City. Their work bridges contemporary creative modalities with archaic forms of knowing, magical practice, and esotericism. The investigation and experimental application of talismanic art forms is at the forefront of their work, as well as a research and practice focus in the fields of non-European astrologies and star lore, Islamic esotericism, Afro-diaspora traditions, and the dæmonic imagination or occult roots of creativity.
Their first full length book, Procession of the Night Theatre: An Exposition on the Lunar Stations (Revelore Press 2024) follows half a decade long research into the astrologies and magics of the lunar zodiac, initiated by their co-authorship and illustration of Ahmad al-Buni’s Shams al-Ma’arif: An Arabic Grimoire in Selected Translation (Revelore Press 2021) which deals extensively with like-mysteries.
More published materials include essays, interviews, and illustrations with Hadean Press, The Mountain Astrologer, and academic publications. They have also studied and worked professionally in handicrafts as diverse as butchery, floristry, and metal engraving, receiving a BA focused in printmaking from San Francisco State University and an MFA focused on interdisciplinary arts from the City College of New York (CUNY). Additionally, Hamade has exhibited artworks and live performances focusing on ritual across the United States, as well as hosting an every now and then podcast under the name starnightdwell.
Additional Information
Now expanded to move through two lunar months as opposed to one, this new iteration of the lunar stations lab will also incorporate the use and interpretation of fixed stars as an integral component of the Moon’s zodiac.
Unlike a traditional lecture format, each Monday gathering will explore student observations followed by discussion. Using the groundwork laid by Procession of the Night Theatre (textbook), we will note, draw, conjure, and observe in whatever manner is relevant for each of us, the Moon’s movement through one of the 28 stations as well as their indicator stars. In this way, the textbook forms the organizational beginnings for what will become one’s own personal yet mundane set of significations. A working group format, as well as daily/nightly prompts from CAELi’s Campus app, will provide a structure for consistent immersion in the entirety of the lunar zodiac.
Our Monday gatherings will be the opportunity to share in this immersion as well as apply our observations and experiments to charts. Ideally we will each emerge with a more complete and practical understanding of the Moon’s stations as well as their associated fixed stars in both our lives as well as through chart applications and interpretations. Magical experimentation will be encouraged as well as inquiries into the historical use of the lunar stations and stars in their many cultural significations.
With a final assignment based on chart analysis and lunar/stellar gnosis-application, students will receive a certificate of completion. Along with this formal signifier that you have gone through the entirety of the stations twice with the working group, the lab attendee will also retain an ongoing workbook of unique interpretations, images, and the like, of the lunar zodiac which may be used and helpful in future chart analysis, magical workings, and expressive modalities.
Image: Simon Quaglio : The Queen of the Night, from Mozart’s Magic Flute, (Zauberflöte) 1818
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