The moon will be aligned with Delta Orionis and Lambda Orionis at approximately 3:48 pm PST, today (December 18th). Lambda Orionis is known by the name Meissa, which is derived from the Arabic name of “al-māssa” or “al-māsasa.” For some reason astronomers seem to think that the form of this word should be “Al-Maisan”; meaning “The Shining One.” I have no idea where they get this from. None of the dictionaries or lexicons that I look at have this form of the word. Moreover, the meaning that they have attributed to this word is not especially the best interpretation. The word is not a complementary word. It carries the idea that the persona of the subject tends to chafe those people that are in their presence. One of the examples that captures the application of its meaning well is when an odious woman saunters down the isle of the church as she approaches the altar at her wedding … a woman full of pride and self-conceit.
In this picture, there are three stars that are just to the north and right of the center of the photo. The brightest of the three (just above the other two) is the star Meissa. Does Meissa look like it is “The Shining One” in this photo? It does not look that way to me. It looks to me like it is in the midst of a ball of fire. It looks to me like a bear robbed of her whelps has pronounced judgement upon it.
This photo is: “The lambda Orionis region of the constellation Orion, showing molecular clouds and Betelgeuse, as well as gamma Orionis, lambda Orionis, and phi Orionis.” December 2017 by Lithopsian at Wikimedia.org
