Astrology and Magical Places: The Brown Mountain Lights in Astrogeography
Read: Mansfield, George Rogers (1971). “Origin of the Brown Mountain Light in North Carolina” (PDF). Circular 646. US Geological Survey.
Brown Mountain Lights Pages: www.brownmountainlights.com,www.dancaton.physics.appstate.edu/BML/Legends/
The Brown Mountain Lights are a series of ghost lights that have been observed since 800 years or more in the area near Brown Mountain, North Carolina.
There are legends, rumours and other explanations for the phenomenon. For people with a religious or spiritual point of view one of the first questions must be: what kind of spiritual entities become visible through the Brown Mountain lights. This question must have been also the first for the Native Indians who reportedly first observed the phenomenon 800 years ago. A typical explanation in regard to ghosts would be the legend of a battlefield at Brown Mountain which would mean that the spirits of the dead are drawn back here because of intense memories which relate them to the site.
The best season for observation of the phenomenon is between September and early November. This means that Virgo or the end of summerand Libra and Scorpio meaning autumn the time of death and retreat for plants are the times of most intense activity of the spirits which cause the lights at Brown Mountain.
Astrogeographic position for morphogenetic field level 2 which describes how the mountain and the area around is embedded in the region: Brown Mountain has both coordinates in emotional water sign Cancer the sign of emotional individuality and the resonance of the soul in the physical body. Therefore any explanation of the phenomenon which relates it to the emotional memory of the remains of the physical bodies of warriors killed in battle is plausible, though it does of course not explain why the Brown Mountain Lights are so much more intense and their visibility so much stronger than in most other battlefields on our planet.
Cancer is the sign of our capacity to perceive the whole range of emotions that we have. It is the sign of childhood, motherhood and inner emotional life. But Cancer is also the sign of melancholy, sadness and emotional pain and as such a higly frequent indicator for graveyards. It can therefore be assumed that places in Cancer are more attractive for the memories of the dead than are places in other signs.
My astrological definition of Cancer as one of the 2 major indicators for the “soul” in relation to graveyards:
Cancer the sign of emotional individuality appears as the sign of the soul in the physical body. Pisces as the sign of the eternal soul relates us with our spiritual origin beyond the terrestrial plane and the common unconscious of our species and even of all living beings. Cancer is our capacity to feel what the reflection of our perception and experience within our body is doing to us. Therefore the individual, personal, subjective, emotional memory and experience of humans after their death is what may to a certain extent and in regard to some of their potentials seperate them from their spiritual origin even after their death.
The Brown Mountain Lights in Folk Music
The lights are the inspiration for the Scotty Wiseman’s bluegrass song, “Brown Mountain Lights,” later performed by The Hillmen, the Kingston Trio and the Country Gentlemen. In this version, the light is being carried by “a faithful old slave/come back from the grave” who is searching for his lost master. The song was also recorded by the progressive bluegrass band Acoustic Syndicate and performed by Yonder Mountain String Band. This song was also performed and recorded by Sonny James, Roy Orbison and Tommy Faile. Here is another version by Acoustic Syndicate.
