Welcome to the Embers Collection:
Idola Stellarum’s 2025 Winter Solstice Collection
of Astromagical Talismanic Jewelry

Read more below, or jump to the talismans & prints:

• Mars in Capricorn – Initiative & Tenacity – African bloodstone gold-plated sterling silver ring & pendant talismans
• 24th Lunar Mansion – Esoteric Knowledge – iron pyrite sterling silver pendant talismans

The Embers collection will open at the following times:

• Early access for Inner Sanctum members: Sunday, December 21, 2025 @ 11:52am EST
• Mailing list subscribers: Wednesday, December 24, 2025 @ 11:40am EST

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“Each thing is merely the limit of the flame to which it owes its existence.”

Max Scheler, quoted by Gaston Bachelard in The Psychoanalysis of Fire, trans. Alan C.M. Ross, p. 56

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Introducing the Embers Collection

There’s nothing like winter to remind you that fire is life.

Here in rural New England, the weather has been unseasonably cold, and were it not for an unusually warm rainstorm a few days before the Embers collection launch, everything would still be locked down under a couple of inches of ice, the product of partial thaws that compact serene blankets of snow into impenetrable sheets of frigid slick.

Although gemstones such as those that grace Idola‘s talismans might intuitively be associated in the modern mind with the element of earth, in the ancient world and in medieval Europe, stones were more frequently associated with fire. Hildegard von Bingen, in her collection of naturalistic writings, Physica, writes that precious stones are birthed from the ‘froth’ produced by rivers touching “mountains [with] heat as powerful as fire,” and that pieces of froth “dry from the sun’s heat and take their colors and powers in accordance with the time of day and the temperature. Drying and hardening, they become precious stones and fall onto the sand, just like flaking fish scales” (Book 4, trans. Priscilla Throop). Contemporary science, of course, has different ideas about how gemstones form, but we can certainly appreciate how gemstones’ capacity to reflect and capture light forged an intimate link in the ancient mind between gems and fire.

Talismans, like all living things, also owe their existence to fire. At the outset of Picatrix the author lays out a concise theory of the talismanic art, and notes:

“When things that have such [stellar] virtues are brought together at the same time, they have need of elemental heat. This is done by suffumigation, which helps to complete the incomplete virtue. Similarly, it ought to have natural heat, that is, by digestion. These two cannot be complete, nor are they able to function, without the presence of human and animal spirit.”

—Maslama al-Qurtubi, Picatrix, trans. John Michael Greer & Christopher Warnock, Book I, Chapter 2

This passage came up in a recent Inner Sanctum discussion in one of the bonus lessons of our “Wondrously Embroidered: The Worldview of Astrological Magic” course. Something that people who have not made talismans themselves might not realize is that the process is incredibly physically demanding, and both the talismanic operation itself as well as later auxiliary operations such as setting the talismans in jewelry settings can take an exhaustive toll on the body. One specific, very reliable effect we have noticed is that such operations are incredibly dehydrating. Though the stones themselves may not get hot in one’s hands, a mysterious sort of elemental heat seems to make its effects known throughout the process.

Talismans link the hard material of the earth with the incandescence of the stars, which have themselves always had an association with fire as well because of their luminescence. The highest heaven, the Empyrean, was at times thought to be the home of the element of fire (at other times, the home of aether or quintessence).

Embers of Knowledge

In addition to life and the stars themselves, fire has also had an immemorial association with knowledge. In Picatrix, for example, which prizes knowledge above all, we find the following passage:

“Good learning and understanding take place in this way, by the keenness of the spirit, until in a short time one obtains what he seeks. This intelligence and agility or disposition, however, are extracted from the acuity of fire.”

—Maslama al-Qurtubi, Picatrix, trans. John Michael Greer & Christopher Warnock, Book II, Chapter 11

Like the lick of a flame, the mind can snap from one topic to another, traveling hundreds and thousands of miles in an instant to call up an image, a word, a memory.

One of the topics that came up in our November 2025 Inspirit Salon discussion with featured guest Dr. Jenn Zahrt (of CAELi, Revelore, ISAR, and elsewhere) was just how young the contemporary revival of astrological magic is in the English-speaking world. We framed this as a point of excitement, because it means there is so much left to learn and to discover about this arcane art.

Even in a time of great societal tribulation, knowledge is a treasure. We only know about astrological magic because scholars, mages, scribes, and monks have transmitted texts and practices down through the ages. Through wars, famines, plagues, natural disasters, persecution, and oppression—in addition to the inexorable Saturnine march of time that grinds down all media to dust—knowledge of these practices has been kindled and rekindled, like a flame passing from candle to candle. Rather than seeing learning and scholarship as luxuries to be set aside in times of trial, we might rather see them as signs of love and hope, an effort to preserve what is good and wonderful in the world from the forces that would suppress and destroy it.

“Among all phenomena, fire alone is sufficiently prized by prehistoric man to wake in him the desire for knowledge, and this is mainly because it accompanies the desire for love.”

Gaston Bachelard, The Psychoanalysis of Fire, trans. Alan C.M. Ross, p. 55

Just as a fire can be rekindled from a single hot coal, a single ember, we, like so many of our friends and colleagues, are working to rekindle not just practices but an entire worldview, a whole experience, of a less alienated, more celestially inclined humanity—a worldview that is neither as long lost nor even as dormant in many of our lineages as dominant cultural forces would have us believe.

The Fire of the Imagination

As far as the Embers collection is concerned, it is probably obvious how the 24th Lunar Mansion Esoteric Knowledge talisman fits into the theme of keeping the heartfire of knowledge burning. For those less deeply steeped in astrological magical lore, however, the link with Mars may seem less apparent aside from the more literal and concrete association of Mars with the blaze of fire. Marsilio Ficino, however, links the imagination directly with Mars:

“Now since the planets are seven in number, there are also seven steps through which something from on high can be attracted to the lower things… Fifth are the strong concepts of the imagination—forms, motions, passions—which suggest the force of Mars.”

—Marsilio Ficino, Three Books on Life, trans. Kaske & Clark, Book 3, Chapter XXI

Moving toward a better world crucially involves being able to imagine a better world, and then martialling (an apt word) our passions and impulses into actions more congruent with what we imagine. Gaston Bachelard, in his inspired and quasi-hallucinogenic The Psychoanalysis of Fire, elevates the imagination as one of the highest faculties of mind—a position more consistnt with a medieval sensibility than the modern tendency to dismiss things as “just fantasy” or to outsource imagination and its fulfillment to large language models (so-called by marketing departments as generative AI):

“We subscribe to this view: rather than the will, rather than the élan vital, Imagination is the true source of psychic production. Psychically, we are created by our reverie—created and limited by our reverie—for it is the reverie which delineates the furthest limits of our mind. Imagination works at the summit of the mind like a flame.”

—Gaston Bachelard, The Psychoanalysis of Fire, trans. Alan C.M. Ross, p. 110

Guided by our intuitions and spirit relationships—not to mention the generally gloomy societal mood and general economic situation—we chose to make our winter solstice collection smaller than usual. However, whether a collection is big or small, exciting or sedate, astrological talismans in our view embody deep acts of celestial devotion and love, and are offered in the spirit of sparking the imagination and stoking the magical fires in our hearts. As usual, Ficino has an apt sentiment to share—in this case on how the imagination connects us with the divine:

“When we fashion images [i.e., talismans] rightly, our spirit, if it has been intent upon the work and upon the stars through imagination and emotion, is joined together with the very spirit of the world and with the rays of the stars through which the world-spirit acts.”

—Marsilio Ficino, Three Books on Life, trans. Kaske & Clark, Book 3, Chapter XX

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The Embers Collection

The Embers Collection holds gemstone talismans from two elections from 2024. Please follow the links below to visit the individual talisman product pages, or scroll down to see brief previews of each of the talismans.

• Mars in Capricorn – Initiative & Tenacity – African bloodstone gold-plated sterling silver ring & pendant talismans
• 24th Lunar Mansion – Esoteric Knowledge – iron pyrite sterling silver pendant talismans

Note that all astrological talismans by their time-sensitive nature are extremely limited edition. Only a relatively small number of each specific talisman we release will ever be available. Once they are gone, they are gone.

(Note also: weight and dimensions listed in product attributes are approximate weights for the entire shipped package, not for the talismans themselves individually. None of the decorative elements displayed in altar photos or product shots besides the chains and jewelry boxes are included with purchased talismans.)

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24th Lunar Mansion – Esoteric Knowledge

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Mars in Capricorn – Initiative & Tenacity

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Idola Stellarum Puts the Stars in your Hands

By putting you in relationship with the powerful spirits who peer into the sublunary realm through these talismans, we hope you will be better equipped to face a strange, shifting, and at times terrifying world in which, too often, injustice reigns and corruption prevails. With institutions under siege (some rightfully so) and social contracts disintegrating at the expense of the most oppressed among us, we have to rely on each other. Thankfully, our interdependent networks of care can include celestial angels, too.

The spirits who guide Idola Stellarum know that if we can begin to equip each other with deep and consequential magic, we can begin to make the types of changes that many of us were told as children were possible, and reach toward the dreams which we knew could come true, but which remain withheld by those who hold structural and institutional power. To that end, we provide extensive information on our talismans, because we believe in making the tradition of astrological magic more accessible and allowing people to step into talismanic relationships equipped with the knowledge they need.

On each product page linked above, we offer photographs and a narrative description of the talisman series before showcasing the electional chart (with a precise time range specifying the beginning and end of the ritual window) and discussing the essential features of the election, further magical factors of the election, and reflections on weaknesses of the election. We include ceremonial details of petitions, altars, suffumigations, and, of course, the talismans themselves.  

Sanctifying Relationships

In building Idola Stellarum, and in thinking about the Insight collection, we aimed to not only put people in relationship with talismanic spirits, but to offer an experience of coming into connection. We, as beings of the sublunary realm, rely on our visceral and tactile senses, and so Idola Stellarum set our intention to usher in an experience of quality that would appeal to the aesthetics of body and spirit alike.

To this end, each Idola Stellarum talisman will include: a foil-stamped black velvet jewelry box for safe keeping and display; a detailed writeup about the nature of the talisman, the circumstances and rituals of its creation, and guidance on how to introduce yourself to the talismanic spirit; and a certificate of authenticity signed by Rain & Pallas. All talismanic jewelry in the Embers collection has been set in high quality metal settings. All pendant settings in the Embers collection are sterling silver (some gold-plated), and each pendant talisman includes a matching 22″ sterling silver or gold plated sterling silver rope chain; all ring settings are gold-plated sterling silver.

Additionally, many questions related to the talismans you may have are answered in our frequently asked questions. We take our role as mages and mediators of the celestial spirits very seriously, and we stand by our work and the relationships we build, tend, and foster. To this end, each Idola Stellarum talisman is backed by several guarantees, which we encourage you to look over, and we also endeavor to be very transparent about what we are not able to guarantee.

Note that good relationships have boundaries, and you should know ours: due to the nature of astrological talismans, all sales are final, and no refunds or exchanges will be offered. Please read our returns & exchanges policy for more information.

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Whether or not you hope to meet one of our talismans from this collection, we warmly invite you to keep up to date on our mailing list for more opportunities to join Idola Stellarum for events, spaces, and conversations intended to deepen and improve our relationships, talismanic and otherwise.

Membership in the Inner Sanctum is currently the only way to gain premiere early access to (as well as a member discount on) Idola Stellarum talisman collections. After Inner Sanctum early access, collections go out to our mailing list. Only after this are our collections open to the public, and then only if any talismans remain. The Inner Sanctum is currently closed, but opens quarterly.

Thank you for joining us at Idola Stellarum.

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