How the Northern Star College of Mystical Studies got its name.

The North Star has been used by explorers and travelers from diverse civilizations to help navigate their way home.

The journeyers were not just any community members, but those who took risks, travelled to new lands and learned much. They never returned quite the same as they left, changed by witnessing new customs, food and ways of living. So finding and following the North Star was meaningful both to the weary travelers seeking home and their communities, who would stagnate without their new input.

Metaphorically it has been used to find our own “true north” our sense of what is right and authentic. This star stays fixed in the sky and is used to determine which way you’re headed. Explorers depended on this star to navigate when no known landmarks were visible. It is also the brightest star in the sky and part of the big dipper.

It is the star of self- knowledge, because without a true center we simply spin into other people’s orbs, never knowing our true potential or soul purpose. As humans we have the challenge of being both individuals and yet, part of something bigger. The North Star helps connect us to both our inner truth and to the cosmos.

Your north star is your inner knowing, even when you think you’re lost, if you know where to look in the cosmos and inside yourself you will find a steady, reliable point.

Barbra Walker in the Woman’s Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects says that ancients envisioned the north and south of the starry universe as actual polar axis that passed through the earth. The North Pole was thought to be planted in the earth. The gods dwelt around it. Shamans used the axis as a trunk and climbed to the other world with it- journeying to the other side.

We chose the Northern Star for our College’s name because of its connection to the cosmos, brightness, and ability to help journeyers (students) find themselves through travel (inner and outer) and bring meaningful ideas back with them.