“The Seeker” chapter is my alchemist Elias Dorn’s origin story. His parents are Adelaida and her fisherman husband, Elpidio de Barros, in Peniche, Portugal. Adelaida talks about what we know is the Big Dipper:
“Many years ago, when I was a little girl, my father knew an old Arab star reader from Hindustan, who told him about seven stars that form what he called Saptarishi. You can see it in the night sky. It resembles a big ladle. In his country they believed the four stars that form the bowl of the ladle is a coffin, and the handle is three mourners following.”
Saptarishi, meaning seven sages, are the Vedic sages who built the foundation of Hinduism. Their names are Atri, Bharadvaja, Gautama, Jamadagni, Kashyapa, Vashishta, and Vishvamitra. The names of the seven stars in the Big Dipper are Vashishtha, Marichi, Pulastya, Pulaha, Atri, Angiras, and Kratu. The Big Dipper constellation revolves around the Pole Star, which is always fixed in the sky. Over the course of a year, the four seasonal positions of the constellation form a swastika, an ancient Hindu symbol that means “auspicious,” and in Sanskrit, “that which is good.”