February was added to the older Julian calendar in the 700’s BCE when two new months were added to create the new Gregorian calendar, matching it up more closely with the actual length of the Earth’s journey round the sun.
But the Anglo Saxons called February Sōlmōnath, from sōl n Old English word for wet sand or mud, alluding to the weather this time of year and the effects of rain and snow melt. The romantic Solway Firth between North West England and South West Scotland is actually the massive tidal ‘Mud way’, rather than the ‘Sun way.’
The northern English scholar monk , saint Bede, wrote that February was celebrated as “the month of cakes,” when ritual offerings of savory cakes and loaves of bread were made to ensure a good year’s harvest.
But is the fire festival of Imbolc and Brigid is a more ancient celebration in Gaelic Britain, including Ireland, Scotland, swathes of Northern England and the Isle of Man.
Brigid’s fire festival began as a neolithic festival marking the 1/2 way point between the winter solstice (Yule) and the spring equinox (Beltane.)
Imbolc spans 1-2 February, celebrating the arrival of Brigid, the Divine Feminine, and the harbinger of the coming of spring and the first lambs, so vital to survival of those early communities. Brigid’s name means ‘Exalted One’.
Brigid From The Sacred Circle Tarot
‘Imbolc’ is thought to mean ‘in the belly’ referring to the precious ewes in lamb Soon is the time of the first lambs although the start of the lambing season varies by up to two weeks in any given year.
Brigid was a powerful protector of women in childbirth, as well as the safe birthing of precious livestock. She was not only a goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann, The Tribe of the Gods, but a triple goddess of healers, poets and smiths.
Via Wiki Riders of the Sidhe, the Tuatha de Dannan
“The Tuatha de Danaan, the people of the (mother) goddess Danu in Celtic mythology; a race inhabiting Ireland before the arrival of the Milesians (the ancestors of the modern Irish). They were said to have been skilled in magic, and the earliest reference to them relates that, after they were banished from heaven because of their knowledge, they descended on Ireland in a cloud of mist. They were thought to have disappeared into the hills when overcome by the Milesians. The Leabhar Gabhála (Book of Invasions), a fictitious history of Ireland from the earliest times, treats them as actual people, and they were so regarded by native historians up to the 17th century. In popular legend they have become associated with the numerous fairies still supposed to inhabit the Irish landscape”. From The Encylopedia Britannica
Brigid was said to visit one’s home at Imbolc. People would make a bed for her, and leave food and drink and items of clothing outside in the hope of receiving her blessings, petitioning her to protect homes and livestock.
This was a time for feasting and visits to sacred wells, and a time for ritual divination. A St Brigid’s cross is made from rushes and was placed in doorways to protect the home from harm, representing the wheel of the seasons.
Spring is fierce in its quickening of new shoots. Spring is initiation. Spring is fire, just as Aries the Ram of the zodiac, though bot starting until later, in late March, is a fire sign.
The old Norse rune ING or INGUZ is a fire sign rune, associated with male fertility, vitality and recovery from sickness. This powerful protective rune can also be noticed incorporated into pargeting, used in half-timbered buildings in Britain and northern Europe
The people would light bonfires on the hilltops by night, and by day might run cattle through the smoke of lower lying bonfires, asking divine protection for the livestock.
Imbolc was a key moment in weather forecasting. This was the time when The Cailleach —the divine crone of Gaelic tradition—gathered firewood for the rest of the winter. If the Cailleach knew the winter was going to last a good while longer, she’d make sure of good weather during Imbolc and would use it to gather more firewood to top up her stores. Bad weather at Imbolc was good news. The Cailleach wasn’t worried about running out of firewood. She had turned over and gone back to sleep and the worst of winter was almost over.
Via Pinterest
‘Dark sacred night’…yes, but when the dark goes on too long, we shout back at the dark, fighting back with the Promethean gift of fire.
Tonight is the first Full Moon of 2021. The January Full Moon is nicknamed the Wolf Moon.
At this time of year in northern America and Northern Europe, wolves used to come down to human settlements in search of food- with resulting conflict.
A British Wolf Hunt
The dog is looking rather surprisingly nonchalant, just lounging about next to the man. Unless it has just been bitten, but it is looking rather too laid back and chilled for that. Folk stories suggest the last wolf in England was killed in 1390 by John, son of Sir Edgar Harrington of Wraysholme, after he chased it all the way from the Coniston Fells to Humphrey Head in Cumbria (coastal North West England).
Windblown trees of Humphrey Head, Cumbria via Wiki
There had always been wolves in Britain, but efforts to exterminate them started from the time of King Edward I. By the late middle ages, they were very rare in England, although they continued in Scotland until the 17th or 18th century. Officially the last Scottish wolf was killed (shot) by Sir Ewen Cameron in 1680 in Killiecrankie (Perthshire), but other reports suggests wolves survived in Scotland till much later, with one possible sighting as late as 1888.
Not only is a Wolf Moon tonight, 25 January 2024, but it is a fire sign moon in the sign of proud, passionate, playful Leo, the Lion King of the Zodiac.
The major arcana Tarot card associated with Leo is Strength. This signifies not only the raw power of physical strength, but fortitude; moral courage, although it is a lucky card, suggesting recovery if someone has been ill.
The minor arcana cards of Leo are the Five, Six and Seven of Wands, representing good-natured Competition, Victory, and Fortitude in Adversity respectively.
From The Gilded Tarot Royale, Ciro Marchetti
Here the figure – we may think of her as Una- The One-but she is you and me, has not tamed the lion as such. They walk side by side, facing futurity, focused on their purpose, or looking inward on their dreams.
The lion walks alongside as an equal, though actually it could deal with Una any time it likes. One bite, one blow of the giant paw. She holds the leash only very lightly, but the lion remains by choice. No-one may presume to think to tame another, but there is no true Strength without the power of self-command.
Any one who would be a leader must first learn to rule himself, or herself.
Leo says ‘fame’. Leo says shine your light, walk the stage, write your part and play it, but don’t overlook the audience. Not only is there no play without them but they too, have their part to play.
There may be an added element of tension in the air at the moment, thanks to Uranus, planet of innovation and rebellion, making things extra-unpredictable.
Some rebels have a true and just cause. Others are just a pain in the a*se, saying, me! me! me! while others still, are out to do damage for reasons of their own, wreaking havoc, making hay, fuelling the fire. It’s all out there today, playing out on the public stage. Lions, wolves, the hunters, the agents provacateurs….and those Iagos on the make. And the viewers.
Some applauding, others booing, some silently approving, dismayed or disgusted.
The Lion of the Zodiac is capable of many things, not always good. The Lion may be careless, arrogant, but he is incapable of pettiness or spite. Leo could make mincemeat of any Iago in this world….but so honourable is the Lion, alas, the malice and the cunning of an Iago may elude him, as too alien to his own nature to be recognized for what it is.
Leo
Dandy Lion’s
Golden Mane
Prideful, Greying
Casts Away
Alight on chance
To Lionise again
–Katie-Ellen
Here’s a book fit to make you roar like a lion or more likely, howl like a wolf any time. It may say here it’s for 2-6 year olds, but don’t you believe it.
Lion and Blue by Robert Vavra, illustrated by Fleur Cowles.
A lonely old lion loves a beautiful blue butterfly, but the butterfly must leave him to follow its own destiny. The old lion pines for his friend and goes in search…
Most of us know our zodiac or sun sign, but what does it look like in the night sky, and what’s the story behind it? This month it’s the turn of Aquarius again, the rain-maker of the Zodiac; the cloud bearer, and therefore an Air sign despite the ‘aqua’ in its name…
‘It never rains but it pours.’
As we enter Aquarius again in 2022, poised right on the cusp today, 19 January, I look back at the flooding that was on the news here in the UK in 2021; Storm Christophe.
I had mentioned this possibility among other things including the trouble that followed the US Presidential Inauguration, in a piece written for Ask Astrology 27 December 2020, though this was hardly any great psychic hit for this time of year, though some years are definitely worse than others.
Aquarius is the eleventh astrological sign in the Zodiac, named after the constellation of Aquarius, recorded by the Greek astronomer and mathematician Ptolemy in the 2nd Century AD.
Today, 19 January 2022, the greatest storms have been in the House of Commons at Prime Minister’s Question Time. The PM could go, of course, but the signs are, he won’t yet awhile. For all the thunder and fury, this die is not cast. Why not? Bigger storms heading our way in 2022.
Quality: Fixed (meaning a sign that corresponds with the height of a given season) Ruling planets: Saturn the Taskmaster (originally) ANDUranus the Eccentric Upheaver.
Body: The circulatory system, shins, and ankles.
Birthstone: Amethyst
Tarot Card: The Star (Hope, Vision, Recovery, Equilibrium, Bridging, Searching, Exploration, Technology, Space Exploration)
Minor Arcana cards: the 5, 6 and 7 of Swords.
From The Gilded tarot, Ciro Marchetti
The figure is unclothed because The Star (Truth) has nothing to hide.
Astronomy
From the Earth’s perspective, the Sun actually passes in front of the constellation of Aquarius from February 17th to March 11th, a month later than the dates associated with its zodiac sign.
However, zodiac constellations are not to be confused with zodiac signs. The dates did used to coincide, but Western (Tropical) astrology is a fixed arithmetic system dating back to more ancient calendar systems.
The dates of the zodiac signs and the constellations after which they were named have separated over time due to the ‘wobble’ of the Earth – an effect known as precession.
Astronomers who deride astrology on these grounds are not taking into account the basis and history of western (Tropical) astrology as a mathematical, not an astronomical model of the heavens.
Aquarius the Water-Carrier is one of the oldest identified constellations of the Zodiac (the area of the sky as seen from Earth through which the sun, moon and planets all pass, occasionally or regularly)
Aquarius is the tenth largest constellation, a big though faint constellation in the southern hemisphere, and its appearance is almost universally associated culturally and historically with sky, clouds, water and therefore rain.
Aquarius lies in the dark region of the sky called The Sea, containing other ‘watery’ constellations; Pisces (the fish), Eridanus (the river), Cetus (the whale), Capricornus (the Sea-goat), Delphinus (the Dolphin), and Hydra (the Water serpent).
Via Wiki
Helped out here by those added lines, we see the pitcher, pouring out water.
The brightest stars in Aquarius are two yellow super-giants, several times more massive than the Sun; Alpha Aquarii (Sadalmelik) and Beta Aquarii (Sadalsuud) 537 light-years distant.
Sadalsuud is the brightest star in Aquarius, with a mass six times that of the Sun. It’s 2,200 times more luminous than the Sun and its name comes from the Arabic phrase sa’d al-suud, meaning the “luck of lucks.”
Aquarius also contains the Saturn Nebula and the Helix Nebula, the remnants of dying stars, and these are the closest planetary nebulae to Earth, 400 light-years away.
The Saturn NebulaThe Helix Nebula
(Talk about The Eye of Sauron)
Aquarius is home to at least 3 meteor showers. The Eta Aquariids, 5th and 6th of May, are the strongest with up to 35 meteors per hour coming from materials shed by Comet Halley as it travels through the solar system. The less active Delta Aquariids peak twice: on the 29th of July and again on the 6th of August. The weakest is the Iota Aquariids, peaking August 6th each year.
The constellation of Aquarius is large but faint, complicated and not easy to spot, though it can be seen from almost anywhere on Earth. The best time to see is 9-10 PM in October but you will need a dark sky to pick it out.
History and Mythology
Throughout the whole of human history, arguably the number one danger to Man has been the threat of flood, knocking spots in terms of the sheer scale of threat off even the Biblical Horsemen of the Apocalypse; War, Famine, Pestilence and Death.
Aquarius overhead meant winter rain was coming to the lands of Mesop0tomia, and this meant the waters of life itself- aqua vitae -but it wasn’t all good news.
The water carrier, the cloud, can also be an agent of death, destruction, flood and disease, and the oldest flood stories underpinning the zodiac story of Aquarius arose in the Middle East. The story of Noah’s flood came much later.
For the Sumerians, Aquarius was a frightening figure. He held the vessel from which a great flood flowed from the heavens onto the earth to ravage the entire planet, while the Babylonians called Aquarius’ appearance in the night sky ‘the curse of rain’.
Aquarius to the Babylonians was the god Ea, or GU.LA , ‘The Great One’ in the Babylonian star catalogues, often shown holding an overflowing vase. During the Early Bronze Age, the appearance of Aquarius or the ‘Way of Ea’, corresponded to the period of 45 days on either side of winter solstice, when the Babylonians regularly experienced destructive levels of flooding.
In Ancient Egypt, their own version of Aquarius, the god Hapi, God of The Nile, was associated with the annual flood of the Nile when Hapi put his jar into the river, and this marked the beginning of spring, replenishing their farming soil. But their flooding season was June.
Greek mythology describes three floods, the flood of Ogyges, the flood of Deucalion, and the flood of Dardanus. The Ogygian Deluge, they said ended the Silver Age, and the flood of Deucalion ended the First Bronze Age, ‘parting the mountains of Thessaly’.
The ancient Greeks naturally feared fire, and the ever present threat of earthquakes ‘convulsions’ and recorded events where fire and water they happened together (tsunamis, and we have of course, just witnessed the Tongan tsunami, 15 January following an undersea volcanic eruption, just days ahead of Aquarius.)
The Greeks said that Aquarius caused a great flood which inundated the Earth during the Bronze Age, of which only Deucalion, son of Prometheus and his wife Pyrrha survived by variously climbing in a chest and toughing it out, or building a great boat stocked with provisions, just as later in the Old Testament, Noah built his Ark.
Ancient Greeks avoided living near lakes and rivers, it’s thought, for hygiene reasons as well as protection from floods. There are apparently, impressive remains of hydraulic anti-flooding works; dams, walls, and channels in cities and other settlements in the Minoan era, and the Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic and Roman periods.
Another very different Greek legend, associated Aquarius with the beautiful Trojan prince, Ganymede, carried off by that arch-sexual predator Zeus (Did Zeus ever give it a rest?) This time, he disguised himself as an eagle, and Ganymede, like it or not, became his lover and protégé, and the cup-bearer of the Gods.
Public Domain, Ganymede
The ‘Age of Aquarius’
Is it here? What does it mean? What might it portend? There has been a lot of discussion about this, and much excitement surrounding the Great Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in Aquarius that occurred 21 December 2020.
The Age of Aquarius has become synonymous with a mythical new Golden age of Mankind, but when was it? Or when will it begin? There is no consensus and no definite answer.
In astrological terms, an age lasts roughly 2200 years and is identified by the name of the constellation in which the Sun appears in on the first day of spring (the vernal equinox). To know when the age of Aquarius begins, we would need to agree the start date for the previous/present Age of Pisces- but astronomy and astrology don’t agree, even among themselves.
Some, but not all astrologers say the Age of Aquarius is already here, that it began in 2012. To arrive at this, they are using the star Regulus, the heart of the Lion in the constellation of Leo as the marker of the ancient border between the constellations Leo and Cancer.
Regulus moved to within 30 degrees of the September equinox point in 2012, Working with the arithmetical model of constellations as calculated by Ptolemy in the second century AD, this places the border of the constellations Pisces and Aquarius at 150 degrees west of Regulus, or at the March equinox point. By this reckoning, the Age of Aquarius started in 2012.
Alternatively, according to the Belgian astronomer and mathematician, Jean Meeus, the sun at the March equinox passed from being in front of the constellation Aries to being in front of the constellation Pisces in 68 B.C.
This would mean that the March equinox will cross over into the constellation Aquarius in 2597 but once again, these are the astronomical, not astrological dates.
The Age of Aquarius denotes or predicts on the one hand the space age, the age of super-technology, and on the other, the age of the human collective, The Brotherhood of Man as opposed to the age of the One, and the individual as in the current Age of Pisces which is associated with the rise of the monotheistic religions; Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Space Technology 2021
Saturn and Jupiter conjunct in sci-fi Aquarius on 21 December 2020 prefigured hi-tech space adventures to come during 2021.
Mars was having visitors -us. Oh yes. Put the kettle on, Mars peeps. And we don’t suppose you’ve got any biccies? Sarnies? Cake? No? OK, OK, well, we know we weren’t invited, but you could have just…you know.
Well, never mind. For a month or so, Earth and Mars lined up in a way that made it viable to land a probe. Miss that window, and it would have meant waiting two years for the next opportunity.
The United Arab Emirates, China and the United States all launched in July 2020, all three due to arrive starting with NASA’a mission, scheduled to land Thursday 18 February 2021.
NASA landed its rover, Perseverance in the Jezero crater, an ancient river delta.
The NASA Rover via Wikimedia Commons
China and the United Arab Emirates sent their own exploration missions to Mars…all due to arrive February 2021.
China sent the Tianwen-1 Rover. After sending a rover to the far side of the moon, this mission was called Tianwen-1, meaning ‘quest for heavenly truth,’ and aimed to be the first Mars mission to drop a landing platform, deploy a rover, and send a spacecraft into the planet’s orbit all at once. The rover has been equipped with a radar system that can detect underground pockets of water and will help China prepare for its own mission to return a sample from Mars to Earth in the 2030s.
The UAE sent The Hope Orbiter, the Arab world’s first mission to another planet, to study the Martian atmosphere.
Russia was planning to send a mission to Mars, as was The European Space Agency, but the Covid pandemic demanded a postponement.
The European Space Agency likewise had to delay the first flight of its new Ariane 6 launcher which was rescheduled to launch during the second half of 2021, and has since had to be rescheduled again for the second quarter of 2022.
NASA is also working to return to the Moon – robotically. The Artemis Project is using commercial delivery services to send science investigations and technology demonstrations to the Moon twice per year, with the first such flight currently scheduled for a flight in 2024.
Yes, it is exciting. But one feels conflicted. The Moon is a goddess, sacred, mysterious. Humanity needs its ancient mysteries for its happiness, health and sanity. It needs the siren lure of the ever inaccessible.
This need cannot be explained away nor measured except by an entire history of story-telling, which says we need stories, that we are hard-wired for this need, and that the effects of what we might call sacrilege of the natural world, will only become known by its despoiling, negation or denial.
We need a hill, a star, a shore and a moon to dream on. Free of our footprints.
Let’s hope therefore, that humanity is successful in these explorations, but not too successful, for the sake of its ultimate sanity, which is not a co-factor of reason or science, but the immeasurable spirit, which is the divine spark for which there can be no calculation, no formula, no equation.
We need to beware hubris and behave with respect. If only for our own happiness. Hence, NASA’s Artemis Accords.
Will this be enough? here is a partial list of the artificial objects already now up there on the Moon.
The Artemis Accords
With numerous countries and private sector players conducting missions and operations in cislunar space, it’s critical to establish a common set of principles to govern the civil exploration and use of outer space.
Via the Artemis program, NASA will land the first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024, heralding in a new era for space exploration and utilization.
While NASA is leading the Artemis program, international partnerships will play a key role in achieving a sustainable and robust presence on the Moon while preparing to conduct a historic human mission to Mars.
The Artemis Accords will describe a shared vision for principles, grounded in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, to create a safe and transparent environment which facilitates exploration, science, and commercial activities for all of humanity to enjoy.
UPDATE
Eight countries had signed up at the time of posting this blog last January 2021: The United Kingdom, Italy, Australia, Canada, Japan, Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates and the US . Other countries had not done so as yet for a variety of reasons, these including Russia, Germany, France and India.
Israel is apparently set to sign the Artemis Accords next week, 23 January 2022, and if they do so they will become the fifteenth signatory.
“Mexico was the previous most recent signatory to the pact in December. Thirteen other countries that have embraced the Artemis Accords are Australia, Brazil, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Poland, the Republic of Korea, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.”
The Moon Agreement of 1979 was an attempt to to prevent commercial exploitation of outer-space resources, but only a few states have ratified it – these have not included the US, China and Russia.
As previously mentioned, in 2024, Artemis III will mark humanity’s return to the surface of the Moon – landing astronauts on the lunar South Pole, the next man and the first ever woman.
Meanwhile OSIRIS–REx is currently on a NASA asteroid-study and sample-return mission. The mission’s primary goal has been to obtain a sample of at least 60 g (2.1 oz) from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu.
It is due to land back on Earth in 2023 with its samples.
Bennu is carbonaceous and large enough to be potentially hazardous to Earth. (It won’t hit)
Russia was planning to return to the Moon in 2021, the first moon mission since 1976. Russia’s Roscosmos space agency aims to launch its robotic Luna-25 moon landing craft in October 2021, and had drafted a deal with the U.S. space tourism company Space Adventures to fly the first two commercial two passengers to the International Space Station in 2021. NASA says it is not interested in private spaceflight, but 2021 saw the first tourists on board the ISS
So. The Age of Aquarius, what will it bring whenever it arrives? What is to be expected?
What is the story of humanity and what does that tell us? It took over 2 million years of human history for the world’s population to reach 1 billion, and only another 200 years to reach 7 billion though it is slowing now.
‘The world population growth rate declined from 2.2% per year 50 years ago to 1.05% per year’. See SOURCE
Earth will be our only home. If alien visitors, ‘The Greys’ are here, they are travelling either way back in time, or way forward. Yes, the cosmos is unimaginably huge, but if they are here, are they us, either what we will become far, far in the future, or that we once were, back in the days of the ‘gods?’
Could they be from Mars, but not Mars as we see it now, but a far, far future Mars? If so, they are still us, in far future exile, and perhaps Mars will be greener by them, red and brown and green and blue. But ‘the words of the prophets’ are not only written on the subway walls.
“We’ll all miss her so”.
Astrology; the Aquarius Personality/ Archetype
Aquarius is a Fixed, Masculine Air Sign. The Tarot court card to watch for here is The King of Swords though the Queen may also represent an Aquarius born subject.
Of course there is no such thing in reality as THE Aquarius personality, and the same goes for all the zodiac sun signs. Your sun sign is an archetype, a keynote, but of course it is not and never could be the whole story.
The archetypal persona, male or female, is keenly observant, very sharp, clever, firm, fair, analytical logical, legalistic, brave, amusing and charming. They are often musically gifted, numerate, and very often work in teaching, or in Law, or music, medicine or dentistry in technical, forensic or surgical consultant roles. This is someone who uses logic and reason to cut through confusion. But they need plenty of personal space and fresh air, and if emotionally challenged, they are more likely to administer advice or medicine than take it themselves. They can be quietly ruthless.
Aquarius is ruled by two planets, Saturn, known to the ancients, planet of duty and conformity, but also Uranus, ‘discovered’ 1781, designated the planet of upheaval and rebellion, and therefore, as you might imagine, this is a sign potentially containing acute paradoxes.
There is on the one hand the authoritarian Aquarian, prone to dogma, and the freewheeling Aquarian archetype. Either way, Aquarius is radically independent in their thinking, often for good, but not always. Even a rebellion may become just another kind of dogma.
Aquarius is generally kindly, humane, refined, civilized and honourable in dealings. They set great store on friendship and loyalty, and need to belong and be of service, just as their symbol is the water-bearer or cup-bearer, a person pouring water for another.
This symbol can be interpreted to imply a destiny to serve others, but by the same token Aquarius may carry water to ‘cleanse’ the world of ‘errant’ thinking. Taken to extremes, Aquarius therefore represents a communal potential for fundamentalism.
Aquarius excels at cerebral thinking, dealing in abstracts, but does not necessarily see the the individual in front of them. Where they make a false step it may be because they trust to their cerebral processes at the expense of their instinct.
Aquarius may be moody, prone to bouts of depression, or they may sparkle with the brilliance of diamonds, when their chart is warmed by the courage warmth, honour and charisma of their opposite sign, their alter ego, or possibly their nemesis…the zodiac counterpart contained within Aquarius – Leo.
Famous Aquarius subjects
Galileo Galilei
Abraham Lincoln, Ferdinand Magellan. Galileo Galilei, Thomas Edison. Charles Darwin. Frederick Douglass, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Virginia Woolf, John Travolta, Oprah Winfrey, Shakira
It is 20 January, and in the US, once every four years, this means Presidential Inauguration Day. The Devil in the title is the zodiac sign of Capricorn and The Star is Aquarius.
The Inauguration date represents the astrological cusp between Capricorn, the third decanate, and Aquarius, the first decanate. Every zodiac sign is divided into thirds: 3 ‘decanates’, 10 days, representing 10 degrees of the 360 degree Wheel of the Zodiac. Each Zodiac sign represents roughly 1/12 of that Wheel,as determined by the astronomer, astrologer and mathematician Ptolemy in the second century AD.
The Presidential Inauguration bridges The Four of Pentacles, nicknamed by some ‘The Miser card. ‘What I have I keep.’and the minor arcana card correlating with the first decanate of Aquarius, the emotionally and sometimes physically violent Five of Swords, a card that says, ‘I’ll get you back for this.’
Tweeted 12 January
11-19 January. Decan 3 Capricorn, THE worker of the zodiac, ruled by Saturn, Great Teacher. Sub-ruled by Mercury. Capricorn with Virgo attention to detail but agility of Gemini. #Tarot Four Pentacles ‘I store’. Miser? Unjust nickname. You can’t share what’s not there in storage.
From The Gilded Tarot
But, just running with that traditional Tarot nickname, the Miser, who do we see has been trying to hang on when all the signs have said, it is time to let go?
The first decanate of Aquarius correlates with the Tarot’s Five of Swords.
From The Gilded Tarot
One look says, dear me, this is an angry card, The Five of Swords, chagrin, mortification, loss of face, pyrrhic victories.
“A Pyrrhic victory is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Winning a Pyrrhic victory takes a heavy toll that negates any true sense of achievement or damages long-term progress.”
See the winner, sword aloft. The loser wanders off, beaten, broken. But, if the loss of face is too unsupportable, he will return. Just as Hitler rose in the ignominious aftermath (for Germany) of the Treaty of Versailles.
An adversary may still be dangerous in defeat is the obvious message, borne out in real life, and no psychic interpretation required whatsoever for that.
How many people tragically died as a direct result of the incursion on Capitol Hill.
The Five of Swords. Five people. That card kicked in early.
Purely in terms of symbolic association, any astrologer or Tarot reader might wish that the US had its very own Dr John Dee, the famous astrologer who advised Elizabeth 1 and helped her choose the date for her coronation.
But maybe the US DOES have a Dr John Dee quietly on hand somewhere, just as Nancy Reagan had Joan Quigley. And, not to get carried away here, clearly there have been many, many Presidential inaugurations, held on this same traditional date without undue incident.
But maybe no Dr John Dee is needed at all next week. They have the FBI.
Forewarned is forearmed, says that Five of Swords. This trouble has been brewing in plain sight ever since the Election. The miracle is, that the Capitol could have been caught so apparently unprotected and unprepared on 6 January for an attack that went beyond the murderously self-serving criminal, as in St Louis, June 2020, to the murderously revolutionary.
Psychic practitioners and practitioners of divination in general are keeping fairly quiet about all this on social media right now. And they are right, on the principle that one must say what one sees, framed within a given context, but like Hippocrates, a reader must first do no harm. Stoke no flames. There are plenty of others doing that.
People who dismiss all such practitioners as hoaxes or simply deluded may say, well, let those crackpots spout whatever nonsense they like. They are an irrelevance and have no influence. This is fair enough, but is to underestimate people’s curiosity in the sayings of the Cassandras- however guarded the curiosity.
The tragedy of Cassandra of Troy is a not only a cracking story and a terrible tragedy in its own right, but also a cautionary tale for all prognosticators.
Cassandra, the beautiful daughter of Hecuba and Priam had the gift of prophecy but was considered insane. She saw danger when others did not, but her warnings went unheeded. She was not believed, and was not listened to when she warned Paris against going to Sparta where he met Helen, or when she warned against bringing in the Wooden Horse.
Troy fell and she was captured by Ajax, given to Agamemnon as a concubine and taken away into captivity. Agamemnon was murdered in Mycenae on his return home, by Clytemnestra his wife, and it served him right, for murdering their daughter Iphigenia, but the innocent Cassandra was murdered too, collateral damage of his baggage train.
Based on the myth of Cassandra there is a modern syndrome and metaphor recognized by experts; the Cassandra complex, a term coined in 1949 by the French Philosopher Gaston Bachelard in 1949. It describes the tragedy of someone who raises a valid concern or outright warning, – maybe we would call them whistleblowers now -but is not believed, or maybe they are silenced as being too problematic, and often this refers to the fields of psychology and politics or science.
Social media is something of a snake-pit at the moment, hissing with venom, when we all know that saying, pardon my English…”Opinions are like -” well, never mind what they are like. But everyone’s got one.
My main work is doing readings for people who have requested a reading, investigating their questions, trying to see the best strategy going forward. I have their permission to look at them, and tell them what I see, like it or not – and they do not always like it, but please don’t shoot the messenger, you did ask, and this is the risk in consulting with oracles.
Just as, on a far grander scale, Democracy relies on the principle of loser’s consent. 2016 Hillary Clinton conceded early, though she won the popular vote. Democrat Al Gore contested the election for weeks in 2000 but conceded after he lost a legal challenge in respect of a Florida recount.
He won the popular vote by 500 000 votes. And lost the Electoral College by one state, Florida. by a count of 271-267, and this was considered suspect for a number of reasons. Al Gore didn’t agree, was furious, and he still believed he was in the right, yet conceded, saying love of country must come first.
But, after 62 court rulings, President Trump won’t concede because he believes he is in the right. Let’s draw a few cards around the Inauguration.
The First card out is The High Priestess: Major Arcana Two. A sanctum, a shrine, an enclosed space.
From The Gilded Tarot Royale, Ciro Marchetti
Now this is mighty odd. Notice the letters J and B. These initials actually stand for the words Jachin (beginnings) and Boaz (Negation) and they represent two pillars in The Temple of Solomon.
Beginnings and negations. How very peculiar for the first card out, that these same letters just happen on this uniquely particular question, to be the initials of Joe Biden.
But then again, that kind of synchronicity is just typical of the Tarot.
Perhaps the High Priestess herself represents Kamala Harris, operating ‘front of house; and for some, ‘walking on water’ a refined, remote presence, observant, somewhat dispassionate. The picture seems to show her performing ‘front of house’ going forward as Vice President, supported by those ‘pillars’ of Joe Biden.
Beginnings and Negations. The ‘negations’ is a little worrying.
Let’s pull a few more cards.
The Page of Swords Reversed. Trouble is to be expected. The question is how widespread and to what degree. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. The Page of this suit, though ominous is nonetheless usually describing short lived events, local in scale. It also suggests covert intelligence, FBI, trouble that is acute but localised, sporadic or short-lived. Hopefully therefore, no further fatalities, though with the Page of Swords this can never be ruled out. President Trump is losing more support or is about to, from the Republican party. More will cut loose before the Inauguration of the new President.
The Ten of Cups. Inauguration will be completed and Joe Biden installed in the White House (Ten of Cups = home and I drew this same card for Mr B back in September)
The Five of Swords Reversed. President Trump will probably never concede The Four of Wands. The White House. How to manage his departure with safety for all.
The Star. By night? Will it be by road or by air,quietly a helicopter at the back of the White House, or by car out front, in a full glare of publicity. Will a further Impeachment attempt succeed, or only trigger further unrest.
President Trump’s loss of face some may feel is absolutely a case of justice served, and why should they care. Yes, but handled badly, it risks avoidable provocation of further trouble (because of that Five of Swords we talked about at the start, and because of those five people who are now dead.)
The Star card is very welcome, turning up anywhere in this reading as it just did. BUT there is a caveat with this card, potentially a major one, given the circumstances.
The Star card, the overall card of Aquarius (21 January-19 February) is ruled on the one hand by Saturn-tradition, government, authority AND on the other by Uranus- planet of innovation, but also revolt and rebellion.
The figure in The Star card is naked because there is nothing to hide. In respect of the allegations of electoral fraud, the consensus seems to be that there will definitely have been irregularities, but that these will always occur. There has been no appearance from the Seven of Swords today, and no Devil card, and also no Justice card reversed (denied) any of which might be the Tarot’s way of alerting me to a rigged election.
The US Electoral college system has been a point of contention for a long time now. This via Wikipedia:-
On March 22, 1977, President Jimmy Carter wrote a letter of reform to Congress that also included his expression of essentially abolishing the Electoral College. The letter read in part:
My fourth recommendation is that the Congress adopt a Constitutional amendment to provide for direct popular election of the President. Such an amendment, which would abolish the Electoral College, will ensure that the candidate chosen by the voters actually becomes President. Under the Electoral College, it is always possible that the winner of the popular vote will not be elected. This has already happened in three elections, 1824, 1876, and 1888. In the last election, the result could have been changed by a small shift of votes in Ohio and Hawaii, despite a popular vote difference of 1.7 million. I do not recommend a Constitutional amendment lightly. I think the amendment process must be reserved for an issue of overriding governmental significance. But the method by which we elect our President is such an issue. I will not be proposing a specific direct election amendment. I prefer to allow the Congress to proceed with its work without the interruption of a new proposal
The Star, drawn upright as here, suggests the situation may ease after 21 January, and more so by the time we reach the second decanate of Aquarius, 30 January-8 February. Perhaps The Star also denotes in this context, the vision of US electoral reform, such that voters can more readily trust to its transparency, in an effort to ensure this situation cannot happen again.
The Tarot card corresponding with the second decanate of Aquarius is the solemn card of loss, mourning, recovery and progress, the Six of Swords.
I have grown to feel quite deeply about this card for one reason and another. There is sorrow in here, loss and mourning, but just as The Star says the world is full of wonders, while not denying the evils, the Six of Swords says, set a new course, and don’t look back. Where there is greatness in the world, that is where we can set our sights and how we can measure ourselves, setting our faces towards the future, ready to seek out new learning, new understanding and discovery.
She is heading east, alone but not lonely, sustained by new bright hopes of herself and her fellow man, and by the beauty of the natural world, setting her face to greet the rising sun.
From The Gilded Tarot, Ciro Marchetti
In summary
Let’s look back once again at that High Priestess card. The shrine. The sanctum of the Capitol. An enclosed space. A private space? Perhaps this Inauguration will need to be conducted very differently, in the interests of national security.
True Tarot Tales 