Fixed Star Fum al Samakah

Fum al Samakah is at 18°35′ Pisces with an orb of 1°10′

Pisces Constellation [Stellarium]

Fixed star Fum al Samakah, Beta Piscium, is a single star in the mouth of the western fish of Pisces Constellation. Magnitude 4.40, spectral type B6Ve, blue-white hued.

The traditional name Fum al Samakah is from the Arabic فم السمكة fum al-samakah “mouth of the fish”.

2000	2050	Name	Orb
08♓52	09♓34	Skat	1°50′
15♓19	16♓01	Achernar	2°40′
18♓35	19♓17	Fum al Samakah	1°10′
23♓29	24♓11	Markab	2°10′
29♓23	00♈04	Scheat	2°10′

Fum al Samakah Astrology

Ptolemy said the stars in the head of the southern fish are like Mercury and Saturn. Dr. Morse suggests a Jupiter-Mercury nature. The spectral type B6 indicates a Jupiter nature.

SPECTRAL CLASSES B: A higher spiritual nature is imparted to its natives, but few can respond; the native has a fondness for power, able to gain victory over their enemies, has the ability to command, is a grandly liberal person, can gain martial honors, gain kingly preferment, has the ability to gain great authority, has cosmopolitan views, may be subject to high honors and wealth and renown. [1]

β Piscium, Fom Al Amakah has surprisingly figured so little in astrology for, though faint like all the other stars in Pisces, it does occupy a position well clear of any other commonly used stars. It marks the Mouth of the Fish at the more southerly end of the strong, and this is enough to cause confusion with the star Fomalhaut, the Mouth of the ‘Southern Fish’, the quite different Piscis Australis Constellation. This may be why there has been reluctance to note and use it.

Happily, the Arab astronomer Al Akhsassi applied his intelligence and selected another Arabic word for Fish when naming β Piscium. So it is Ful AL Samakah. Al Akhsassi went a stage further and referred to it as being west of its partner in Pisces, rather than south, for it is indeed really south-west of it. So we can safely include it after all.

We have no help from Ptolemy on this one but the superlative work of the great, late astrologer and vizier Dane Rudhyar comes to our rescue. In his revision of every of degree of the sky by Elsie Wheeler and Marc Edmund Jones, Rudhyar reveals the nineteenth degree of Pisces thus: ‘A MASTER IN-STRUCTURING HIS PUPIL: the transfer of power and knowledge which keeps the original spiritual and creative impulse of the cycle active and undeviated.

There is a kinship yet also a marked difference here from the star’s namesake Fomalhaut. Both have the connotation of great power and wisdom bestowed ‘from above’, yet, as we shall see when we come to it in Piscis Australis, Fomalhaut and its Archangel Gabriel are very much to do with releasing us from the inertia of the past, and with opening up a new era for us. Fom al Samakah, by contrast, is about keeping us on course and in tip-top condition to see the present era through. If we were to give this a planetary simile, then, probably, Jupiter-Mercury is most appropriate: it has the right note of a message from the Divine Source to keep things running according to plan. And that, then, is the quality we should find in those with this star strong for them: The have the ability to be attuned to an inner sense of direction in fast-changing times, and to impart it to others. [2]

Fum al Samakah, representing the western fish of Pisces, is swimming directly toward Pegasus Constellation. This represents the journey from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius. I have commented in earlier posts that because the fixed star Scheat is at the Aries Point ( 0 Aries), we are actually in the Age of Pisces. Perhaps seeing “the present era” mentioned by Dr. Morse then is this Age of Pegasus.