Was there really a Christmas Star?
The star Mira in the constellation Cetus means “Star of Wonder”. This star is visible over the horizon in the south every year at this time.
Mira is the star of wonder because it has been known, since ancient times, to be a star of great variability. They call it that because sometimes it’s invisible and sometimes it’s the brightest star in the sky.
In ancient times, it was believed that each human being comes from a particular star, that souls on Earth were equal in number to the stars in the universe. Each soul was connected to a star.
Then, the fact that the Star of Wonder grew brighter or dimmer every few months meant something unusual was about to happen in this soul/star connection, that perhaps a significant birth was about to happen.
The ancient sages would read the stars patterns, and this is how they knew if a significant birth was going to take place. When Mira starting pulsing toward greater brightness they knew it was time to make ready.
Mira continues to impress astronomers to this day, since it is the only star known that has a comet-like tail, which suggests that there’s something even more unusual about it.
Find Mira looking south about an hour after sunset. It appears in the region of the sky where there are great superclusters, the largest structures known in the observable universe~as though they were souls, waiting their turn to come to birth.