About — Critical Astrology

Welcome to Critical Astrology

My name is Samira Bechara, I am an astrologer and historian living in Mount Lebanon.

I grew up in the Seattle area, my mother is Irish by way of Newfoundland Canada and my father is from Lebanon. I have repatriated to Lebanon in the last year. I spent over 20 years working in the restaurant industry in various capacities, predominately as a wine professional, in various cities in the US while always studying astrology. I began doing readings and have done them on and off since 2012 but have never committed to full-time astrology work until now.

Astrological and Academic Foundations

My astrological background is a mix of formal classes and self-study, as I think is the case for most of us, and my work is rooted in archetypal and traditional frameworks. I have taken classes with with Erin Sullivan (الله يرحمها), Austin Coppock, Mychal Brian, and various instructors through FAS and Kepler College. Outside of formalized study, I have read (and lean heavily on) the work of Demetra George and am currently working my way through the Medieval Arabic texts. My work is leaning toward Medieval Arab tradition these days, as it feels like a framework of practice I can fully commit to.

Academically, I am an environmental historian of the Modern Middle East, particularly the League of Nations Mandates in Palestine and Lebanon. My research explores the effects of colonialism on the natural and lived environment, and I approach my work through a postcolonial theoretical lens.

My goal for this page is to critically examine western astrology in a way that releases its practitioners from the shackles of power structures rooted in white supremacy and capitalism. I want to envision what a truly representative astrology could look like, and invite all discussion and input.

Semantics

Simply put, words carry meaning and I do my best to make sure that I’m always choosing words that accurately convey the gravity of the subject matter and offer respect to their provenance. Thus, these are some of the choices you will read throughout my work.

Bilad as-Sham

I choose to use the term Bilad as-Sham to refer to modern-day Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Jordan, as this is the historically accurate term that has been applied to this region from within. There is traceable and palpable ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and religious cohesion in this region.

SWANA vs MENA: I shy away from both of these terms, as they are related to Islamicate below. MENA is a term and a grouping that came out of area studies and is a way to try and classify people in majority Muslim countries. There is no cohesion between someone in Algeria and someone in Lebanon, for instance, including speaking mutually unintelligible dialects of Arabic, other than them both having been a part of the same Islamic Empire historically. SWANA is simply a rebranding of MENA. It is more accurate to refer to ethnic groups, or smaller more cohesive regions, such as Bilad as-Sham or the Gulf.

Debunking “Medieval Islamicate Astrology”

I’ve been thinking deeply about this, and truthfully trying to specify “Arab” or “Persian” or “Hebrew” or “Islamic” or “Islamicate” - the very fact that one feels the need to specify IS Orientalism.

When you hear ‘Medieval’, what comes to mind? Is it swords and suits of armor and princesses and castles? The reason for that is that the term Medieval is specifically referring to European history. And while Europe was in their Medieval times, including being wiped out by the plague and the dark ages, it was the time of the so-called Islamic Golden Age. The term Medieval is not applicable to talk about astrology coming out of the Arab world at that time as these are two regions with absolutely divergent cultural paths at that time. Middle Ages is a more neutral term that specifies a time range without a eurocentric bias.
Islamicate is a term that was coined by a white man in the 1970s in an attempt to describe the bodies of knowledge coming out of the areas under Islamic empires. The idea, theoretically, is that this does not just apply to adherents of Islam, but that could apply to adherents of other religions that were publishing at that time as well. If that is the case, then why do we need to include Islam in the title? Why is Islam a frame of reference in this case, and for instance, learning coming out of Europe at that time is not framed as ‘Christianate’? This specifically comes from a desire and need in the west to classify the east and is Orientalist.

I’m feeling now that the best, most concise, and most succinct way to talk about this all is to just talk about studying Medieval or Middle Ages astrology - and if it comes down to it, one can say in the tradition of Sahl ibn Bishr, or Mash’allah, or Abu Ma’shar or whoever. It makes more sense, rather than specifying Arabic or Persian or WHATEVER, to describe the authors themselves.

People do this when talking about the “Western” astrologers! Guido Bonatti says this, Vettius Valens says that - so why do we feel the need to classify or separate the astrologers writing in Arabic or Persian?

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