Katie-Ellen

Tarot for 2022 ~ General Impressions + updates

This reading is necessarily very general. Context is key for getting at specifics in reading Tarot, as with any form of investigative divination, and to do this in a reading situation, we ask follow up questions, cross reference and so forth.

This approach basically saying, ‘show me a snapshot of the world in 2022’ is nothing more than licking a finger to feel the wind direction. And some winds are regular like the trade winds, and others shift. But still, let’s see what we get.

The Gilded Tarot by Barbara Moore and illustrated by Ciro Marchetti, is one of my most hard-used decks, as you may notice. This was my workhorse; my go to deck in face to face readings 2005-2013.

At present I use the Legacy of the Divine Tarot, The Gilded Tarot Royale, The Thoth, the Marseille or playing cards.

*Author’s own photograph. Cards from The Gilded Tarot, artwork by Ciro Marchett*

Tarot for 2022

The spread denotes the wheel of the year 2022, starting at the top with January, Capricorn and the Nine of Pentacles; the card with the lady holding the falcon.

I look first at the overall picture, mood or feel. How many major arcana cards? How many cards have been drawn reversed?

Five cards out of 12 have been reversed. This is not necessarily any kind of ominous sign, but does suggest a bouncy stop-start kind of a ride through 2022 on a global level, if not on a personal level.

The 22 Major Arcana cards deal with the BIG STUFF. They mirror the Collective, or overarching themes or pivotal moments or sea changes. The 56 Minor Arcana cards in a Tarot deck are no less important, but are more like the fabric of everyday living.

The Major Arcana cards are Strength, Temperance and The Hanged Man drawn reversed.

Update: I did not predict war in Ukraine. However it is curious to note that in readings posted and shared since February President Zelenskyy of Ukraine has been turning up represented by the Hanged Man card drawn reversed.

Strength means just what it says on the tin. Temperance is timing and healing and the Hanged Man reversed means coming out of a state of limbo but also a huge story to do with what might be called grievance politics.

10 March Update: ‘A huge story to do with grievance politics’. Well I suppose that was one way of describing it.

On the plus side, these cards suggest a gradual sea change during 2022 in respect of the covid pandemic. Not that it has gone. It most definitely has not. But either future variants are milder, or we are handling it better or both.

My eye is drawn again and again to that Hanged Man card sitting in the time slot designated for Pisces. The Hanged Man is ruled astrologically by the planet Neptune. Put Neptune and Pisces together, that is a big ‘water’ signature, and giant Jupiter has recently moved into watery Pisces where it will spend much of 2022. What do I mean by ‘water signature’? We think in practical terms, meaning that this could be detecting weather events during 2022, rainfall or storms at sea or tsunamis, and maritime events, maritime geopolitics, territory, shipping, fishing.

10 March Update: Tsunamis, mudslides,storms, oh yes. We’ve had those all right. Tonga, Peru, Queensland…

Update: Tonga underwater volcanic eruption and tsunami Saturday 16/into Sunday 16 January

This could also refer to things that cross boundaries like migration, people trafficking, or like birds, or like infection, whether bird flu or covid.

10 March Update: Things that cross boundaries …like outright invasion.

The mood is deep, intense, visionary, inspired – or delusional.

10 March Update: Delusional? No comment!

Each card corresponds with a month of the year and a sign of the Zodiac, but more significant is its correspondence with a House of the Zodiac, each denoting a particular concept, life area or department, Home, Work, Money, and Travel etc.

We start at the top of the wheel of the year with the Nine of Pentacles, representing the month of Capricorn/January 2022, but this is also representing the Tenth Zodiac, House of career, status and public life.

We carry on reading the cards anticlockwise, counting through the zodiac signs and their corresponding Houses for clues about the year ahead on the global stage, and the personal opportunities and challenges we might be witnessing or dealing with.

None of the findings really needs a psychic. There is little here that most of us do not already sense or see for the year ahead in broad terms. This is a snapshot of how the Tarot works.

The Tarot detects, it reflects and then it projects, meaning it may be nudged or directed to formulate a forecast in respect of a particular stated issue. For every card that is drawn entirely at random, other cards remain in the deck, and their absence can be as telling as their presence.

This spread, if this was a personal reading, would be what happens at the first look, the first pass, before we start drilling down in search of specifics, in teasing out a particular question.

Card 1 Capricorn: 10^th House:

Professional status/career, public life

Tarot card ~ 9 Pentacles

The Nine of Pentacles is to do with money earned by skill and hard work (rather than say, via gift or inheritance) It is to do with beauty, luxury and enjoyment. The lady is enjoying her garden, holding her falcon on her wrist. The falcon denotes that she has mastered her impulses, attained maturity with self-discipline. She has learned how to wait, and she has been prepared to forego the pleasures and distractions- and spending of the here and now, in exchange for greater long term rewards.

Governments must play geo-politics. They must play the long game and the shorter game while we, the people on the ground look on, sometimes screaming in frustration. Update 10 March (And rage, fear, horror, grief)

World Finance, the so-called Green Revolution, crypto-currencies and strategies for long term investment will continue to dominate the news this year.

Things will grow in this year’s garden, so the year starts tough, but there is economic progress and growth as the year goes on.

But gardens have gates. Sometimes those gates are open, other times we keep them closed. Border issues are big news all year. The hard border in NI, Poland, and the migrant crisis in Chile, and more. What are the solutions? How are so many extra people to be affordably supported by the unwilling hosts, despite the best of humanitarian goodwill?

There is no one size that fits all solution. But there is an abiding rock bottom line, and that is in human nature, which says, we are generous up to a point, and that point is, when we judge we can afford it. Beyond that point, should it be crossed, there will inevitably be a push back and it won’t be pretty.

Will it come in 2022? Not quite. It doesn’t quite get to that point this year I don’t think, based on the cards that are absent in this spread. We have no Tower card in combination with say, The Emperor, for instance.

On a personal level this is a year for ‘getting real’ and re-examining our basic needs and how we meet them, chiefly, our relationship with work, money and our control over information shared in respect of these.

The lady in this card has achieved a level of comfort and security, but none of it was given to her. She has got where she has needed to be largely by her own efforts on her local patch of turf. She is determined, focused, independent, proud, and generous to others. She knows what it is like to struggle. She remembers times of loneliness too. And ‘she’ may be a nation, as well as a person.

I have come to associate this card with the UK since 2016. Readers in other countries may have cards they feel especially represents their own homeland, and maybe it will even be this same card. UK will broadly do OK, or better than OK in 2022 in terms of trade, is suggested by the 9 Pentacles, notwithstanding the most recent EU threats in respect of the NI Protocol, should the UK government invoke its right to trigger Article 16.

Card 2 Aquarius: 11^th House

Humanity, ideas, dogmas, technology

Tarot card ~ 8 Wands Reversed

This volatile, fast moving card echoes some of the comments attached to the previous card, and suggests continuing social unrest in many parts of the world 2022, and clearly not just in Aquarius time, during February.

There are delays. obstacles,breakdowns in cooperation where cooperation could be reasonably expected in the mutual interests of the parties concerned. One thinks for example of the current state of relations between France and the UK for example.

There may be issues in the news this year to do with lamb husbandry/imports/exports.

This card is about sudden arrivals, departures and developments, and suggests protests and demonstrations to do with restrictions on movement. The Eight of Wands is all about fast travel, including phone calls.

Aquarius/February was indeed fast paced. Vis a vis the specific reference to France, we think of M Macron’s efforts to engage with Mr Putin during February.

This card also suggests issues to do with power lines. It also asks what do we do when we lose electricity or gas or when our IT goes down without any warning at all?

How can we protect our home environments with low-tech emergency provision, back-ups for circumstances in which power or IT can go down (for example, alternative lighting or heating or analogue telephones during power cuts, when mobile phone masts can go down too) At the time of writing, homes in the UK are still without power nine days later in the aftermath of Storm Arwen, and with another Storm (Barra) shortly due to arrive.

It also suggests we review our own personal use of IT, and the amount of extra personal information we gratuitously share on social media. Who are we actually talking to? There is nothing new about this. But there are new developments afoot.

This might mean government moves to control the power of the IT tech giants this year. They now command more financial clout than governments, but were never elected, and they know far too much about us. But if we were to clip the wings of companies like Amazon,with their new credit card now coming into use, would we merely give more power to their even huger counterparts and global rivals, such as AliBaba?

Aquarius was known to the Babylonians as the curse of rain. This card therefore suggest sudden, severe rainstorms as a likely notable feature in 2022.

Pisces: 12^th House:

Sacrifices, borders, boundaries

Tarot card ~ Hanged Man Reversed

This deep, watery card, drawn for March, is a double dose of mysterious wateriness, doubling up Pisces the Fishes with the outer planet again, Neptune, planet of charisma, dreams, visions, inspiration, illusions, delusion, confusion, alternative realities and lack of boundaries.

Turning up in recent Tarot representations of Ukraine President Mr Zelenskyy: a saviour or a victim? Or both.

This card is about looking at things in a new way, trying a new approach to an old problem, honouring our responsibilities, looking at a thing straight on, not hiding our heads in the sand.

We are reviewing our priorities, thinking carefully about what we really need, as opposed to what we fancy right now. It is about what we owe to ourselves, but also to others. It is about restoring and keeping order in our personal lives, and establishing- and protecting our personal boundaries.

There are habits, ideas, places or people- we need to let go of, to surrender this year. The Hanged Man needs to surrender something that used to matter a lot to him, in order to make progress. Will he or won’t he? Will ‘he’get stuck in a state of passivity and make victim-hood his excuse and default for not getting things done?

Again, there could be flooding, or major maritime events in the news, any time this year, but likely late February-late March 2022.

Update: Tonga underwater volcanic eruption and tsunami Saturday 16/into Sunday 16 January

Aries: 1^st House:

Self/initiative/action/organizations/military

Tarot card ~Temperance

Temperance is a positive card for 2022. It is a truly mighty if unglamorous virtue, and needs to come back in fashion. It is also the art of right timing. On a personal level, self-discipline, self-control, patience and timing are key factors in making the best of the challenges in 2022, and maximizing opportunities. This year, it is all about the longer game.

10 March Someone is just biding their time, working out what others will do, and what they CAN do should that someone make their next move. Russia? China? There will be others.

The appearance of this card is, at least in Tarot language, an encouraging sign for progress of recovery from the covid pandemic, not everywhere, and it’s not done yet, but it does look as though it is moving in the right direction.

This virus has an intelligence of its own. It is gradually learning how best not to kill us, thereby depriving itself of habitation.

Taurus: 2^nd House:

Material & money matters, arts, agriculture

Tarot card ~King Swords

Rising inflation is widely predicted elsewhere for 2022. The King of Swords can be a regulator or ombudsman. World finances may come under strain April 2022, around the time of the 30 April eclipse in Taurus, though the UK and other countries might buck this trend to an extent. The financial effects are expected to last at least six months or so following such an eclipse, and certainly, things look better for the UK by autumn 2022.

The King of Swords inspects, oversees, directs or cuts things.

My Tarot has subsequently represented Mr Putin as the King or Queen of Swords

On a personal level the King of Swords knows exactly where his money is, online and offline, and keeps a close eye on his financial security. Beware scammers. This card indicates new facial recognition technology, iris or fingerprint coming into wider use in 2022, or even into wider domestic use.

This advice is simply common sense and it applies every year, but the appearance of the intelligence gathering, law and order vigilante, the warrior-judge, the King of Swords, makes that advice doubly important in 2022.

I associate Boris Johnson with the King of Swords. Mr Johnson is an air sign subject, a Gemini , and well expresses the archetype; quicksilver clever and agile, eternally curious and mercurial, friendly, sociable, and yet essentially solitary and remote, and by the same token, liable to be seen by some as elusive on unreliable.

He is constantly at bay, pincered between the alliance of the Civil Service Establishment, the Labour party and an unremittingly hostile mainstream media, as well as fractious divided factions within his own party, and is possibly making some important decision in respect of his party leadership this year, possibly as early as April/May 2022 though not necessarily.

Update: Amid media furore and calls for the resignation of Boris Johnson based on alleged parties held on the premises in 10 Downing Street during times of national lock down, cards are not at this point indicating imminent resignation, as of a reading done Wednesday 13 January.

The Two of Hearts in my playing cards correlates with the first decan of Cancer, hinting at late June as a possible turning point for him as PM. If he stands down as PM in 2022, which I currently detect as a likelihood of 2/5 meaning that it is a chance of 3/5 likelihood that he will still be in position at the end of 2022. If he does stand down then it will likely be largely his own decision, and not least due to sheer fatigue. The pandemic has been a poisoned chalice before he barely had a chance to get into the stride of the job of PM.

10 March: So far still in post after ‘partygate/cakegate’, and just as well, I feel, given the present global emergency.

The King of Thailand…another ‘king of the east wind’ seems to consolidate his increasingly authoritarian position in 2022. A woman aged 65, a former civil servant was sentenced to 43 years in prison in January 2021 for posting online criticism treated as a crime of – lèse–majesté. Small businesses in Thailand have been badly hit by the covid downturn in tourism, and to safeguard his position there will need some help for this section of the economy, and possibly for agriculture too, is indicated by Taurus. But while there may be more protests against his authoritarian stance he only seems to consolidate power in 2022.

Gemini: 3^rd House:

Communications, IT, trade, air travel, siblings

Tarot card ~3 Wands

The Three of Wands drawn in the third House is an upbeat, positive card for trade, communications, scientific and medical innovation in 2022, for the export of vaccines to developing countries. and for launching new businesses and enterprises. It also speaks of overseas ambitions. The figure has plans to launch the ship. The world is his oyster, he thinks. Where is it going and what is it carrying and what does it hope to load into the hold?

This card in the house of siblings suggests reconciliations or meet-ups in 2022, the first perhaps, in a long time. Might this include William and Harry?

Cancer: 4^th House

Home, family, mother, security

Tarot card ~4 Cups

I think of this card as “bored boy, busy boy”. It has a kind of shuttlecock dynamic with extended periods of hiatus in-between. We may be feeling restless from time to time this year, mildly unsettled, and possibly a bit low on energy or bored, but at the same time, unsure what, if anything, to do about it. This is only natural. The last couple of years have been difficult. The trick here is not to do anything destructive on an impulse, not to upset an apple-cart in a moment of frustration, just for the sake of it.

On a personal level, I am OK with the appearance of this card as it also represents my own father, a Cancer subject, though the the 4 of Cups suggest ongoing issues with oedema, needing regular physiotherapy.

Leo: 5^th House

Heartland, creativity, passion, romance, royalty, children

Tarot card ~ 3 Swords Reversed

Ugh. This is always a challenging card, but is one of those cards that is slightly better news for being drawn reversed or upside down. The Three of Swords upright is severance, separation, divorce, bereavement, shocks, cardiac issues, all kinds of loss. Drawn reversed it is about coming to terms with grief, loss, bereavement, arguments,

There has been great collective sorrow attached to the pandemic and other ongoing humanitarian crises in geopolitics. The time frame of this card is 3 years. The sorrow has been great, and likewise the losses, but now, at least in some quarters comes a measure of acceptance or easement. Drawn in the Fifth House, it suggests that tensions between certain countries may ease. On a personal level, we are coming to terms with a family loss or a rift. Serious quarrels may settle down with forbearance.

Loss, sadness or disappointment. No-one escapes these experiences. How we deal with them determines whether we learn something new, and grow bigger and stronger, or whether take things personally, and see ourselves as victims and dwell on our grievances, thereby adding to the damage.

The Hanged Man reversed is very big on victim-hood as a badge of honour in 2022, when a distinction to be made is between justice and revenge, as with the case of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. This business is a can of worms, not finished yet.

Leo is the zodiac House of royalty. This is likely significant in this same context. This is undoubtedly a very great worry to the Queen, though I have not looked as yet to see what seems to be the outcome here for Prince Andrew.

Update: The Three of Swords Reversed was here foreshadowing the recent announcement that Prince Andrew has renounced his HRH title and Military and other affiliations. The fact that this card was drawn reversed means that there was a great shock, but that this announcement was nothing sudden,suggesting that Prince Andrew and HM the Queen had already discussed and decided upon this plan of action and were prepared should the judgement go against Andrew, in respect of permission being granted for a further civil suit against him brought by Virginia Roberts (Giuffre) The Three of Swords reversed reflects the great sorrow of the Queen, who is mourning, and seems to be trying to take comfort in the fact that Prince Philip is not here to know about this development.

There could be national mourning in 2022 for a much loved national figurehead.

Virgo: 6^th House

Health, hygiene, harvests, crafts, routines

Tarot card ~ Page Cups

This is a small but welcome card of healing, happiness, invitations and offers –and births of all kinds- is a cheerful sign for late August-September in particular, but in fact, any time of the year in 2022. In terms of Virgo, its zodiac sixth house ruler to do with Health, Hygiene, Hospitality, socializing and daily routine, the appearance of this card suggests encouraging progress in respect of the on-going global pandemic management.

Libra: 7^th House:

Justice, diplomacy, partnerships

Tarot card ~6 Swords Reversed

Globally and politically, old alliances are changed, as with NATO, or dissolved, as with Barbados and UK in December 2021. Migration laws undergo major reviews in Europe, UK and US in response to unprecedented pressures of mass migration.

There seems likely an escalation of tensions to do with military or commercial shipping in disputed waters, as previously mentioned, in the Black Sea, the South China Sea, Indian Ocean, or the Straits of Hormuz.

The disputed legalities, ethics and practicalities of mandatory vaccinations will continue a red hot potato in the news from 1 February 2022 when vaccination becomes mandatory in Austria, the first compulsory vaccination requirement in Europe.

Scorpio: 8^th House:

Creation/destruction/occult/money

Tarot card ~Queen of Pentacles

The Queen of Pentacles is associated with the earth signs; Capricorn, Taurus and to a lesser extent, Virgo. There is a theme in 2022 of a cycle of Taurus-Scorpio eclipses, making this a year with a focus very much on the basics and fundamentals of everyday living, personal finance and other material matters.

Curiously, we have a total lunar eclipse in Taurus right in the middle of Scorpio season on Nov 8 2022. The Tarot has seemingly detected this, and is reflecting and projecting the by now, clearly noticeable effects of financial shakeups dating back to January 2020.

There is big news this year to do with money and mining. This could be literal mining, as in mining for minerals, or it could be big news to do with crypto-currencies and crypto-mining. It could mean a boom or bust- something really big.

We have recently one way and another, been warned or reminded of the necessity of every nation and every household retaining some degree of energy self-sufficiency should either the weather play havoc or political diplomacy break down, threatening vital infrastructure.

Social unrest can be expected for a number of reasons, depending on where these happen. No way are we going back to pre Covid or pre Brexit in respect of the general tone of public discourse in 2022.

Jupiter moves into Pisces dips into Aries, but the ruler of Capricorn, Saturn still holds strong in Aquarius; a cosmic old man with great fixity of opinion, and black and white thinking as to what is right and wrong, and he is right and everyone else is wrong. This is the face of a certain kind of group-think we did not see much before 2016. Up is down. Everything comes down to feeling, says this new group-think. We speak ‘our’ truths, they say, as if there is no other kind of truth.

The Queen of Pentacles symbolically defends the bottom line, representing the element of Earth nature of biological reality v idealogy. There has always been ‘otherness.’ That too, is in Nature.

Sagittarius: 9^th House

Far travel, friendship, foreign shores/powers

Tarot card ~6 Wands Reversed

The Six of Wands when drawn upright is an extrovert card, representing heat, speed, victory, competition, sports, riding high – a triumphal procession. I once drew this card for a young man who was physically, very severely disabled. I asked him about sporting activities. He told me he had been selected to represent the GB wheelchair rugby team in the London 2012 Paralympics.

Conversely, this card when drawn reversed represents bad luck in competitive sports, losing, failure, lack of achievement, recognition, endurance, confidence or support. The Six of Wands reversed signifies disadvantage, disgrace, disloyalty, treachery and broken promises.

This may be detecting recent/on-going controversy attached to the safety and well- being of the Chinese tennis player, Peng Shuai, and/or associated political tensions surrounding the Beijing Winter Olympics, 4-20 February 2022.

The advice here for foreign travel is that disruptions due to covid, but possibly other reasons, may still be anticipated during 2022, particularly early and late in the year. Travellers had better take precautions and book on a free cancellation basis, or take out insurance against last minute cancellations.

My oldest friend rang last night and told me that she had 2 vaccinations, and the booster and still somehow caught covid. She said she felt absolutely lousy for 10 days but said, to me last night, what might it have been like had she not had any vaccinations? The question is hypothetical of course. She still caught it, didn’t she, and how? She doesn’t know. It is nasty while seemingly getting milder. We knew a young man in his early thirties who died of ‘flu’ Jan 2020 after developing sepsis.

I have come to associate this card with vehicle maintenance issues, traffic issues, and have known it to refer to motorcycles or cycling mishaps.

Central Cards:

Tarot cards~ Strength and the Seven of Cups

These cards are reflecting core themes for the year ahead and how best to navigate it.

The Strength card means exactly what it says. This is a year of international power struggles, competition, and for making our health, comfort and security a top priority, and not wasting valuable resources on people, places or habits that cost more than they are worth. The card has been drawn right way up. Good news.

The pandemic seems to enter a new phase, or two new phases. Astrology suggests a possibility of two new variants, probably milder, and if so let us see whether these arise during Jupiter in Pisces (meaning an increase in a spread) which would mean between now and May 2022, or after October 2022, or both.

The dreamy, visionary Seven of Cups show us that we have many possible paths in life, and that life presents us with many choices. One is not necessarily better than another, just different. Good news, timing wise, attaches to the time of Fixed Water, in second decan Scorpio, 2 November- 11 November. This card again, is ruled by the god of the seas, Neptune.

A Test of Strength at Sea possibly in November 2022.

Taiwan has lost another of its allies, Nicaragua only the latest, transferring its allegiances to China but who is the number 1 producer of semi conductors needed for computer chips? Taiwan. My cards do not show any clear signs of any attempt at outright invasion of Taiwan by China in 2022, not of a military nature. China seems to judge this is not necessary. Trade is what counts.

This next Chinese New Year February 2022 is a Black Water Tiger Year. This is a highly assertive zodiac placement, and focused on wealth.

It seems only prudent that Europe invests big time in its own home grown computer chip industry, pronto.

On a personal level, should someone intrude on our personal space this year, we do not have to put up with it. We should trust our instincts, no apologies or self-justification needed, and act to safeguard our personal and online space, security and privacy.

Mute, block, avoid.

General Astrology 2022

Jupiter, planet of growth, opportunity and optimism is happy at home in mystical Pisces the Fishes for most of the year. Jupiter rules Pisces so it is at home in this sign, and the effect is only ramped up April 12 by Jupiter’s (rare conjunction) with dreamy, mysterious deep water Neptune.

This is a lot of water influence going on, in astrological terms. This can be understood literally, as in rain, or metaphorically, as in mood, emotionally intense, maybe in a good way, imaginative and creative- even inspired. But it could by the same token, be detecting potent suspicion, delusion or paranoia, such as we have seen in 2020 and 2021, with social disorder in consequence, protests, demonstrations, or episodes of collective psychosis, as with the storming of the Capitol in the US, January 2021.

Jupiter, the Planet of Luck, is entering into its favourite sign of all time, Pisces, on 28th December. “This is one of the defining and most anticipated astrological events of 2022,” says Madi Murphy, co-founder of The Cosmic RX and The Cosmic Revolution.

Jupiter will be in Pisces until 10th May, moves into Aries when we could see sabre rattling -if not more -on the world stage, and then comes back again into Pisces from October 28th, 2022 until December 20th, 2022.

Jupiter is the planet of joy, growth, opportunity, optimism, expansion. This year it escapes its celestial confrontation with Saturn, planet of restriction where it has spent much of the last two years. This, despite the new omicron variant, suggests overall progress in dealing with the covid-19 pandemic, and lightens the mood.

2022 will be intense but more buoyant than 2021. This is a good year to push hard on a long cherished aim. Jupiter in Pisces is considered lucky. Of course, to get lucky, if you want to make a dream come true, you actually have to do something. You will have to do rather a lot, and keep doing it, too. But if there is such a thing as divine luck to put the wind behind your sails, then Jupiter in Pisces is it.

Every planetary influence has its potential downside. Jupiter can be a giant bully. We could see a sharp escalation of maritime territorial disputes (Watery Pisces and Neptune are both about ‘blurring the boundaries’)

This, for all the famous Piscean compassion and dreaminess seems to me to point to plenty more trouble this year, whether it turns out to be in the South China Seas, the Indian Ocean, the Straits of Hormuz, the Black Sea, or close to home in The English Channel/La Manche.

There are serious tensions ahead in 2022 attached to China’s ambitions in Taiwan, possibly midyear, and Russia’s relationship with Ukraine, specifically, borders, power supplies and Nordstream 2 undersea gas pipelines.

2022 looks fast moving, intense. There are bound to be plenty of surprises, more than usual; political, social and economic, as well as extreme weather events; in particular rainfall, flooding, volcanic or seismic events. Poseidon or Neptune, the god of the seas, was not for nothing known in classical mythology as the “Earth Shaker,” the connection being that earthquakes or volcanic events will sometimes create tsunamis.

US and the Pluto Return

Pluto takes 248 years to orbit the solar system, meaning that a nation’s Pluto return only happens every two and a half centuries. Pluto is the planet of Death and Transformation. Heavy stuff.

Astrology tells us February 2022 marks the first ever Pluto return of the United States and it will be happening in Capricorn, the zodiac House of material status, prestige and power, with three exact degree-based returns: February 20th, July 11th, and December 28th.

For the first time ever, Pluto will return to the exact position in the zodiac that it was during the United States’ inception on Jul. 4, 1776.

What affects the USA spreads ripples very wide. This does not mean the US will cease to be a superpower – though it could. The Roman Empire fell at its second Pluto return. England rose higher at its second Pluto return, with Elizabeth 1 and a new Golden Age, and declined in world power after its third Pluto return.

Superpowers rise and fall like a law of Nature. In China, it has been observed that the great dynasties typically each ruled for about 250 years. But the Pluto return for the USA does suggest some kind of karma, a revisiting of roots, profound shifts and adjustments this coming year, both inwardly looking and in world relations.

Joe Biden is a Scorpio subject; a fixed deep water sign. Tarot has shown me the steady Queen of Pentacles in Scorpio, suggesting Mr Biden may well dig in firmer and stronger in 2022 than 2021. I do not see based on the Capricorn Queen of Pentacles he will be pursuing a policy of defunding the police. It will not prove a realistic option. But whether or not Mr Biden rides out this Pluto return as President, the US does seem to experience a major shakeup between now and 2024. Deeply Plutonic, the ongoing issues to do with gas pipelines in those territories never ceded by indigenous peoples. The world will be watching Deb Haaland, the new and first Native American US Secretary of the Interior

Mercury Retrogrades 2022

Not all astrologers agree on their significance but in 2022 there are four Mercury retrogrades, rather than the three which occurred in 2021. All of these will be happening in ‘intellectual’ air signs. These could mirror real life events, legal matters and continuing challenges to do with the covid situation (the connection here is airborne infection) and air travel. Be ready and prepared for surprises or possible disruptions to plans.

Dates of Mercury Retrogrades 2022

January 14 to February 3

May 10 to June 3

September 9 to October 2

December 29 to January 23 2023

Do I like the look of 2022? Mmm. Well, we won’t be hit by an extinction level asteroid, even though a few people might be somewhat tempted to wish we were. This coming new year is almost enough to make me feel seasick looking at it. Brooding one minute, boisterous the next. Deep, deep, deep.

“Canst thou draw forth leviathan with a hook?” (Book of Job)

“Full fathom five thy father lies”….(The Tempest)

Photo by Sebastian Voortman on Pexels.com

It does look, however, more expansive and buoyant in spirit, compared with 2021, and especially compared with the almost existential horror of 2020. Wishing you a peaceful, prosperous and Happy New Year in 2022!

You can also find here my General Rune Reading for January and beyond, 2022

A General Rune cast for January 2022

A New Year’s Reading 2022

What are the runes?

The runes have been described as “an ancient alphabet for modern magicians” – Edred Thorsson in his book ‘Futhark, A Handbook of Rune Magic.’

Runes were the first systems of writing developed and used by the Norse and other Germanic peoples. These runic alphabets are known as “futharks” after the first six runes (Fehu, Uruz, Thurisaz, Ansuz, Raidho, and Kenaz) – just as the word “alphabet” comes from the names of the first two Semitic letters (Aleph, Beth).

There are three principal futharks: the Elder, Younger and Saxon futharks. The 24-character Elder Futhark was the first fully-formed runic alphabet, dating back so far as we know to the first century CE/AD but was probably in development from at least 200 BC.

The word ‘rune’ comes from the old Germanic, ‘runa’ or ‘runo’ meaning a secret thing, a mystery. This was Animism in practise; a belief in the conscious intelligence of the Earth itself; its forces and all things in nature. Animals, tress, the elements, the weather…they were – are-living forces and mysteries demanding recognition and respect.

So the runes are more than just letters. They can be read that way but they are also a pictographic or ideographic symbol of some natural principle or power as experienced by these Germanic-speaking peoples of the climate and landscapes of northern Europe, including Britain and the island of Ireland.

Rune casters were both welcomed and feared. Runemal (rune craft) took on a ritual function, and went beyond individual personal readings, directed for the protection and prosperity of the entire community. Runes might be used in casting of lots to decide who did what.

They were used in runes spells to influence the weather, the tides, the crops, fertility and healing. Runes were used to send curses or remove them. Runes were carved on amulets, carved into doorways and into the wood of ships. Protective runes can be seen in architecture, in the shapes of the decorative timbering of black and white timbered houses throughout Britain and Europe as seen near where I live at Samlesbury Hall in Lancashire.

*Runes embedded in half-timbered buildings, Samlesbury Hall, Lancashire UK Via Wiki Commons*

A popular rune design you can see here is the multiple use of Elhaz or Elk, a rune of general protection. Picture the antlers of the Elk, or you can picture it as a figure invoking divine protection, arms raised to heaven.

Casting the runes

Rune casters would shake their pouch of runes and scatter them on the ground. Sometimes they would lay a cloth or draw a circle and read only those runes that fell within the circle or on the cloth. Sometimes they would read only the runes that landed upright, and not count those that came out reversed, or ‘merkstave’. Today I am including any merkstave runes.

Given a lack of written history on the subject of rune casting, much information has been lost to posterity to know for sure how things were properly done. A Christian edict was issued in Iceland in 1639 that declared the uses of runic talismans as witchcraft and a man was executed in 1691, burned to death for using them as his forefather had presumably been doing for many generations. This, although runes were still in everyday use at that time in calendars and almanacs carved into wooden staves throughout Scandinavia and Estonia.

Before this and again today the runes were- and are still used today for psychic insights or guidance, or for magical purposes- to request or summon sacred protection or good luck. To pray in other words.

The runes have been found wherever Germanic-speaking peoples settled, travelled, traded or raided, from Iceland to Scandinavia, through England and Central Europe, all the way to Constantinople.

Runes were also chanted or spoken in invocation. We do not know how this sounded, whether it was done falsetto, or done deep as throat singing. Some get quite exercised in these discussions, but however it was done in those times, this chanting is called ‘Galdr’.

Runecast for January 2022

Today we are using the Elder Futhark. You’ll notice the runes are all straight lines, no curves; as scratched or inscribed into wood, metal or stone.

The runes are chosen entirely blindly and at random.

We have drawn three upright runes (Sowilo, Perthro and Kenaz) and two reversed or merkstave runes (Ehwaz and Laguz.) This rune cast therefore translates as more positive than negative for January 2022 and for the rest of year itself. But clearly this is rather a close call. We are part of bigger world events. 2022 promises to be pretty intense, and occasionally downright turbulent, though somewhat more buoyant, optimistic and outgoing than 2021, and brighter by far than 2020.

Position 1: Sowilo/Sigel

Word/Symbol: The Sun.

Meanings: Victory, Success, Health/Happiness.

This rune is standing for the Here and Now- the Question. You can see this rune looks like a modern capital S, or a back to front Z.

This is a positive rune of victory, success, happiness and good health. Well, that’s a welcome rune, cheers! This rune of the sun can literally mean ‘a year’…one journey of the Earth around the sun. This seems a suitable rune therefore, to start a New Year reading.

The question broadly translates as, “when will life be ‘happy’ again/get back to normal?” If we mean, normal as, back in 2019, well, no, we can all see that is not happening this year. There are storms. But there are silver linings.

The days are already noticeably longer again in January. The sun is returning to the northern hemisphere where the runes first originated, just as it is slowly leaving the southern hemisphere.

Beyond this purely pragmatic interpretation, Sowilo is one of the most fortunate of all runes, bringing good news, as if the Norse gods are saying, the sun will shine upon your efforts this New Year. Look on the bright side as much as you can. Seize the day.

We are in troubled times. 2021 was angry, 2020 was grim. Pluto had something to do with that in astrological terms, and its conjunction with Saturn. January 2020. We have all felt it. This year will also be difficult, stormy even on the world stage. It’s not personal even when it feels personal. The sun will shine in between the storms. 2022 is intense, perhaps rocky, but also more upbeat and mobile, less coldly relentless than 2021, somehow, less stuck in a rut, suggesting a new phase in the covid pandemic.

On an individual level, Sowilo drawn with Laguz next to it in the reversed position suggests one has become over-tired. This is hardly surprising after such a long haul for many people. They have become drained, fatigued and depressed, not to mention twitchy, nervous and in some cases, worked up, oversensitive or even paranoid, and also quite likely by this point, physically lacking not only vitamin D but low on vitamin B.

Sowilo means sunshine, and through this connection, may be suggesting that you look into your levels of the ‘sunshine vitamin,’ Vitamin D, so important both for mood and optimal immune function. Vitamin D Supplements are ideally combined with vitamin K2 for optimum calcium absorption. This is standard medical knowledge.

Sowilo is a bit like Jupiter in astrology. It is big, bright, bold, and upbeat. It can burn too of course. It can be wildfires though to the Norse it was always positive. This year really could bring you a lucky break, if you can find the energy, seriously applying yourself to whatever goal you set yourself for 2022.

One might say the faces of the gods are not so set against us this year, though there is still big infighting, and we could come a cropper in the collateral damage.

Position 2: Perthro

Word/Symbol: cup for throwing dice/paddock.

Meanings: Mystery/Secrets/Initiation/Sanctuary

This rune is standing for where we have recently been and what’s been going on, both on the face of things but also deep down.

Perthro is a mystery rune dealing with things far beyond our personal control, like the covid pandemic. Perthro represents sanctuary. We have been seeking sanctuary. What and where for us, represents our own personal sanctuary? Is it at home? Is it with other people? Is it doing something we love that takes our mind away from worry?

This rune deals with karma, destiny; things that are hidden. There are many theories, much speculation, but the causes of the pandemic remain unproven. That it started in the Far East seems certain. The exact circumstances are less certain. When I asked about this, wondering about Wuhan wet markets or labs and all that, my Tarot showed me The Hierophant, the Tarot’s card of Taurus.

This card bears no suggestion of a coordinated plan. It represents the earth itself and suggests natural causes rather than lab engineering gone wrong. This disease has originated in Nature. Humanity should not have come into contact with it at all, but has done so through over-expansion with an accompanying disturbance of previously undisturbed habitats in the Far East. This new virus variant escaped those habitats, possibly via fruit bats or flying foxes, and then infected animal intermediaries, locally farmed pigs very likely, and then humans, thereby entering the food chain through local conditions of animal husbandry and from those sites in the Far East inexorably spread via mass global travel.

Some think this rune is supposed to show a dice cup- meaning a cup once used for drawing lots in gambling games or throwing dice. As such, you may take a bit of a gamble this year, and it pays off. This gamble however, depends on your doing some research beforehand.

Secrets come to light or we learn useful new information starting this month. How do we respond and apply this information for personal progress?

We may notice our psychic abilities in some acutely significant way this year.

Beware leaks and spillages. Is this government leaks in the news, domestic gas leaks? A vehicle leak. Another oil tanker? This January, this year, beware leaks.

Position 3: Kenaz

Word/Symbol: Torch/Beacon/Opening/Ulcer

Meaning: Illumination, learning, opening

This rune is talking about how we handle things for the best in 2022. This is a friendly fire rune, like a domestic hearth fire, cheerful, small and manageable. Uruz the Auroch/physical power rune and Fehu the cattle/wealth rune are also fire runes but more primordial, fiercer.

It is saying, ‘keep the home fires burning.’ It is reminding us of a certain war time spirit that says we are all in this together; an attitude which has fallen out of fashion since the war, but it is salutary to be reminded from time to time, that the world does not revolve around us and our own personal concerns.

Kenaz talks about energy, drive, recuperation from illness, and enlightenment- learning of all kinds, whether this mean formal or informal study.

Kenaz is a positive rune, with a lot of vitality attached. It suggests good news in respect of the turning of the tide in the covid pandemic, even though we are not free of it in 2022. Still, this virus is evolving and over time, is becoming less dangerous, as human immunity is gradually learning how to deal with it as a brand new enemy of mankind, which it was until 2019.

Kenaz is masculine in its energy, and in a relationship will always denote the male partner. What is he offering? What is he looking for? Where is this going? Laguz, the rune next door in this spread is a powerful feminine rune, and says, well, we can have fun, and maybe this is the year to move ahead with a new partner, but keep your head screwed on tight this year.

Kenaz, like Perthro can also be psychic. We get the modern English words ‘canny/uncanny’ from this rune. ‘Beyond our ken’; is a phrase derived from this rune.

We have been more limited in our options than we are used to. Life imposes changing limits from time to time. That is the nature of reality. Still, we make our own choices, in choosing how to respond to challenges. This is our own instinct at work as we operate within our own environment where we can choose how to respond. There will be sudden insights, flashes of some new understanding of our situation – perhaps even a psychic dream or waking insights. You can see by looking at it that Kenaz shows something that is opening up, opening outwards. 2022 brings some kind of new awakening, both on a collective level and on a direct personal level. What new things shall we set out to study or explore this year? Kenaz is a morning rune. Start as you mean to go on this year. The early bird catches the worm and all that.

Kenaz is a positive rune for relationships, two people opening up more with one another, greater mutual understanding. It is a lucky rune for fathers and fertility.

Less glamorously, Kenaz can also mean an ulcer, either literally, as in; we may need some kind of skin care. Are we deficient in Vitamin D or zinc, for example? Or it may be speaking figuratively on an emotional level, as in, what apparently small wound never seems to heal?

If you recognize this wound or hurt, then do not nurse it. Do not let this thing fester any longer. Have the conversation. Bring the issue out into the light of day and sort it out once and for all. Or else draw a line under it. Let it go, let it be, make peace and don’t keep picking away at it.

Position 4: Laguz (merkstave=reversed)

Symbol: Lake

Meanings: Water/Flow/Instinct/Emotion/unseen powers/feminine dominion

This rune forecasts the challenges of 2022. The rune I welcome least in this reading is this one. The Lake represents water, both literally and symbolically. Are we swimming or sinking or just staying afloat? Drawn reversed, this rune signifies confusion up ahead. Beware of getting in too deep, too soon, whatever new waters you try out this year. These waters are deep. This is like Pisces in the zodiac. This is like the planet Neptune.

Dreams could come true or they can become nightmares. This rune reminds us, when those around us get worked up, we do not necessarily need to join in and add to the noise. Laguz reversed can mean collective inebriation, getting drunk or high. It can mean new ideas, new visions, but it can also mean delusions, mass hysteria, paranoia and psychosis.

Looking at it from another angle, this rune says global military and political maritime based events will loom large this year on the global stage. This could mean extreme rainfall, flooding, tsunamis and/or big maritime military or scientific events, perhaps in connection with Taiwan.

Update Tonga tsunami 15 January 2022

In Chinese astrology we enter a Black Tiger year in early February. This is the Water Tiger and it is proud, grand, fierce, expansionist. March/April could be the months to watch for in particular here, and then again later in the year, possibly during the summer months. This is not to suggest a Chinese invasion, but it certainly a further ramping up on its ambitions in respect of Taiwan.

Laguz could be maritime technology; submarines, submersibles and developments to do with spying, surveillance or mineral mining; lithium or other mineral extraction or production. This may or may not feature in the media, but it is big.

Could Laguz also be detecting Nordstream Gas? I think so. Trouble coming, with possible effects on power supplies in Europe in 2022, though not necessarily during the winter. Get in some non-mains power alternatives just in case. A camping stove. Torches. Batteries. Matches. Many of us already keep these sorts of things somewhere safely handy anyway.

Rune 5: Ehwaz (merkstave =reversed)

Symbol: Horse. Imagine you are looking at it sideways on. See the dip in the middle of its back.

Meaning: Movement, travel, vehicle, progress, transits, shifts

This central rune is a recurring theme in January, and perhaps throughout the rest of 2022.

I love this rune. Ehwaz is like the Chariot in the Tarot. It is about physical movement and forward progress. Paired with Laguz as it is here, it could be a ship, a boat, or a submersible craft. It refers to overseas ambitions and far journeys over water.

Among other things this rune suggests an upping of the ante again in January in respect of M Macron and the issue of French fishing rights in British waters. Some progress has been made. But it’s not done yet for either side, and this year France holds the EU Presidency. But it is not only the UK that needs to be careful. M Macron needs to be extremely careful. The Horse also means cars and other vehicles, and car imports from the EU to the UK have declined in 2021, and with new import formalities coming in January 2022.

The escalating arrival of illegal small boats is a serious source of tension between France and UK. This moves up at least another gear in 2022.

Divination detects, reflects and projects. There is nothing here we do not know already. The runes are affirming. But they could just as readily contra-indicate.

It is worth noting that there are 19 runes which have NOT been drawn, some of which are more challenging than the spread we have here.

Clearly there are problems. Maybe we will feel effects of power cuts or pipeline issues in 2022. The causes may be weather related but they might possibly be political. I was already inclined to invest in a camping stove after my parents were left several days without power after Storm Arwen, and would not have had hot food otherwise.

This rune drawn merkstave seems to me only to reinforce that message from Laguz merkstave.

This rune merkstave is not necessarily negative, depending on the surrounding runes, but does indicate continuing stops and starts in 2022, both in respect of control of the pandemic and on a personal level. Ehwaz merkstave brings changes that could be sudden and unexpected. Obviously, these bring challenges, not least with periodic issues to do with trade and international travel in 2022.

It is only wise to be extra careful this January when it comes to vehicles, traffic, travel, and making big decisions just in general. Expect delays and hiccups.

Kenaz encourages curiosity but is opposed by Ehwaz reversed which is saying explore, inquire but do not force any issues. Possibly the timing isn’t right quite yet for you to make a move. January does not look like optimal timing in general for pushing an envelope, and not only because it is winter and nature in the north says, sleep, go slow.

But the birds of the north can’t rest, can they? They must feed or die. Norest for the wicked or the innocent either. We attend to the fundamentals, therefore, and coolly look about us meantime. The spirit of this coming year will make itself better known from March onward.

Wishing you the power of Sowilo, health, happiness and good fortune in a brighter if episodically tempestuous 2022!

The Hierophant, RIP, Desmond Tutu

I drew a card and rune reading a few weeks ago, 10 November, asking in the most general way about forthcoming news or events in December.

Today I tweeted the same reading again but with a different interpretation in light of the news today, of the passing of Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Cards & runes first posted 10/11/21 asking ahead for news in December. Apropos of the passing of #ArchbishopTutu cards show a much loved church man- Hierophant. Runes SOWILO- after solstice, OTHALA Homeland grieves HAGALL blow, natural death, ING, inspiration, fire of creation

Did I see this death coming? No I absolutely did not. I was enquiring into December, looking and thinking in the most general terms, inquiring into the tides and winds, or the zeitgeist of December, simply to see what would come up.

And yet. And yet, it does often seem that the cards act as straws in the wind…it really does seem that there is a supra-personal collective knowingness held in the ether.

Maybe we are more hive-minded; more like bees and ants than we think. I think that we are, and that Tarot is just another of several means that helps us tap into this.

At the time the cards indicated to me in broad terms that the UK government (and very likely therefore, not only the UK government) would be struggling with awkward covid management decisions again in December, coming to a head after the solstice 21 December.

Well, one might reasonably it didn’t need a reading to tell us this given the way things are. But let’s hang fire on that a sec.

Firstly, how exactly did the cards suggest this?

Well, The Lovers card is about lovers, obviously. The card does what it says on the tin. This theme extends to all loved ones, lovers, family and friends. And by implication, socializing. But it also stands for choices and decisions, often very tricky one. And it stands for the zodiac sign of Gemini, and by that seasonal token, everything that is airborne, from the pollen and butterflies of late spring to aircraft to airborne contagions. The Lovers therefore covers travel, air travel in particular, and it describes trade.

The Hierophant or Pope shows a churchman. He could be any religion. But in wider terms it stands for the governance of church and state, governments anywhere, land, money, agriculture, and the status quo. Traditions and the usual order of things. The Hierophant can also be hospitals and universities. It is Taurean.

You can see here the reader has a pretty wide map to navigate in deciding which meaning to go with. One could say, well, anything might mean anything. Well, not quite. Each card in the deck does have its particular list of associated interpretations, not duplicated by any other card and there are 78 cards.

The reader has to consider how the cards fit together when sitting side by side. What seems the most likely synergy between them being presented here?

What does it MEAN for gawd’s sake? Meaning requires a context. But here, the question could not have been looser. ‘What’s the feeling I am getting for December 2021 ?’

We translate information in a given context. This context is likely shaped, if not by someone else’s question, then by our own interest or preoccupations in the moment of reading.

My first thought on 10 November was the government and covid. Meanwhile, the runes showed a blow-HAGALL is the rune that looks like a wonky capital ‘H’. This is the rune of hail. Hagall refers to an event that isn’t personal even if it feels extremely personal.

The interesting thing here, however, is that at the date of drawing these cards, 10 November, indicating a conundrum for the government, Omicron had not yet arrived in the UK.

The first case was 27 November. Sunday 28 November Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, and Angola were added to the UK’s travel red list: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/first-uk-cases-of-omicron-variant-identified#:~:text=Two%20cases%20of%20COVID%2D19,529%20identified%20in%20the%20UK.

But sometimes a reading can be very odd in the way keeps on giving. And when this morning I woke to learn of the death of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and felt a small jolt, seeing again in my mind’s eye, The Hierophant, and my mind returning like a homing pigeon to that earlier reading. I’m posting it again, save you scrolling up.

That last rune bottom right is called ING- from which we got the word inglenook for a hearth place. ING is a fire rune. It is masculine in nature and it represents fertility.

I found myself drawn to the following quote rather than to his many, far more momentous sayings:-“When you sit in front of the fire in winter, you are just there in front of the fire. You don’t have to be smart or anything. The fire warms you.”

This Hierophant, the Archbishop of Cape Town, Desmond Tutu, a great teacher, a school teacher once upon a time, and a natural born teacher always, was someone who warmed a lot of people.

Songs of Solstice; Capricorn climbing, the mountain goat and the Gate of the Gods

Yesterday we entered we enter the zodiac territory of Capricorn on the day of the winter solstice. But what is the story behind the zodiac sign of Capricorn the Cosmic Sea-Goat?

Traditional associations

Symbol:

Date of Birth: 21 Dec to 20 January approx

Ruling planet: Saturn

Lucky Day: Saturday Lucky Numbers: 2 and 8

Element: Earth

Quality: Cardinal (the start of the season of winter) Is receptive but equally an initiator.

Key phrase: I build, I use

Body: Skin, knees, skeletal system

Birth Stone: Red Garnet and Black Onyx

Colour: Deep red

Herbs/Flowers: Wintergreen, Ivy, Carnation

Tarot card: The Devil (Pan/Nature, Mystery, Fascination, Obsession, Entrapment) This card paints him as rather a seductive, beguiling beast. One can appreciate the artist’s take on this. The Devil is also the angel of the Morning Star, fallen or not. And if he is hideous and stinky, who is going to let him anywhere near them? Whom shall he snare? Who is going to fall for his tricks?

From The Gilded Tarot Royale, Ciro Marchetti

The Major Arcana Tarot card representing Capricorn is Number 15, The Devil, representing all of animal nature and natural drives and charisma on the positive side, and fear, addiction, obsession and entrapment on the negative side.

Capricorn must and will have its autonomy. It will rather do without than find itself in dependency on another, at the cost of its dignity, and integrity of personal sovereignty.

Other Tarot cards associated with Capricorn are The Ace, the Queen of Pentacles, and the 2, 3 and 4 of Pentacles.

Psalm 46: 10 says “Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted in the Earth.”

Capricorn says all living things are God, including dung beetles, and any creature we don’t like. All living things, all Life, is exalted in the Earth.

From the Legacy of The Divine Tarot, Ciro Marchetti

Astronomy

The constellation of Capricornus from which the sun sign gets its name is located in an area of sky known as The Sea or The Water, containing other water-related constellations including Aquarius, Pisces and the River, Eridanus.

Like other constellations of the astrological zodiac, Capricorn was first catalogued by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy in the 2nd century.

Capricorn means Horn of the Goat from the Latin Capri cornus. “Capri” = goat, “Cornus” = horn. You can- with just a bit of a stretch- imagine the constellation as a goat’s face, looking at you with horns either side of its head.

Capricornus is the smallest constellation in the zodiac, with no first magnitude stars. Even so, the brightest star, Delta Capricorni A, is a white giant with a luminosity 8.5 times that of the Sun.

Capricornus has three stars with known planets and contains a Messier object, Messier 30, a globular cluster 28,000 light years distant and about 90 light years across in size. This cluster is approaching us at the speed of 181.9 km/s, and was one of the first deep sky objects discovered by Charles Messier in 1764.

There are five meteor showers associated with Capricornus: the Alpha Capricornids, the Chi Capricornids, the Sigma Capricornids, the Tau Capricornids and the Capricorniden-Sagittarids.

Neptune in Capricorn

The planet Neptune was discovered in the constellation Capricornus, near Deneb Algedi, the brightest star in the tail of the goat, on September 23, 1846.

This illustrates a powerful mythic connection between earth sign Capricorn and the deep water sign of Pisces the Fishes. This connection is many ages old and goes back to the Babylonians 21 centuries BC. We shall explore this connection more closely in a moment.

How did the ancients know? How could they have known, to have come up with the story of the Sea-Goat? So far as we aware, they could not have known about Neptune to have made any such connection. And yet they did, as we shall see.

Natural History

Though Capricornus is the second faintest constellation in the sky after Cancer, its story lineage is very ancient indeed. Mountain Goats, the ibex, were depicted in Ice Age paintings.

The European ibex male starts fighting for territory and mating in December, and in modern astrology, as distinct from modern astronomy, Capricorn’s rule begins today at the solstice, although meteorological winter starts 1 December.

Capricorn the constellation itself is actually overhead nowadays during Aquarius, due to the wobble of the Earth, an effect known as precession, but the sun sign named after Capricornus retains the dates accorded to it by Ptolemy.

Mythology

Capricorn is commonly represented in the form of a sea-goat: a mythical creature half goat, half-fish. This creature is Pricus, another son of Cronos (Time) king of the mer-goats of Greek myth. (Presumably this makes Capricorn a brother of Zeus.)

The story of Pricus the Sea-Goat comes from an evolution story far older than the mythos of ancient Greece. Before 1000 BC the Sumerians knew Capricorn as the goat-fish, or SUHUR-MASH-HA.

The children of Pricus left the sea to dwell on mountains, leaving him alone in the oceans with no-one to talk to any more. And Pricus was a great teacher.

He was very lonely now, all the young ones gone. Zeus placed him in the Sea of the Stars so that he could see his children again, and they could look up from the mountain sides and still see him, and remember where they first came from. Out of the sea, like us, and everything else that now lives on land.

Later myths centre on stories of sun gods nursed by a she-goat, one of the best known of which is the story of the baby Zeus. whose mother Rhea hid him from his murderous father Cronos. They took refuge in a mountain cave where he was nursed by the she-goat Amalthea

Another story talks about the forest deity Pan, who has the legs and horns of a goat, like Krotos, his son, a great archer and devotee of the Muses, who is identified with the neighbouring constellation Sagittarius in an alternative version of the Chiron legend.

Pan, so the legend said, was placed in the sky by Zeus in gratitude after he came to the rescue of other gods after an epic battle with the Titans, when they were fleeing the monster Typhon, son of the Titan Tartarus and Earth.

Typhon was truly fearsome, a fire-breathing creature, higher than mountains and with dragons’ heads instead of fingers. The Olympian gods disguised themselves as they fled in terror: Zeus disguised as a ram – Hera, as a white cow, and Pan as a goat (another version of the myth suggests Bacchus/Dionysus).

Horrors! Typhon caught Zeus and dismembered him, thinking perhaps to enjoy a rare treat of Jupiter-sized lamb chops for tea. Bbut then Pan played such a weird sound on his pan pipes, he terrified Typhon, who panicked just long enough for Hermes to swoop down and snatch up all the bits of Zeus and put him back together.

In gratitude, Zeus transferred Pan to a luxury pad in the heavens as Capricornus, and later, finally managed to trick Typhon, trapping and imprisoning trap him in Tartarus or beneath Mount Etna where he still grumbles to this day, swearing to get even, or starts roaring and shooting out flames in his furious efforts to escape.

This from Pindar, Greek lyric poet….

among them is he who lies in dread Tartarus, that enemy of the gods, Typhon with his hundred heads. Once the famous Cilician cave nurtured him, but now the sea-girt cliffs above Cumae, and Sicily too, lie heavy on his shaggy chest. And the pillar of the sky holds him down, snow-covered Aetna, year-round nurse of bitter frost, from whose inmost caves belch forth the purest streams of unapproachable fire. In the daytime her rivers roll out a fiery flood of smoke, while in the darkness of night the crimson flame hurls rocks down to the deep plain of the sea with a crashing roar. That monster shoots up the most terrible jets of fire; it is a marvellous wonder to see, and a marvel even to hear about when men are present. Such a creature is bound beneath the dark and leafy heights of Aetna and beneath the plain, and his bed scratches and goads the whole length of his back stretched out against it…

Neo-Platonism

Another legend says that while the souls of those about to be born descend to Earth through the constellation of Cancer, via the Beehive Cluster, the souls of the dead return to the cosmic seas from whence they came, ascending again through the stars of Capricorn – The Gate of the Gods. I am told this idea also features in Serbian mythology.

Astrology

Capricorn is a cardinal earth sign, ruled by the planet Saturn, stern planet of self-reliance, self-discipline, duty, responsibility, conservation, patience, limitations and restrictions. Cardinal signs usher in a new season. Aries ushers in the spring, Cancer the summer, Libra the autumn and Capricorn is the usher of winter.

The Capricorn Archetype

All the zodiac signs represent archetypes, meaning something that is considered to be a perfect or typical example of a particular kind of person or thing.

The zodiac signs paint a ‘typical’ portrait of a person born at a particular time of year, in a particular season. A baby born in summer arrives into a different physical environment from a winter baby; with differences of temperature, hours of daylight, maternal diet during pregnancy and so on, with potentially different effects.

The archetype of Capricorn is the Ruler, the Wise Elder, Protector, Organizer and Provider.

The story of Capricorn, as mentioned earlier, was first inspired by the tough but agile mountain ibex. December and January is mating season, when the male ibex fights for territory.

Capricorn is a worker and a fighter with the strength, intelligence, stamina and determination to overcome hardships and master its environment.

Capricorn is a pragmatist with strong ethics. Capricorn is not sentimental, but all the same, Capricorn is a rock for the people in their lives. They may wear a serious face, but they will do what it takes to care for their loved ones, and will work longer and harder to do this than almost any other zodiac sign. These people express their devotion through deeds, not words, practical action. They will be the person who builds a fire for others to warm their hands at.

The court card of Capricorn is the Queen of Pentacles. The King of Pentacles may also be used to represent a Capricorn native, male or female, in a reading

Card Meanings: queen of earth, earth mother, a wise woman, hedge witch, a vet, conservationist, farmer, ecologist, financial, business woman, Gaia, Demeter, a practical woman, grounded, wise, instinctive, knowledgeable, prudent

She will put the food on the table. She will make things beautiful. When she finds a mess, she will clear it up. Help her or don’t help her. But don’t get in her way.

Venus retrograde in Capricorn

Venus, planet of love, beauty, luxury and therefore finance- and also vulcanicity is retrograde in Capricorn at the moment, 19- 29 December.

It is not only Mars who can wage war. Oh no. Basalt planet Venus is Aphrodite, the deity and genius loci of Sicily, home of Etna. Not for nothing was she married to the smith of the Gods, Vulcan or Hephaestus…even if she did cheat on him with Mars/Ares.

Here then in astrological terms is volcanic activity here on Capricornian Earth, and this year it is happening in Capricorn season, literal or metaphorical. Here is vulcanicity. La Palma. Mount Semeru.

Here in human dealings this month is an undercurrent of beauty on the back foot, or beauty demanding its dues. Shall it smoulder or shall it erupt this month?

“For beauty, we will pay. “- Kraftwerk, The Model.

Capricorn can seem almost superhuman, like Duracell bunny-goats, virtually tireless. This persistence, this determination ensures their ultimate success at anything that demands their attention or they find worthy of their interest.

They are not do-gooders but they are very conscious of their obligations to others, quick to pay their debts and if someone does them a favour, they will not rest until it is returned, as a matter of personal dignity and to safeguard their space, freedom and autonomy as much as anything else.

But of course there is no such thing in reality as THE Capricorn personality. You are a unique individual. Your zodiac sign (sun sign) is a major keynote, but it is nothing like the full picture in real life – or in astrology. There are many other factors in play; your rising sign, your Moon sign, the planets in your houses, your decan and the degree of the actual day you were born. So for one thing, if you don’t feel like a ‘typical’ Capricorn, perhaps you are a second or third decan Capricorn, rather than a ‘most typical’ first decan Capricorn.

What are the decans?

The Zodiac is a belt of sky tracking the path of the sun across the sky over the course of the year. We call this pathway of the sun ‘the ecliptic,’ and the zodiac belt shares this same pathway. The paths of the Moon and visible planets are all contained within the belt of the zodiac. Each zodiac sign represents a 30 degree section of this belt. Each sign is then sub-divided into three blocks of ten degrees, equalling about ten days in length, with slight variations.

This gives us the zodiac decans, from the Latin meaning ten. They are sometimes nicknamed ‘the thirty- six faces of astrology,’ because they add more human faces to the story. The decans break down the story of each zodiac sign into three, more in-depth chapters, affording extra insight into your sign, and what it means in real life.

First Decan Capricorn

Capricorn-Capricorn

Dates: 22 December-31 December

Planetary rulers: Saturn-Saturn

Tarot card: Two Pentacles

Card meanings: juggling of finances, putting eggs in different baskets, being in two places at once, juggling jobs and responsibilities, or two jobs, commuting, relocation, infinity, the ever changing balance

This Capricorn decan does not suffer fools gladly. This is a serious, profound and powerfully minded individual. Many people want to know them, and they are people people, yet they are cautious and have few truly intimate friends. But those friends are true and lasting, while many others come and go.

They have a dry, wry, droll sense of humour, a keen sense of the ridiculous, and a sense of fun, but others who are less confident can feel intimidated by their intelligence. They have gravitas with a natural personality authority which some may find challenging. This decan will not be pushed around, any more than the mountain ibex doing battle on the side of the mountain is ready to give way to its rival without a fierce fight.

This decan dislikes whatever it considers cheap and easy sentiment, but is utterly devoted in a pragmatic, non-demonstrative way, to those they love and will show it in their deeds, whether or not they say it with words, seemingly so fearless, whether they really are afraid or not, and so sure of foot on the rockiest of mountain slopes.

Famous first decan Capricorns in history: Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, Louis Pasteur, Ava Gardner, Woodrow Wilson, Mao Tse-Tung

Second Decan

Capricorn-Taurus

Dates: 1 January-10 January

Planetary rulers: Saturn-Venus

Tarot card: Three Pentacles

Card Meanings: skill, study, patience, taking care, taking pride in your work, arts, crafts, beauty, heritage, architecture, cooperation, teamwork

This decan is also a serious individual but somewhat less forthright in manner, more easygoing and ruled by Venus, cheerful, agreeable and with softer edges all round. This decan in general is the most artistic or musical Capricorn, though again, the style is low key. This person is usually considered highly trustworthy, and generally deserves that reputation, while they themselves are cautious of trusting others. They crave beautiful surroundings and creature comforts. (Well, who doesn’t?) Their physical appearance matters to them a great deal, from which we can see an added tragedy for some of the famous subjects of this decan.

Famous Second Decan Capricorn subjects: Joan of Arc, Louis Braille, Elvis Presley, Richard Nixon, Michael Schumacher, Stephen Hawking

Third Decan Capricorn

Capricorn-Virgo

Dates: 11 January-19 January

Planetary ruler: Saturn-Mercury

Tarot card-Four of Pentacles

Card Meanings: thrift, prudence, saving money, holding on to money, hoarding, investing, saving, preserving, conserving resources, damage limitation, self- protection, the need for order, stability and freedom from worry

This decan, ruled by Mercury, is something of a perfectionist; curious, analytical, rational and intellectual, somewhat changeable. Saturn’s overarching influence will tend to make this Mercurial Capricorn more practical and cautious than Mercury subjects of the other zodiac signs, but they may not need to work so much as the other Capricorn decans to get where they need to be, helped by that agile Mercury influence, balanced by the conscientiousness of Virgo. They drive themselves very hard and can get bogged down, obsessing over detail in

They are deep, serious, and thoughtful, but are quick witted and up for fun, and may be happiest with a lively, interesting partner, who can help them take their mind off their own preoccupations and lift their mood when they walk in after a hard day.

Famous Decan 3 Capricorn subjects: Martin Luther King Junior, Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin, Aristotle, Kevin Costner

Many Happy Returns, dear Capricorn. This video makes me think of you.

December dramas. Ding, dong, dang and blast?

Gabriel, yoohooo! Give us some good news!

What is the Tarot’s general impression of the cosmic weather this month, spanning the zodiac signs of Sagittarius and Capricorn and therefore including Christmas?

The cards were drawn in mid November and are from the Rider-Waite deck, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith

I also drew a rune from the older Norse alphabet, the Elder Futhark.

Cards: The Hierophant, Knight of Swords and Four of Pentacles

Rune: Othala

The Hierophant

Card Meanings

Taurus the Bull, spring, planetary ruler Venus, love, beauty, wedding, marriage, luxury, money, established order, governments, global finance (think ‘Bull’ market) tradition, status quo, establishment, hospitals, publishing, agriculture, religion, church, keys

The Knight of Swords

Card Meanings

Aquarius, Saturn, Uranus, a clever, cool minded individual aged 25-40. Legalities, intelligence, espionage, an agent, a spy, a warlord, shipping, trade, commerce, Decisive action, attack, airborne, choices, air travel, trade, commerce, shipping, deliveries, financial decisions, ambition, clarity, cutting loose

The Four of Pentacles

Card Meanings

Capricorn, earth, saving, conserving, resources, money, possessions, inheritance, prudence, provisioning, legacy

The Four of Pentacles is ruled by Mercury, the planet of travel, research, trade and commerce. Mercury also rules IT and data analysis, and it rules Virgo, which in astrology is the sixth house of harvest, health, routines and hygiene.

Rune: Othala

Meanings: wealth, ancestry, ancestral homelands, family, old age, our old folk, different generations, memories, identity, belonging, and all the things that we most treasure.

Where do we feel at home?

This rune also picks up on migration and surrounding questions and issues.

General Impressions

December looks pretty eventful on the world stage, not to say stressful, with sudden flurries of news, mostly not welcome. We might want to switch off the media for a bit, and have a break from all the shrieking.

These cards look reasonably reassuring all the same, not too much shock and awe. Here’s hoping we’ve already seen the worst of December.

The Knight of Swords; sudden attack, storm, wind, can be read in reference to recent terrible weather events, and the damage and tragic casualties in Kentucky.

The Earth itself is always restless, and currently more unsettled than usual. Perhaps it is little wonder that we are too. The world is never quiet, never at peace. Nor is the Earth. It is always relative. Each year, the Moon pulls away, and so does the Sun in this present cycle.

But really, short of an actual world war, the whole world is embattled one way and another, no quiet news months since December 2019, when we first learned of a newly emerging health crisis in Wuhan.

We now approach the second anniversary of the pandemic with its new variants, and unrolling economic, political and social effects. There is no government, that is, no government that permits even peaceful dissent, that is not grappling with this monstrously slippery eel, while experiencing furious criticism and dissent from one quarter or another, no matter what response they make, deciding how to tackle the problem. The Hierophant as a symbol of governments anywhere is either taking a pasting right now, or, depending on the country, dealing them out.

These are times of instability. This instability is not only man-made but natural, due to extreme weather events, and seismic, volcanic events, such as the ongoing eruption on La Palma, and recent periodic increases in solar flare activity.

The La Palma eruption has now become the longest running on the island, and the cards suggest it will still be erupting into January 2022 though it seems to be calming now. Article HERE

What is the Tarot connection? Well, we are in the zodiac time frame of Sagittarius, 22 November- 21 December, and the court card of Sagittarius is the Knight of Wands, as seen here in the Gilded Tarot Royale.

From The Gilded Tarot Royale, Artist, Ciro Marchetti

Sagittarius is the element of Mutable Fire. Changeable fire. Changeable states. Blow me down, if this depiction of Sir Sagittarius does not actually show a volcano erupting magma.

Then in Java, Mount Semeru erupted 4 December, spilling out a deadly pyroclastic flow.

“The slurry of debris that swept down Semeru proved catastrophic to villagers living around the mountain’s base in the Lumajang Regency, particularly Curah Kobokan. According to The Jakarta Post, at least 39 people have died. Large numbers of homes were destroyed or damaged, and many animals are among the eruption’s victims.”

More Here

Of course, this is not to say that the month of the zodiac sign of Sagittarius= volcano eruption month.

But there it is, or there it was. A card specifically correlating with the dates 22 November-21 December and we are looking at it. The synchronicity, at least for 2021 is undeniable.

What else might these cards mean in practical terms?

Obviously, this can only be a very general reading, and is therefore limited in its specificity, but The Hierophant represents stability, security and continuity, doing things ‘by the book.’ And it also represents the converse as previously discussed. This December we are not doing things by the book, while at the same time there is plenty of ‘throwing the book ‘ at XYZ.

The Hierophant is turning up a lot in readings at the moment, which is hardly surprising. Sometimes it is drawn the right way up, but just as often it is being drawn upside down, reflecting a situation in which old wisdoms, old ways of seeing things and doing things are being challenged.

Why is this not surprising? Well, it shouldn’t be. The Tarot detects, reflects and projects.

First it acts as a mirror on what is already happening. This is crucial in a reading because it confirms the baseline for the reader.

The Hierophant attacked by the Knight of Swords marks a time of acute unrest, such as we have been witnessing for some time now, every time we turn on the television or engage on social media.

Astrology associates this with the fact that the outer planet Uranus, ‘planet of rebellion and innovation’, is stationed in Taurus, the steady Bull sign associated with The Hierophant.

Uranus is retrograde for parts of December, signifying a mood of intense inward reflection on what needs to stay and what needs to go or change, both collectively, and privately and individually.

Uranus made this move into Taurus in 2019 and will stay there until April 2026, so we are in for a bumpy ride. The question is how we can best handle things on an individual level, re-evaluating our priorities, keeping our cool, learning new skills at every opportunity and helping our children to do the same.

The Four of Pentacles is about HANGING ON IN THERE. And there are times, when continuity offers the best scenario all in all.

Some astrologers think Boris Johnson is about to meet his political nemesis. Possibly, but to me it does not look that way, not this month, parties or no parties, knowledge of parties, or no knowledge of parties. Why not? Because of the appearance of the Four of Pentacles. If he goes, having inherited the poisoned chalice of this pandemic at the very beginning almost, of his premiership, it will be of his own volition because of sheer exhaustion.

This is a very broad picture, very general, yes. But of the 78 cards in a Tarot deck, 75 stayed in the deck and these were the three drawn for this coming month, December 2021.

Let’s look again. Save scrolling up.

Her Majesty the Queen is a Taurus subject, a pillar of our society. Above politics, she has seen many leaders some and go. She is very much a figure who has always believed in putting wider duty before personal convenience.

She does things by the book, like the Hierophant.

Elizabeth 11 represents a part of the national psyche, the young monarch of our parent’s childhoods, those born during the war or soon after it. Lately, this first year of her widowhood, we have witnessed signs of a decline in her health. At the age of 95, this is only natural and to be expected, but since we have drawn the Taurean Hierophant for December, and it has been drawn next to the challenging Knight of Swords, it remains to be seen whether the Queen will make her annual Christmas address in quite the same way as usual this year.

Europe

Covid cases have been rising again, with new lockdowns and protests in the Netherlands, Austria and other countries. The signs are that this most recent rise in cases as at the time of writing (14 November) may continue into December and flu may add to the pressure on health services, but with luck, the Four of Pentacles is a stable card, suggesting that the situation may, not improve perhaps, but be maintaining a standoff by/towards the end of December.

Covid

Some Medical observers are sanguine about the Omicron variant, suggesting we may soon be approaching the endemic phase, when a brand new virus, in this case, SARS‑CoV‑2 gradually becomes part of the new ‘normal’ in human epidemiology, and it becomes a question of living with it.

Today however, 13 December, sadly marks the first UK death of someone with the Omicron variant.

EU, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia

The current border situation is tense. It may well escalate, suggests the Knight of Swords, but again, the steady Four of Pentacles hints that if it does, the crisis abates again at least temporarily somewhat by or until mid January. Why? In terms of timing the stable Four of Pentacles represents the third decan of Capricorn, dates 11-19 January.

The Knight of Swords can mean new laws, sharp messages, sabre-rattling and military aircraft, just as the weather associated with the Knight of Swords is northern and easterly; cool, cloudy, windy, but it can bring sudden frosts, sudden rain or storms.

The Knight of Swords traditionally also refers to airborne objects, including missiles, but also viruses and bacteria sharp objects, including surgical instruments such as injection needles and pens. Here is an escalation of covid vaccinations across Europe.

Trade and Travel

The Four of Pentacles is ruled by Mercury the planet of travel, trade and commerce, also IT and data analysis. In addition Mercury rules Virgo, sixth house of health and hygiene.

This, together with the Knight of Swords, reminds us that common sense says, vaccinations or no vaccinations, we need to stay alert and continue taking common sense precautions against covid and flu this Christmas.

But meantime, certain international restrictions may be reintroduced again on an emergency basis, while a further lock-down has not been entirely ruled out by the UK Government. The Four of Pentacles, sometimes nicknamed the Miser card, describes a pragmatist, who is ready to take the dour responsibility for making unpopular decisions should it detect that need.

Some suggest that covid is ‘just’ ‘flu. We know it isn’t. SARS‑CoV‑2 is a new coronavirus, not a ‘flu virus. But even ‘just’ ‘flu is no joke at all if we get a bad dose.

Personal

The Hierophant represents whatever is your own status quo. You may be somewhat restless and unsettled. I know I am. The Knight of Swords drawn next door to the domestic Hierophant suggests a need for ‘fresh air’ and extra space this month.

Not all of us fancy a party this year. Many of us are not in the mood. for doing whatever is our usual thing this year, suggests this combination. Maybe we never were, but this applies with bells on this year.

The Four of Pentacles has a lot in common with the rune of ancestry, households and inheritance, Othala.

Look back at the things you have bought over the years. What did you buy in the past that you still treasure? What have you been given by older family members that you treasure to remember them by? Othala talks about the things we treasure. These do not have to be things. They include cherished memories. But every day, we are creating new memories.

A recovering economy needs our spending. And it’s great to treat loved ones – . But for a lot of people the festive season can be a dreadful money worry. Last month there was much excited media speculation about shipping and supplies this year, and worries about ‘must have’ toys from overseas arriving in time for Christmas.

What’s with this ‘must have’ business? Conspicuous consumerism ruling the roost in the home? Is this healthy or a helpful preparation for children, to suggest this is how it really works?

The Four of Pentacles advises that friends and loved ones will be understanding if finances are tighter this year than previous Christmases. And given the way things have been in 2021 and 2020 before that, they may welcome that same understanding in return.

The Tarot is not trying to be a Scrooge or a kill-joy in presenting this card. Spending less, or spending carefully, based on quality, durability or longer term thinking doesn’t equate with not having any kind of a good time.

Photo by Francesco Paggiaro on Pexels.com

It’s just that no- one has infinite resources, debt is no joke, and this year looks like a departure from the way many of us have done things before.

24 December: The Hierophant also represents Christmas time, as a traditional religious season of celebration. But long before Christianity we celebrated Yule in northern Europe, meaning ‘wheel,’ to mark the turning of the wheel of the year, the solstice and the passing of the darkest day.

The third and final square between Saturn and Uranus in Taurus, these big planets, these heavy hitters, bring a feeling of push and pull between Uranus (splurging, doing your own thing, party time) and Saturn (saving, doing family duties, staying home and relaxing) this Christmas Eve 2021.

Ways of doing things that worked OK for you in the past, don’t sit so well with you right now.

Uranus is retrograde for nearly half of the year every year. This is nothing new or unusual, just a seasonal opportunity to go back to the drawing board and re consider occupations and habits.

19 December- Full Moon in Gemini

In Tarot this is represented by the Lovers card meaning: news, calls, social events, new ideas, chat, gossip, communication, curiosity…it is also about short travel, trade, commerce, shopping . Think Mercury, ruler of Gemini. Another name for Mercury, Hermes.

Astrologers consider this a favourable Full Moon, in harmonious aspect with Jupiter, lucky for new partnerships and ventures, and for legal and business matters, though with possible tensions attached in terms of close relationships.

The Lovers can present us with a need to make difficult choices. Again, these could be totally unromantic; hard-nosed, to do with our work, security and finance.

Venus planet of love, beauty,luxury – and finance goes retrograde in Capricorn 19 December shortly after the Full Moon until 29 January.

This is glamour but serious with it. You could say Cinderella grows up, Prince or no prince. Venus retrograde in Capricorn is no- frills power dressing, literally or metaphorically. Fashion or Beauty here goes hand in glove with perceived status material power, like a Queen who wears her jewels f in token of her reach of power for the world to see.

This is a planetary euphemism for an examination of our personal standards of conduct and deportment, at home and at work. What is our public persona? How about a bit of gravitas, says Venus in Capricorn, style, poise, dignity and rectitude?

Beauty is in a serious mood. Beast better behave.

21 December – Solstice

We leave freewheeling Sagittarius ruled by big bouncy Jupiter and move into Capricorn, ruled by serious hardworking master of self-discipline and dominion, Saturn.

But Saturn brings the solstice, returning us to the light, for all his serious face.

This is the spirit of the agile, tough and hardy ibex or mountain goat, Capricorn.

The ibex nimbly scales the heights, stands atop the farthest crags. In Europe, the alpine ibex does battle in December for territory and mates.

The ibex, inspiration of Capricorn, reckons to do battle to get what it needs in life, delicately sniffs the cold, clean air, every inch a master of all he surveys.

The sunshine is free, and the rain and the snow, and the moon and the stars. Our good health too, if we are lucky. But we all must do battle some day one day in our lives, sooner or later, up against some kind of authority or other, or make peace with the fact we didn’t when maybe we really needed to,for our own or someone else’s sake.

Who says we wait until New Year to make a new plan?

Any day will do for a new resolution But from a natural, seasonal, symbolic and magickal perspective, 21 December works even better.

Season’s Greetings with all Best Wishes for a brighter 2022.

Sagittarius, Celestial Archer, The Decans, a Teapot and Temperance

Here we are again in the zodiac season of Sagittarius the Archer, aiming high, reaching for the light as the sun sinks to the solstice and the daylight dwindles. What is the story behind this mutable fire sign?

Common associations

Symbol:

Date of Birth: Nov 21/22 to Dec 21

Ruling planet: Jupiter

Element: Fire Quality: Mutable- the ending of one season, and the beginning of another

Key phrase: I seek

Body: Thighs

Birth Stone: Topaz, Citrine, Turquoise

Colour: Light Blue

Tarot card: Temperance: Timing, Moderation, Education, Solstice, Healing of Chiron. Also The Knight of Wands, and the 8, 9 and 10 Wands.

Astronomy

Sagittarius, the zodiac sign inspired by the constellation of Sagittarius, from the Latin meaning Archer, was recorded in the 2nd century by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy.

The constellation of Sagittarius is near the centre of our galaxy, the spiral Milky Way, mainly visible in the southern hemisphere June-November. In the Northern hemisphere we can see it low on the horizon August- October.

Sagittarius gets its nickname, ‘The Teapot’ on account of its vaguely teapot-shaped star pattern, or asterism.

To find ‘The Teapot‘

The best time to look is in August or September. We need somewhere really dark, locating the hazy band of The Milky Way stretching right across the sky. Looking up in the northern hemisphere, the Milky Way seems to bulge as it descends to the southern horizon. This ‘bulge’ is roughly the middle of the Milky Way and is contained within the boundaries of the constellation of Sagittarius.

Photo by u200bu0468u0477u047bu048f u046au0454u0459u0469u04e1u04c4u047bu0487u0477 on Pexels.com

Sagittarius contains a massive star-forming region, the Omega Nebula, home to the bright blue hyper-giant Pistol Star, one of the brightest stars in the Milky Way, discovered 1930 using the Hubble Space telescope.

The Pistol Star is largely hidden in the dust of its own nebula, but it’s 100 times as massive as our Sun, and 10,000,000 times as bright.

Mythology

Sagittarius is the ninth sign in the Zodiac, not to be confused with the constellation itself, and represents those born between Nov. 22 and the advent of winter solstice, Dec. 21.

Sagittarius is nowadays generally associated with the ancient Greek story of Chiron but the story is far more ancient and goes back to Mesopotamia in the 26 century BCE, to the story of Pabilsag, a deity or divine king of a city called Larak.

The story of Pabilsag was handed down to the Greeks through the Sumerians.

The Sumerian word ‘Pabil’ means ‘ancestor or relative’. Combined with the final element ‘sag’, meaning ‘chief, head, tip or foremost,’ his name can be translated as the ‘Chief Ancestor’ or ‘Forefather’.

The Archer is a hunter just as our forefathers were hunters at the dawn of human civilization.

Here, 3 millennia BC, we portray him as a winged centaur type figure, and yes, he is an archer too, and his arrow points at the heart of Scorpio, the red star Antares. But look at Pabilsag. No horse’s tail! He has a scorpion’s tail as the wheel of the Zodiac turns, and sure enough, as Sagittarius comes galloping in, we are leaving behind the sign of Scorpio.

Sagittarius is a solitary hunter. He does not work as one of a team, bringing down the really big prey. He is an individualist, working alone, just as many a hunter or trapper still hunts alone in winter.

The constellation of Sagittarius-Pabilsag is seen within the Milky Way, rising from the southern regions close to the horizon into the higher reaches of the skies. This section of the Milky Way represents a symbolic bridge or a rainbow for the souls of the dead on their way to the afterlife, as the arrival of Capricorn draws near, marking the advent of the winter solstice.

Sagittarius, or Pabilsag, is a ‘psychopomp’ – like Hermes, the messenger of the Gods of Ancient Greece. He is both guardian and guide ofthe dying year itself, and offers safe escort to the souls of the dying as they ascend to the heavens through the gates of Capricorn.

Chiron the wounded Centaur

Most modern versions of the story refer to much later, classical variants of the old Babylonian myths, and say that Sagittarius represents the gentle, cultured centaur, Chiron, who was accidentally shot by Herakles with a poison arrow.

The centaurs were a rough lot, hard- drinking, hard- fighting and smelly – not remotely glamorous. The legends of the centaurs may originally have arisen from perfectly mortal reality of ancient Greek cowboys.

But whatever the centaurs were, Chiron ‘the wisest and justest of the centaurs’ was something different, representing a bright star of hope for the race of the centaurs, and for Humanity itself, as collectively it strives to rise above the ever present tyranny of the Id and its own worst nature.

Here he is, teaching the young Achilles to play the lyre. Chiron had many pupils; Asclepius, Ajax, Achilles, Theseus, Jason, Peleus, Perseus, and Phoenix. And he taught Herakles, who brought about his death, when he was sent there to be schooled with Chiron.

Herakles was sent after his killed his music teacher back home. His tutor, Linus, criticized his playing, and Herakles smashed his lyre over the teachers head, killing him. Though in some accounts he used a stool.

And so he was sent to be schooled by the illustrious Chiron. And for some time, all was well, until one day Herakles got caught up in a fight and in the confusion accidentally wounded Chiron, shooting him with a poisoned arrow dipped in the venom of the Hydra.

Chiron was left in terrible and permanent pain. He was wise in the ways of medicine, none wiser, but he could not heal himself, and none could help him. Nor could he die, being an Immortal.

Still, he carried on until he could bear it no more, and asked Zeus to release him from immortality so that he could escape the pain in the blessed release of death.

Zeus placed him in the heavens as Sagittarius. Or did he? There is a bit of a question here because Chiron already has another constellation named after him- Centaurus.

And to add to the confusion, there is another version of the story of Sagittarius, referring to him instead as Krotos, a satyr who lived on Mount Helicon with the Muses. Krotos was the son of Pan and Eupheme, and his mother had nursed the Muses. He was a renowned archer, hunter, horse rider – hence a possible source of confusion with the centaur, and besides all this, a devotee of his childhood companions, The Muses and their arts.

By Aratus – Leiden University Library Catalogue, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7660666

Krotos means ‘One who Claps his hands.’ He was credited by the Greeks with not only having invented archery, but introducing the convention of applause at artistic performances.

It was the Muses who, for his own musical talents, when Krotos died, asked Zeus to place him among the stars, which he did, transforming him into the constellation Sagittarius, says this variant of the zodiac story.

So Sagittarius is either the cultured wounded healer, Chiron, already represented in the constellation Centaurus, or he is the cultured satyr, Krotos; goaty, horse-riding archer, culture vulture and hunter extraordinaire as the sun is sinking to the winter solstice.

Chiron or Krotos? Take your pick.

Or go Babylonian with Pabilsag.

The Muses

Sagittarius is keenly intuitive, and usually has a marked talent, a gift, in the field of the Arts. Sagittarian subject Winston Churchill for example, was clearly psychic, subject to visions and feelings of premonition, and also painted.

Delphi said there were three Muses. But c 600 BC Hesiod wrote in his Theogony that there were Nine Muses, the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (Memory personified) and this is the version that has generally stuck.

The Muses, it ought to be mentioned, were not necessarily always benign. They were touchy for one thing, sensitive to human hubris, and liable to exact vengeance of anyone they decided was getting above themselves.

Kalliope ‘She of the Lovely Voice’ was the muse of epic poetry. Also of Diplomacy.
Klio ‘She Who Proclaims’ was the muse of history.
Erato ‘The Lovely One’ was the muse of love poetry.
Euterpe ‘She Who Pleases’ was the muse of music.
Melpomene ‘She Who Sings’ was the muse of tragedy.
Polyhymnia ‘She of the Many Hymns’ was the muse of sacred poetry.
Terpsichore ‘She Who Delights to Dance’ was the muse of dance.
Thalia ‘The Cheerful One’ was the muse of comedy
Urania ‘The Heavenly One’ was the goddess of astronomy, astrology, and later, Christian poetry.

The Astrological Personality of Sagittarius

Of course there is no such thing as THE Sagittarius personality. Everyone is unique. We are speaking here of an archetype. All the zodiac signs represent archetypes– something that is considered to be a perfect or typical example of a particular kind of person or thing.

Sagittarius is the Archer, the eternal student, aiming high and far even as the sun sinks; the optimist, the voyager, maybe a seer or a prophet.

The archer is a hunter. This time of year was the time for hunting. The crops were gathered in and finished for the year. Meat would be caught and hung, cured, salted away for the hungrier months ahead.

But since the origins of Tropical or western astrology were based on the seasons in the northern hemisphere, what if we live in the southern hemisphere?

Some astrologers have suggested that if you were born in the southern hemisphere and your zodiac sign really doesn’t feel right, why not look up your opposite zodiac sign and try that on for size, see if that feels like a better fit. So for Aries, read Libra’s horoscope, for Taurus read Scorpio, for Gemini read Sagittarius, and so on.

These are astute, clever, capable people but they need career flexibility, and they may refuse to fail to apply themselves if bored. Like Gemini, they are prone to restlessness. They may fail to stick at a job or a succession of jobs, and may struggle financially long term in consequence.

Hence their challenge, but also their guiding light is the idea of Temperance, personified in the Tarot, symbolizing patience, prudence, and the art of good timing.

They can do domestic. But you wouldn’t really call it how they roll. And they do tend to roll, from place to place, job to job, and a rolling stone gathers no moss. The problem here being the other things it doesn’t gather either, such as a steady income, or savings or other means of security in old age, if Sagittarius does not find a way to balance their great need for freedom , space and independence with prudence and good timing.

Sagittarius tends to have lots of friends. More than almost anyone else, so much so, family and friends can feel neglected at times, forgotten, when Sagittarius goes off yet again, devil may care, to share experiences with new best friends.

Sagittarius must have inspiration, and the freedom to follow it, and to roam. But this humanitarian, kindly, if restless rolling stone sooner or later almost always comes trotting, or should we say, rolling home again, expecting to find their loved ones exactly where they left them. And usually, they will. Though others too, do not enjoy being taken for granted, and this may need care.

Sagittarius will be the star of this show, but what they really need for domestic happiness is a quietly confident, self-reliant partner.

Card Meanings: A quest, sudden arrivals and departures, adventure, heat, speed, movement, daring, challenge, determination, foreign travel, leadership, spontaneity, unpredictability.

Sagittarius is a potential high flyer, like an arrow, well aimed, hard working and clever. They have an enlarged curiosity, always learning. They are adventurous and progressive, and work best in teams within large organizations.

They tend to be good at earning money, but not so good at saving it, generally due to impulse buying. They need plenty of physical activity outdoors and to be in contact with nature. They tend to be animal lovers. At home, they tend to be happier married than single, and they are co-operative, fun, efficient and reliable partners but they can be detached, reserved, restless and impulsive, and they sometimes fail in consideration to their partner in their search for independent fun, seeking new adventures outside the home.

They may be psychic; religious or spiritually inquiring, with a prophetic or visionary gift which they may express through music, writing, animal connections or group endeavours for some common cause.

But as we have already observed, of course there is no such thing in reality as THE Sagittarius personality. Your zodiac sign (sun sign) is a major keynote, but it is nothing like the full picture in real life – or even in astrology.

There are many other factors in play; your rising sign, your Moon sign, and the planets in your houses, elements, modes, aspects, transits, the decans, degrees and so on.

If you don’t feel like a ‘typical’ Sagittarius, perhaps you are a second or third decan Sagittarius, rather than a ‘most typical’ first decan Sagittarius.

What are the decans?

The Zodiac is the arc of the sky as visible from earth, which tracks the pathway of the sun, ‘the ecliptic.’ Obviously, what we can see depends on where we are on Earth at any given time, but the zodiac belt follows this same pathway.

The zodiac belt is 16 degrees deep with the ecliptic running along the middle, rather like a layer in a cake. The layers of this cake are 8 degrees above the sun’s pathway- the buttercream filling of the ecliptic- and 8 degrees below.

The Greeks divided this imaginary zodiac belt into twelve sections, choosing this number for ease of arithmetic, and named them after constellations found along this same pathway. There are more than twelve constellations, above the ecliptic, or straddling it or below it, but the zodiac signs named after them, recorded by Eudoxus of Cnidus and Ptolemy of Alexandria get their name from just twelve, again, for reasons of arithmetic.

Each zodiac sign represents a 30 degree section of this 360 degree belt. Each sign is then sub-divided into three blocks of ten degrees, roughly ten days in length. This gives us the decans of the zodiac, nicknamed ‘the thirty six faces of astrology.’ The decans break down each zodiac sign into three sub-chapters, shining extra light on the story.

First Decan Sagittarius

Sagittarius-Sagittarius

Dates: 22 November-30 November

Planetary rulers: Jupiter and Jupiter

Tarot card: Eight of Wands

Card Meanings: speed, changes, news, sudden developments, arrivals, departures or situations that may prove to be short lived- a ‘flash in the pan.’

Jupiter, planet of expansion, progress, ambition and optimism is both the ruler and sub-ruler of this decan. There is idealism and a love of knowledge here. Sagittarius-Sagittarius is an enthusiast for life, upbeat, spontaneous, and fun. They are highly competitive, and don’t like to lose, with intellectual capabilities of a high order and a keen sense of justice,

There is often a fascination with medicines, shamanism of any kind, and an interest in ancient cultures and their healing traditions. Sagittarius loves wide-open spaces, fresh air and being close to nature.

Sagittarius-Sagittarius is outgoing, yet actually rather private and reserved, not easy to get to know well. They can be the life and soul of the party, but when it comes down to it, they confide in very few.

Famous first decan Sagittarius subjects: Winston Churchill, Pablo Escobar, Tina Turner, CS Lewis, Britney Spears, Gianni Versace

Second Decan Sagittarius

Sagittarius-Aries

Dates: 1 December-11 December

Planetary rulers: Mars and Moon (Aries Triplicity)

Tarot card: 9 Wands

Card Meanings: courage, stamina, fortitude, stubbornness

Mars brings to this decan an adventurous spirit; energy, courage and ambition. This decan could be an explorer or adventurer, but does well in business and commerce with marked executive abilities. They are natural sportspeople or soldiers.

They are often highly physically attractive to others, and though they are reserved, and may even push people away, guarding their space, they are passionate when in love with a reputation as potential heartbreakers. They are also known for having a bit of a short fuse, and for bearing grudges.

They need to spend plenty of time outdoors and need lots of physical activity to be at their best.

Second Decan Sagittarius are kind and courageous, clever, good with their hands, quick with their minds, technically proficient, independent, and no matter how rough a time they are having, as with the first decan, they will usually keep that to themselves, showing their best face to the world.

Famous Second Decan Sagittarius subjects: John Kerry, Kirk Douglas, Jim Morrison, Tyra Banks, John Malkovich

Third Decan Sagittarius

Sagittarius-Leo

Dates: 12 December-21 December

Planetary ruler: The Sun and Saturn (Leo Triplicity)

Tarot card- Ten of Wands

Card Meanings: effort, determination, shouldering a burden, ‘going to town,’ ‘taking it to town.’

Ruled by the Sun, the centre of our solar system, this person is very much the centre of their own universe. There is a great love of change and a desire for reform. This decan is full of enterprise and novel ideas. They are realists, possibly cynics, but they are very much in tune with their instincts, and make great researchers, investigators or teachers.

They are not known for small talk. They say what they think, and this can give them a reputation for being rude or judgemental. They may have a dark sense of humour. But their sub-ruler, the Sun, which stands for warmth, pride and vitality, joining up with beneficent Jupiter means they have initiative combined with magnetism, and when they feel like it, a talent for making other people laugh. (Not that there was much funny about Stalin but, every zodiac sign has its seriously bad boys and girls)

Famous Decan 3 Sagittarius: Jane Austen, Beethoven, Nostradamus, Joseph Stalin, Steven Spielberg

The Cusps of Sagittarius

22 November- 25November

This earlier native has Scorpio qualities. Their ruling planets are Jupiter and Mars. They are courageous with great physical endurance. They tend to take on a lot of responsibility, maybe too much, which can load them down and hold them back. They take much care over their work, and have a vivid imagination but will voice share strong opinions, and though they are sensitive, they can be tactless, and in consequence are sometimes misunderstood.

19 December -21 December

This later native has Capricorn tendencies. Their ruling planets are Jupiter and Saturn. They are generally very good company, entertaining, easygoing, witty and well-informed although they sometimes rub other people up the wrong way. They will not hesitate to disagree with others, and will criticise other viewpoints. On the other hand, they have a strong sense of duty, they seldom betray a confidence and they don’t interfere in matters which don’t involve them directly.

Happy Birthday Sagittarius!

We can expect volcanic events this month, literally and metaphorically,

2022 is looking like a pretty good year for you, with bright prospects for work and finances, thanks to a big fat, optimistic Jupiter influence. Ambition and hard work really could pay off for you this coming year. Put your back into it, Ten of Wands style.

The ghost who came to tea

One day on a rather gloomy Saturday afternoon, late July 2007, my younger daughter went to a friend’s house for tea. It was the friend’s fourteenth birthday. The little girl, let’s call her Nadia, had, if I remember correctly missed a lot of school in recent months, due to health difficulties.

There were four girls altogether; and Nadia’s mother and father.

Nadia blew out the candles, and her mother was cutting the cake when the lights began to flicker out in the hallway, and the mother said, ‘oh, here we go again. You really need to come and see this, everyone.’

She shepherded them to the foot of the stairs, calling to the father in the sitting room, ‘it’s happening again!’

He grunted some reply over his newspaper but didn’t move to join them. My daughter didn’t hear what he said. There they stood, four girls and the mother as the lights flickered and then my daughter saw a man standing at the top of the stairs.

One minute, there was no-one there. The next, there he was, looking entirely solid and real as real; a young man with brown wavy hair, dressed in jeans and a pale yellow shirt.

They stood looking up. He was looking down as if looking at them, but gave no sign that he saw them, or any indication of being in any way aware of their presence.

Then, just like that, he disappeared as suddenly as he had appeared, and the lights stopped flickering.

Nadia explained, the family had been terrified when it first happened, and had asked the council to re-house them, but now they’d got used to it.

They had no idea who he was (or who he had been) But was he necessarily even dead, or was it some manifestation of astral travel…though transference on the part of the young man who had presumably, once lived in the house.

But because the hosts were so matter of fact about it, my daughter wasn’t frightened, though a little freaked out. Well, you would be, wouldn’t you.

“Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him well…”

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”- Hamlet

It’s like that old conundrum, does a falling tree make a noise if there is no-one there to hear it? It takes a living person to perceive a dead one, and in this case, if there was a conduit, or a conjuring, the Tarot suggests it was the father who was the psychic ‘enabler’ in this household, though it was completely unconscious on his part. Maybe he had been worried about his daughter’s health.

My reason for wondering was the appearance of the reserved, moody, kindly psychic King of Cups, a man of deep waters, particularly associated with mature males born under Pisces, Cancer and Scorpio.

The young man was shown as The Hanged Man, suggesting all manner of tragic possibilities.

I once did a reading for a young man, and this card appeared with other cards in a troubled picture that prompted me ask if a friend had died recently, and his friend had hanged himself, and he was hoping I could tell him.

I couldn’t. Nor would it have been right. He was not a family member. But no-one had realized he was so deeply depressed, and there was a strong sense of a secret, and a great fear this secret would be discovered.

The Hanged Man , it is important to note, almost never refers to suicide. But the Tarot can talk in absolutely literal terms, and does what it says on the tin, such that a card means exactly what it says in the picture.

Say I draw the Eight of Swords, for example. Most interpretations will talk about entrapment, helplessness, passivity, and so on. But I have learned through doing readings for other people, that tarot might well be telling me about a problem with someone’s plumbing or drains.

Yes, the Tarot talks toilets. Quite right too. It needs to go wherever someone needs it to go. Just as when you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go.

As the famous anchoress, and one of the earliest woman authors Julian of Norwich once put it, ‘God does not disdain to serve the body.’

It is thought that the Lady Julian kept a cat, shown here in a depiction in a roundel in Norwich cathedral, to hunt rodents, and this too, served the health of the body; hers and the cat’s.

Source: https://www.winged-heart.com/acatalog/copy_of_Cathedral___Angel.html

Am I saying the Tarot is God? Of course not. We are discussing the interconnectedness of the Everything, though I see no reason why God would be a man in the sky with a big white beard either, and if he is, does He need to go to the toilet?

The Hanged Man is ruled by Neptune – the suit of Cups again. This is a deep, Piscean card.

Once upon a time, the Tarot was saying, there was a young man who was very worried about his future. He felt somehow shut out from other people (The Five of Pentacles) But he couldn’t seem to make his mind up what to do or where to go next, or to muster the effort required. Maybe he managed it in the end. I feel that he did. But probably not undamaged.

Meanwhile, he had left his mark. This.

Surprisingly, only a small percentage of paranormal sightings are true ghosts. The majority of them are really sightings of what we call “residual energy” — when an emotional event is replayed over and over again, at the same spot, and at the same time. SOURCE link to SummitDaily

Maybe the young man was a complete stranger, or actually an echo of a living psyche, or if we want to go truly spiral, the ghost of the father himself as a very young man.

Welcome to The Twilight zone.

Who wants another piece of cake?

The Tarot, the Journey to the Valley and the day I met a dead man.

What is the valley of death? We know it as a poetic expression from the Bible, but what might it mean in reality? What is the limit of the definition of reality anyway, when it comes to the imponderables. In algebra, we have to rely on symbolic placeholders too, as in X and Y.

Is the valley of death a poetic description of the end of life experience, a final sensory experience, a vision explainable in terms of a firing-off of neurons by the dying brain, or could it be something more?

I do not advertise as a psychic or clairvoyant or a medium, but tarot readers may get listed as such because there is no separate listing for Tarot in the telephone directory.

But why don’t I advertise as such? Well, Tarot card reading for divination, strategy and support is the service I undertake to guarantee to deliver, as my professional promise, and this is the bottom line and this service depends on acquired skill underpinned by knowledge. OK. But am I psychic? Yes. So are you, most likely, but psychic insights and experiences happen when they happen. Like a wind that ‘bloweth as it listeth’ – psychic insights may be confidently expected, but cannot be guaranteed.

Learning how to read cards, or any other system of divination, although card reading can facilitate them however, as the reader goes down a rabbit-hole, descending into a sort of Hades, seeking to find the ‘right’ interpretation of the cards in any given context. A reader can be asked absolutely anything about anything, and can never prepare, but only prepare to respond.

Every reader has their own story to tell, about how and why they started to learn to do readings. It need not start with a history of psychic experiences. Not at all. But often, it does and in a way, it did with me

‘The Mind has many corridors’ wrote Emily Dickinson. The world is older and stranger, not only than we do imagine, but more than we can imagine.

All animals are pattern seekers, pattern makers or pattern breakers, whether in order to hunt or to hide. Man is hardwired for the power of pattern, and communicating pattern, and the meanings of pattern, and of breaks in pattern, is the eternal task of storytelling. Man – meaning all of Mankind- is a storytelling animal.

‘In the beginning was the Word’.

The Day I met a Dead Man

Many years before I ever so much as opened a pack of Tarot cards, to be grabbed by the art and story telling embedded in them, I met a dead man on the street, a stranger, though we didn’t so much meet. It was more of a case of receiving a summons.

Leicester, 1988. I had just had coffee with a friend I’d used to work with at the Costume Museum in Wygston’s House, now a restaurant. My friend had been the curator at that time and way, way back, the eponymous Roger Wygston had been a wealthy wool merchant and several times Mayor of Leicester.

“Roger Wygston was born about 1430. His father, William, made the family fortune from the wool trade in the first half of the 1400s. Roger was elected chamberlain in 1459 and mayor of Leicester in 1465, 1471 and 1487. He was Member of Parliament for Leicester in 1473 and 1488. He died at Whitsun 1507.” More HERE

I worked in a little room upstairs, putting the Museum’s collection records, index card system on to computers for the first time, and helped put together an exhibition telling the story of hosiery and featuring our star exhibit, a Coptic sock from about AD 400. It had a bifurcated foot and horizontal stripes in red, brown and green.

I had coffee and a catch up with my friend, and then we said goodbye. I had a legal appointment at the top end of New Walk at 2.00 PM.

There was a time I walked up and down New Walk almost every day, and I worked a short while in the Museum there too. The portico entrance seen here on the right. This one, Wygston’s House and others were all part of the Leicestershire Museums Service run by the County Council.

I was selling a house among other things, with a lot going on at this time, some of it stressful. Anyone reading this may dismiss the following account on those grounds if they feel so inclined. This would be a perfectly reasonable option, if personally somewhat uncomplimentary in relegating the writer to the role of unreliable narrator, but that would certainly be the easiest, least challenging take on it.

Hardly sooner had I set off walking heading off to this appointment than I began to feel peculiar. Not exactly unwell, but certainly not good. There was a crackling in my ears, white noise like an un-tuned radio. Spots started dancing in front of my eyes, fizzing red and black. My body felt weirdly heavy.

I had never fainted in my life to recognize what that felt like, but, thinking maybe I was about to faint, I decided to keep on walking, thinking it would clear my head. But I was unaccountably scrambled, disorientated.

I could not for the life of me, remember or think where I was supposed to be going. I was on autopilot.

My feet took charge, leading me as it were, one step in front of the other until only a few minutes later, I had crossed a busy street.

I followed a small pedestrianized back street round the curved back wall of what was still called Marks & Spencer then, now M & S and then I came to a standstill.

There was a man lying on his back in the narrow street, sprawled across the pavement. A paramedic was attempting resuscitation, another kneeling by them, a small crowd anxiously watching, an ambulance waiting, .

There he lay, defenseless against exposure; an older man, but not exactly elderly, his trousers unbuttoned and unzipped, showing purple underpants, while the paramedics worked on him. His purchases, a few oranges presumably just bought in the market, had rolled out of his striped canvas shopping bag, and into the gutter.

I kept a distance, standing alone, with a blindingly sudden feeling of certainty, a sensation of astonished comprehension, ‘oh, that’s why I came this way. He fetched me.’

The fog rolled back and now I remembered I was on my way to the New Walk. I was by no means far out of my way, but nor would I have naturally thought to come this way.

I knew it was no good them trying to resuscitate him. I remember thinking, ‘he’s not in there anymore’.

I had the feeling, not only was the man not in his body any more, he was standing close beside me, on my right.

I saw nothing, heard nothing and felt nothing in that moment except a pang on his account, but this, with a dissociated neutrality. I think perhaps I was a little shocked, but I wasn’t frightened, only sad, not so much at the suddenness of the man’s death, but that he was caught so unprepared, and was so very frightened, finding himself unable to get back in his body that he had sent an SOS and pulled me off my own path to bring me, a perfect stranger, to where he lay, so abruptly evicted from his own body in a city centre back street on a sunny day.

Photo by Merlin Lightpainting on Pexels.com

Maybe it works something like radio waves, and I happened to be in the right place at the right time, and I was tuned in on the right frequency, like the story of the haunted house in my previous post.

I talked to him, and told him he had done the hard bit, and not to try and get back in, that he’d had a most tremendous shock, but it was OK, it was all right, and there was somewhere else he needed to go now, but it was perfectly all right.

Had I thought of it I might have said a prayer. I’m not religious, but words have power across the boundaries of time and space, and who knows what other boundaries.

I reckon that the old Wakes, company, food, alcohol, song, were a wise tradition rooted in this ancient understanding. That the dead might need a bit of time to process what has happened. That they might need encouragement and reassurance before they set off on their lone but universal odyssey once more to greet the rising sun. Read Here about Wakes.

A friend of my mother’s once told her that she had not been close to her father. But after he died and she went to see the body and say goodbye, she thought his face did not look quite right. She felt he looked frightened. The mouth was twisted. She sang to him ‘The Lord Is My Shepherd’, and she thought he must have heard her, because his mouth relaxed, and all at once his face looked quite different.

Some go swiftly and easily through the Valley. Others, not so.

The archangels Uriel and Michael are psychopomps; escorting the dead as they ascend back up to the heavens via the Gate of the Gods in the constellation of Capricorn.

In Greek and Roman mythology, the god Hermes or Mercury, would escort the souls to the banks of the River Acheron, or The Styx if you prefer, to wait for Charon the Ferryman and the crossing to the Isle of the Dead and the Fields of Asphodel.

Wiki: Psychopomps (from the Greek word ψυχοπομπός, psychopompós, literally meaning the ‘guide of souls’)^[1] are creatures, spirits, angels, or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afterlife. Their role is not to judge the deceased, but simply to guide them.

23 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.²He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.³He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. ⁴Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.⁵Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.⁶Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

But I didn’t think of that. I was young, inexperienced in such things, too astonished and unprepared. So that was all I said to him, and then I went on my way and I put it out of my mind for a long time to come.

But I hope that he did hear me, however inadequate the response, if only to know that yes, he might have left his body, but he still existed and he stil lhad agency.

The living were still trying to help him, and though they could neither bring him back nor accompany him on his forward journey, whatever that might be, still, he had sent out a distress signal, and someone had received it and responded.