Let’s look at today’s general Tarot card, drawn for the collective. Is this just my own stuff? Could be. Context is key for getting at a specific prediction, and that context is driven by a question. But it is frequently the case, that when one is reading for a client, there can be an eerie synchronicity between what is pressing or timely for the client, and what is going on around the reader. Perhaps we are more connected, more like birds or bees than we may care to recognize.
What the reader is trying to do in such a broad reading as this is, simply to hold up a mirror and breathe on it, trying to get a sense of a prevailing wind or “zeitgeist.”
The card for today is the Six of Swords.The wind today could be described as a psychic easterly. Bracing or invigorating, take your pick. This is one of the several cards in the tarot deck that that fits Aquarius timing in a reading where one is trying to guess at when something may happen. (The others are The Star, The King, Queen, Knight or Page of Swords or the Five or Seven of Swords)
Of course we are not in Aquarius territory yet. Soon. Not yet. We are still in the second decan of Capricorn, associated with the industrious, artistic and dedicated Three of Coins, as illustrated here in the Legacy of The Divine Tarot. Mars in Capricorn gives us an energy boost between now and around 13 February. Things get done.
Be that as it may. The Six Swords correlates with the fixed air sign of Aquarius and it denotes a solemn journey. This journey may occur in the aftermath of disaster and bereavement. For instance,it may describe a funeral procession. More generally, we may be decided to turn our back on an unhappy situation, cutting our losses, setting our faces to the future, taking the helm of our own “ship.”
At close personal quarters, this card can also be saying, “tell the truth and shame the devil.” Lies do damage and create waste. They are a waste of precious time and they are disrespectful. The Six Swords seeks to limit past damage, asserting our common drive for dignity, independence and personal sovereignty.
The Six Swords may be perfectly neutral. For instance, it may simply denote long distance/remote study or a cruise or other journey of exploration. Or it can be flagging up issues or activities to do with buying/sorting out/upgrading our I.T.
But in both metaphysical and in literal physical terms, with the Six of Swords we see a voyage. There is forward movement, where with a card such as the Eight of Swords or the Four of Cups there is no movement.
In current affairs, we need no tarot cards to show us that these are tense times with looming standoffs, confrontations or military conflicts impending in the world’s major shipping lanes, most acutely, between now and mid February. But here, we are using the cards to check out the phenomenon of synchronicity in mirroring what we know to be the case.
Prediction follows on from this initial mirroring.
The Six of Swords can specifically indicate
a) a military threat, health threat or the aftermath of such
and
b) shipping or cruising.
The Red Sea is perhaps foremost in our awareness at this time, but tensions in other maritime zones have not gone away in the Black Sea, the Strait of Hormuz, South China Sea or the Strait of Taiwan.
Likewise, depending on the deck we are using, the Six of Swords shows refugees in search of safety. It shows migration and displacement, and we may see more or particular big news of this kind around the time of Pluto’s first entry into Aquarius this year, 20 January – 1 September 2024.
Economic migration is a political hot potato, only set to grow hotter during this time frame. The suit of Swords deals with legalities and documentation, which suggests the introducing of new processes in the UK and perhaps many other countries this year, affecting travel, outside and beyond the contentious issues of migration and emigration.
This all sounds potentially gloomy if not dire. BUT the Six of Swords is one of the most constructive cards in the challenging suit of Swords. Its keywords include recovery, healing, learning, study, travel, momentum and above all, progress. If you or a loved one have been sick, there can be few better cards indicative of improvements, bar the Ace, Knight, or Page of Cups.
Let’s take a quick look at the Numerology of 2024. The key numbers of this year are 2, 0, 4 and 8. Why 8? This is the number we get when we add up the digits. You’ll notice we have a dominance of even numbers: 2, 4 and 8; all of them divisible by 2.
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This is all about creating or protecting our stability during a time of great shifts, but the 0 stand for the wild cards at work in our lives. Births and rebirths, literally or metaphorically. Zero is the most numinous number, or non-number. Originally invented as a placeholder, The Fool card in the Tarot stands for Wyrd or Destiny, and is the greatest mystery of all the cards in the deck.
The Major Arcana card representing the Number 8 is Strength. This card correlates with Leo, which like Aries, is also ruled by Mars. This card stands for health, strength and courage. This is both physical and moral strength, resilience and fortitude, the kind that says we don’t give up. The one who wins is the last one standing. “Tomorrow is another day.”
There are no easy answers. We will all be tested this coming year, guaranteed, and this will be collectively and personally. This is not a quiet cycle we are in, the whole world is feeling it, and we may not come out of this cosmic wash-cycle that began in 2019/2020 until February 2026 when Saturn quits Pisces for the final time in this current cycle of transits.
When I look at Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy, time and again I draw The Hanged Man reversed, signifying either significant Pisces timing and/or an unwanted compromise that is ultimately reached. This card of Pisces points out that Saturn moved into Pisces in March 2023 and does not finally move out of Pisces until February 2026. This does not mean the war can’t end sooner. The Hanged Man could indicate Pisces season 2025, possibly triggered by events around the time of the eclipse in Libra season 2024. As ever, only time will tell. The reader is always “looking in the glass darkly.”
I have been struck by the physical resemblance to Zelenskyy of this card from The Tarot Illuminati deck. This card below, I drew in a reading for Zelenskyy back in March 2022. I was looking to see if Russia would succeed in assassinating him, as we understood Russia was trying to do at that time, and the feeling was no. The cards showed he will come through all this, but emerge a very different man. Not defeated, not diminished but disappointed. Reading between the lines, Russia’s President Putin will get away with far more than justice says he rightfully should, although much less than he wants.
We are all desperate to see an end to the darkness of the wholesale horror we are witnessing in Ukraine and in Gaza. There could be crucial turning points in these and other conflicts (and also in personal matters) around 14 February, around the solar eclipse of 8 April, during Leo/Virgo season- July and August, and again, around the solar eclipse in Libra, 2 October (ruled by Venus, cards 2/3 Swords- diplomacy/severance) and again towards the end of the year in Sagittarius around Christmas Eve, 24 December 2024, though this last date could likewise prove very tricky.
My cards have not so far seen a second term of office for Donald Trump. I first looked at this in 2021, looking to see signs of a second term after the Capitol Riot.
But nor are they showing me a second term for Joe Biden. I will be looking more closely at this later, as will twenty gillion other readers and astrologers. Some Vedic astrologers do say it will be Trump.
May-June could prove the most productive and easygoing months this coming year when Jupiter moves from productive Taurus into agile arch-communicator Gemini.
The April solar eclipse in Aries suggests a window of opportunity, bold decisions finding ways forward, and at a personal level for any of us, but especially for the Aries native or those with Aries rising, brave new initiatives in prospect.
The tarot card of this eclipse at 19 degrees of Aries is the expansive, outgoing and far seeing Three of Wands.
The possible negative interpretation of this card is the clear and present danger and obvious potential in 2024 for an escalation of maritime aggression in any of these areas: the Black Sea, the Red Sea, the Straits of Hormuz, in the South China Sea or the Straits of Taiwan.
This is a twitchy year and the very end of the year may prove the trickiest time.
Image from The Legacy of The Divine Tarot.
First comes the vision, but planning, co-operation and timing is everything. We are equal to these challenges, and we can achieve more by approaching our most personal problems with an attitude of kindness and respect. The lady in the Strength card does not subdue the lion by killing it. This card references an old story, Una and the Lion from Edmund Spenser’s 16th-century poem The Faerie Queen. Una is the daughter of a king and queen who have been imprisoned by a dragon. Most unfortunate.
Una undertakes a quest to free her parents, but on her journey she encounters a lion. Rather than eating her, the lion is so captivated by Una’s innocence that he follows her instead, accompanying her as a protector, and in the painting by William Bell Scott, Una gently rests her fingers in the lion’s mane, as they make their way together through the autumnal wood.
But the lion is not going her to kill her, either. She calms its threat by holding her nerve, moving decisively but quietly, and using a carefully measured restraint with the lightest touch.
Image from The Gilded Tarot.
This is a year of gravitas. We are changing, and we are feeling that change. There is a sense of a greater self discipline, but also striking out in a new direction, expanding our lines of vision, enlarging our horizons as per the Three of Wands. We are starting new things or revisiting old things and re-imagining them anew.
These are just seeds or buds in 2024. We won’t see the results this year, but we are changing direction. The particular nature of this, and the life departments it will affect will depend on our own natal charts.
Jupiter is on our side in 2024, and he can be a big old bully. But Jupiter is also “the bringer of jollity.” People need to eat, but they also need beauty. They need laughter and they need other people. Jupiter keeps it large, and Jupiter in Gemini can be a big fat beautiful butterfly, the symbol of Psyche, the soul.
Airy, breezy, airy pollinator of renewal of the richness of the earth of Taurus, Jupiter enters Gemini 25 May 2024 and stays there until 9 June 2025. This can be all manner of good news, with April, May and June are the most promising months for communications, networking, teaching, publishing, business, study, travel and progress in the most general terms.
Jupiter in Gemini is endlessly curious and enquiring. Jupiter is however, in detriment in Gemini, meaning that Jupiter is opposite the sign of Sagittarius where it is exalted (most naturally at home.)
There could, in politics and geo-political conflicts, be a lot of dithering, delaying and fair- weathering.
But even so, Jupiter in Gemini may bring better things to the world, while the Aries Eclipse in April is an even bigger hitter this year. Big and brave. What brave new stories shall you be creating this coming year?
We are about to leave the season of Sagittarius, entering the celestial territory of Capricorn 22 December 2023.
The astrological sun sign of Sagittarius the Archer represents the elemental power of Mutable Fire. The sun sign of Sagittarius is represented in the Tarot deck by the Knight of Wands, generally signifying an explosive speed of travel, attack, or action, or, whether these things are connected or not, a string of beacons. Passing of messages. The Ace of Wands is the Divine Spark. Inspiration, vision and philosophy. The Knight comes and goes without warning. Changeable states. Well, blow me down, if this depiction of Sir Knight Sagittarius does not actually show a volcano spewing magma.
In Sagittarius season 2021 the La Palma eruption became the longest running on the island. Then in Java, Mount Semeru erupted 4 December 2021, spilling out a deadly pyroclastic flow with tragic consequences and widespread disruption.
So far, the latest ongoing volcanic eruption in Iceland is not declared to be a danger to life. May this continue. The Earth itself is always restless but currently more unsettled than “normal.” Perhaps it is little wonder that we are too. The world is never quiet, never at peace. It is always relative. But we are in a particularly unsettled geomagnetic cycle. Solar Cycle 25 is turning out much stronger than predicted. Read more about that here
On a mundane level I have known this card to alert me, correctly, to client problems with travel plans, with boilers, cars and central heating. I have known it to advise me, correctly, that a client is struggling with liver problems, or with side effects of medication which are having an adverse effect on the liver. Why might that be, I wondered, deducing it was because the liver is a powerhouse, aka the engine room of the body’s metabolism.
Meanwhile we are witnessing horrible terrible events; man-made fire raining down relentlessly on the heads of the defenseless masses in Ukraine and Gaza.
None of this is to say that the month of the zodiac sign of Sagittarius= volcano eruption month. This would be a false equation. Nevertheless, we do say “as above, so below.”
And as within, so without.
And here it is. A tarot card specifically correlating with the dates 22 November-21 December and we are looking at vulcanicity in full flow. The oddity, the sheer symbolic synchronicity of Sagittarius as the vulcan archer of Fire in 2021, and now again in 2023 may be mutable as we segue between seasons.
IMG Abstract: Sagittarius. Own image in watercolour and pen
We’re in the second decan for just a few more days, till the New Moon in Sag 12 December, represented in Tarot by the Nine of Wands.
The keywords here are vigilance and stamina. This figure, stalwart but injured, is resting, battle weary. The second decan Sagittarius native is quick of mind, good with their hands, adventurous, technically proficient, Sagittarius-Aries fire. More generally, this card says we would rather not go it alone. But we’ll do it if we have to. Oh yes. And we’re not done. Oh no. We’re still standing, and we are standing by. Sentinels. Watchmen. Ready. You won’t catch us with our guard down.
Neptune has gone direct in Pisces as of 6 December, having been retrograde since 30 June. We might have been having some mighty odd and vivid dreams just lately. In my own case, there has been a rather entertaining spate of dreams involving raccoons popping up in odd places, possibly reflecting symbolically tricky dealings to do with certain matters. The raccoon can warn against dealing with tricky people and those who aren’t dealing straight with us, wearing its little bandit mask. The raccoon has positive associations too, of course. The raccoon is agile, and endlessly resourceful.
But it’s curious where these things come from. And I wouldn’t mind but we don’t even have raccoons where I am (in the UK, North West W England) I can’t just put it down to watching nature programmes on the box either.
Things have been heavy going in recent months for almost anyone. Something has been weighing heavy on our minds for some time. Problems for which there can be no solutions as such. We’ve just had to do the best we can, maintaining a holding position, and trying meanwhile not to make matters worse.
The New Moon in Sagittarius 12 December suggests new possibilities, and a clearer way ahead. And don’t we all wish that for the whole wide world. Looking into my cards for 2024 there are no clear signs of a lasting resolution in the dreadful conflicts and events in Ukraine and in Gaza. Though there are windows of opportunity, and perhaps I will write more about that later.
But right here, right now, says this card is our individual power of action in our own, personal battles.
The New Moon on the 12 December is in 20 degrees of Sagittarius. We might get the strong urge to go somewhere new, learn something new, change our horizons, however vicariously. Even reading a book is a form of travel. Reading rolls up telepathy, mind reading, space travel and time travel all in one page. Each page a magic carpet.
There are so many sad events, and we might well ask ourselves, what use is philosophy? What use is poetry? (Or Tarot)
We are made that way. Words can lift us up. Why else do we conjure special words for births and weddings and funerals? Words are invocations. Words are comforters. They can help us readjust and regain our equilibrium when everything is dark. Words contain the magical power of Wyrd. We get the word weird from Wyrd, meaning mystery and destiny.
Word. Weird, Wyrd. They are all the same thing.
“I will lift mine eyes up to the hills from whence cometh my help.”
-Psalm 121
The higher we can go, the more bearable or at least, immediately manageable things are when the going is really tough. We don’t have to be religious to feel the truth of this.
“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow (on his pipe. “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails.”
A Mars cazimi is happening Friday 17 November, when Mars conjuncts the Sun in the night sky to within around 1 degree, seen close to Capella, aka the Goat Star in the constellation of Auriga, The Charioteer. Mars is the traditional ruler of (cardinal fire sign) Aries and (fixed water sign) Scorpio in Western/Tropical astrology while the Goat star, Capella, was regarded by the ancients as an omen of high renown.
Via Wiki: Capella is the brightest star in the constellation of Auriga (upper left).
Cazimi comes from the Arabic word word “kaṣmīmī ” which in turn is thought to have evolved from the Greek “kardia” meaning “in the heart” – or in this context translating as, “in the heart of the sun.”
Mars rises at the core. What are our core objectives right now? What are our core values?
This Mars Cazimi marks the start of a new 2 year Mars cycle for each of us, upping the ante wherever it happens to be sitting in your own birth chart. In which astrological House might that be for you?
Mars initiates. It is ardent, proud, fierce and above all pro-active. Living it large. In Tarot, Mars may be expressed through drawing The Tower card, The Emperor or the Death card (modern ruler Pluto) and the potential for destruction could not be plainer, as we are witnessing right now in tragic real time world events.
The Tower card represents shocks and storms, both literally and metaphorically. It may describe or detect collapse. Forthcoming explosions. It tears things down whether for good or ill.
The Tower from the Golden Tarot, Emperor from the Legacy of The Divine Tarot and Death card from the Rider Waite
The Emperor of Aries season is law and order on the one hand. Wise governance. Or conquest, excess, tyranny and cruelty or maladministration on the other. Note the Aries Ram’s horns adorning his throne.
Aries is headstrong. In medical astrology it rules the health of the head and brain. When ill aspected it may warn against an excerbated risk of accidents and injuries caused by a) speed b) fire.
The homeopathic tissue salt of Aries is Kali Phos, Potassium phosphate, used as a “coolant” or calming agent on the nervous system.
From The Rider Waite Tarot deck
The Death card of Scorpio, ruled by Mars and Pluto, may, and sometimes does refer, not only to the idea of human mortality, but to the death of someone in the literal physical sense, but more generally stands for any and all kinds of endings. The end of a situation or a job, or relationship, and in this context,the Death card may be a welcome sign of much needed change.
The homeopathic cell salt of Scorpio is Calc Sulph, Calcium Sulphate, used as a cleanser of “overheated” blood for removal of pus, fever and other manifestations of infection, or strain upon the liver and gallbladder .
From the Rider-Waite Tarot deck
The world stage is non stop fieriness between now and the spring/vernal equinox 2024 – bookmarked by entry into ARIES. Even though the spring equinox in 2024 technically occurs during the last day of Pisces season, 20 March, still, the spring equinox is associated with Aries, while there is also the solar eclipse in Aries on April 8 2024 to be factored in here, signifying monumental Mars type events, though I do not personally detect any sign of an impending WW3.
Mars Cazimi is warrior energy. But it is more innocently, newborn optimism. The ebullient primal energy of the first ram lamb of spring. New things. Young energy. Birth itself is a fierce act, whatever kind of birth it may be; a person, an animal, a nation state, a business, or some great creative work; a building, a bridge, a machine, or a work of art, music or literature.
Life, as Professor Malcolm so famously put it in Jurassic Park, “finds a way.” And Mars in Aries MAKES a way, charging headlong, while Mars right now in Scorpio is steaming and blasting or plotting its way through opposition.
The Aries lamb can kill you once it grows to be a ram. It’s not personal. You got in its way and you were on its own territory. If it knocks you down, then stay down, and chances are it will wander off. Unlike the Scorpion which may bide it’s time and catch you later unawares. Both are the faces of Mars.
Where the passion is, and the will-power of Mars, then, like it or not, whether by playing fair or foul, the thing gets done.
The zodiac sign of the Scorpion is also a symbol of rebirth. Another face of Scorpio is the Phoenix. Maps get redrawn. Life is for living and while we live, we can still arise and act to launch or build anew.
That’s the wind now blowing through. We can stand foursquare in our power, raise the roof, blast free and shake off the dust during this Mars Cazimi. If we have been stuck, it looks as though we are going to get ourselves unstuck during the next two years.
Once more unto the breach.
“Happiness we can only find in ourselves, it is a waste of time to seek for it from others, few have any to spare. Sorrow we have to bear alone as best we can, it is not fair to try to shift it on others, be they men or women. We have to fight our own battles and strike as hard as we can, born fighters as we are.”
–Axel Munthe, The Story of San Michele
Bon courage! Let us discover what new things we shall do and build and make over the next two years, driven by that adrenaline of this incoming Mars Cazimi in Scorpio season 2023, and thank you for reading.
The old Norse rune associated with this Mars Cazimi is Tiwaz, associated with Tyr, the god who gave his name to Tuesdays, signifying war, justice, nobility and physical and moral courage.
The rune Tiwaz is reputed to bring good luck in health and legal matters
Tyr put his hand in the mouth of the giant wolf, Fenrir, as surety, and then Fenrir permitted himself to be chained. But when Fenrir discovered he had been tricked and would not be released, he bit off the hand of Tyr,who had known this would happen. But the wolf had to be tricked and bound, or he would have devoured the Sun itself. Perhaps this myth was inspired by the fear of a total solar eclipse.
Tyr matches courage with duty and integrity.
Artist John Bauer, 1911
May Tyr be with us, and may Fenrir never break his chains.
No sooner had I posted this article on Substack about the equinox, the harvest festival of Michaelmas, the archangel Michael and his colours of brightest cobalt blue, than my eye was caught by a movement through the sitting room window; the most amazing, brightest electric blue dragonfly out over the pond. So huge that I did a double take, thinking perhaps it was a bird. But there is no bird so blue, or not round here.
Only a kingfisher could be so blue, and I have seen one here before. But no, back it came again. An electric blue dragonfly, an insect warrior spirit, the fiercest hunter on the pond. It begins by hunting underwater in its larval state, and it is lethal, and then, once fledged, is a supreme hunter by air over water. Lethal beauty.
There are many dragonflies here during the summer months, some blue, others golden or pale yellow. But not usually so late in the year.
But I had literally, just moments, before hit the publish button on a piece about the harvest festival of Michaelmas, and the archangel Michael and his armour of brightest blue. The closeness of this timing struck me as odd, or was it a real time synchronicity?
Dragonfly symbolism says that the dragonfly represents change, transformation and maturity, while blue is the colour of serenity, insight and inspiration.
A blue dragonfly is a message from a higher realm, possibly angelic, and is a message that a loved one is at peace. In my case, this would be my darling, mighty little mother who died 27 February on a night when the Northern Lights were seen the length of the British Isles, and we could hear the hooting of short eared owls outside the bedroom window. Two treatments of IV antibiotics had failed to stop pneumonia, and now, in accordance with her wishes, she had been brought home on what they termed “end of life care.”
(The hospital ward was bedlam on occasion, but in general the NHS were wonderfully kind,quick and efficient at this,her time of extremis)
So now I drew a Tarot card. What was the ‘message’ of the dragonfly? And by extension, what was the ‘message’ from Michael, archangel of the South, whose name means, ‘who is like God’?
A warrior of Air, a gigantic human dragonfly, an armed angel wearing blue.
Astrologically, this card classically represents a man belonging to one of the air signs, particularly the fixed sign of Aquarius, though he may be a Gemini or Libra subject. Volodymyr Zelenskyy is an Aquarius sun sign subject. Donald Trump is a Gemini sun sign subject. Now we are in Libra territory. My spouse, Il Matrimonio is a Libra sun sign subject, and served in the UK military a long time ago, and served as a helicopter pilot in the Army Air Corps. Vladimir Putin is a Libra sun sign native, though his year of birth is uncertain, whether it is 1952 as officially stated or 1950.
This king’s natural ruling element is Air.
Attack by air may mean missiles, with an eye to Crimea or The Black Sea, though I fear we won’t see an end to this war in Ukraine in 2023. I don’t know, of course, but Scorpio or Sagittarius timing is looking more likely to me right now as viewed through the cards, late in 2024, and I pray that this is wrong.
But ‘attack by air’ may just as likely mean a political battle of wills, or misinformation, or airborne infections. My brother has covid now for the third time, though in his case it is only unpleasant and not dangerous, and he has had some, but not all of the boosters.
Many years ago I was diagnosed with a leaky aortic heart valve, now diagnosed as heart failure, and earlier this week had a scan, pending analysis and feedback from the cardiologist (The King of Swords can indicate a surgeon or surgery.)
I have lived with all this a long time. I am not alarmed, and whatever the findings, will not be rushed or pressured in respect of decision making.
Beyond the sun sign meanings associated with this blue human dragonfly, Aquarius rules the astrological Eleventh House of Community, ideas, science. IT and technology. More big news in the space industry any time soon, then.
The message of Archangel Michael, the coincidental dragonfly, and then the King of Swords can be seen and understood equally as something or nothing.
The broadest meaning of the message, whether this is understood as being meant for me personally, or for the wider collective at this turbulent time seems to be,
The Truth will come to light. Confusions will come clear.
Coping strategies: keep your eyes open and keep your cool, no matter what. This way, we can avoid making anything worse. Hold your temper, your tongue and your nerve. Do your research. In the meantime, tread lightly, if decisively. No going stamp-about in the face of provocation. Stand your ground but go high, stay high. Do not buckle. But do buckle up. Not because of any imminent threat, but simply because life right now demands more resilience than it has done at other times.
The dragonfly is a promise of change. A blue dragonfly is change for the better. And on a personal note, I know my mother has reached and attained the wild blue yonder. I felt her, saw her go through the valley on the tenth day after her passing. What she was looking at now, I have to say, looked rather like North Yorkshire, and she was looking away from me, looking up and smiling, clouds chasing the sunshine across the hills.
A rather down to earth vision of paradise, one might feel. Limited perhaps by my own imagination. How do we picture what is so very far beyond our ken? But my mother used to say of herself, that she was all her life, a child of the Pennines. She grew up in Lancashire and used to say the people of Lancashire were peculiarly and particularly warm and kindly. After her children had all left home, she lived her last thirty years and died in her home in Teesdale, on the south bank of the river Tees, marking the old limits of North Yorkshire (and the people of Yorkshire do like to say of Yorkshire that it is God’s own country.)
But to return to that blue dragonfly, and the archangel Michael and his battle with The Devil is above all, a liar, and he is not our friend. Whatever entraps us, takes us into dependency, helplessness or obsession-whether it is our own worst fears, or our deepest desires; whether it is to do with another person, or situation, or a substance addiction, it is not our friend.
See the chains around their necks.
We will all die one day, ain’t that the truth. And people that we love will die before us, and we shall bear witness to their passing, and be left to grieve and mourn their absence, but to be grateful that they were here, and that we knew them, and that now they have gone free and gone forward.
The truth is sometimes painful, but it sets us free, so goes the wise old saying. Michael went into battle with Lucifer in defense of God’s Law, and Humankind. His element is fire, the ultimate fire of creation, and his weapon is the sword of truth.
The battle angel Michael offers safe escort to the souls of the newly dead on their journey back home to the origins of everything beyond the stars.
His colours are blue. It might be any colour of blue, but in battle array, he wears the hottest cobalt blue.
The Lion’s Gate Portal is an astronomical event that happens every year when Sirius, Earth, and the Orion constellation are all in alignment with each other. This happens every year between July 28 and August 12, and reaches its peak of closest alignment on August 8 (8/8) when in the northern hemisphere we see the brilliant star Sirius on the eastern horizon before dawn. Sirius has been out of sight since early in the spring.
But now it is rising again.
The Lion’s Gate Portal is seen by many as a particularly auspicious portal in time, but auspicious for what? Action, that’s the theory. Any action tending towards conquest, achievement or the creation of something new- and lasting.
But how and why?
Sirius, the brightest star in our galaxy, the Milky Way, is the stellar cornerstone.
Here, the photographer has captured Sirius hanging low; a brilliant blue white star, apparently following along behind the constellation of Orion, the Hunter.
The name Sirius comes from the Greek and means “scorching” or “glowing.” Its other names, Canis Major, or the Dog Star, derive from the ancient Greek myth that says that once upon a time Sirius was one of the two hunting dogs of Orion. (The other is the Little or Lesser Dog, Canis Minor.)
Wiki
See Orion running out of the right hand side of the picture? See the Belt of Orion, and the sword hanging down (or the hunting knife) and three stars that make up the belt; Alnilam, Alnitak and Mintaka? See Betelgeuse, the bright red giant star of his right shoulder? Some sources call it the left shoulder- it depends how you picture The Hunter. Do you see him with his back to you, or do you see him swaggering past, moving left -right with his face in partial profile?
Now see the brilliant white orb of Sirius, running along behind the Hunter?
As a girl I would go outside to the coal bunker (yes, coal) on a clear winter’s night, and fill up the coal scuttle for the fire, and look up and wonder where Orion was running to, with Sirius bounding along behind him.
Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky- within the Milky Way- and about 8.6 light years away from earth and is actually a double star, Sirius Alpha and Sirius Beta. Sirius Alpha is much brighter than the dwarf Sirius Beta, and has twice the mass of our own Sun.
We don’t know if there are planets in the Sirius star system, and it’s possible, there may actually be three, not two stars in the system but we don’t know for sure.
To the people of ancient Egypt, the return of Sirius was a welcome sign that the Nile flood was on its way, ending the long season of drought, when desperate desert lions would come looking for water in plain sight of the city walls.
This was an anxious time of year. No Nile flood in the seasonal time frame of Leo meant famine. The dawn re-appearance of Sirius was a welcome sign that the worst of the drought was now in sight, and the farmers all along the Nile- and everyone else -waited expectantly, almost holding their breath.
The auspicious star of Sirius was associated with the goddess Sopdet, the fertility goddess of the Nile, correlating with deities of other societies and other times; Isis/Ishtar and Demeter, as represented in the tarot deck by the Empress card.
Wiki
The Zodiac/Celestial Zoo
“As above so below,” the saying goes. But – and perhaps this is being pedantic- “as below, so above,” was how these ancient stories first began.
Astrology, astronomy, cosmology; it all started right where we stood. Some might say, what’s the fuss, any of this astrology stuff. It’s all just random patterns in the sky. But that’s exactly the point. We are a hunting animal. We are a pattern seeking animal. We look for patterns in everything, and we ascribe meaning to those patterns. In time, the pattern and the meaning become conjoined. Hardwired. They are now archetypes, and are part of our ancient collective algorithm, so to speak, lending themselves to anticipation, planning- and potentially, prediction.
People looked up, saw patterns, saw life on earth mirrored in the stars, gave them names. “Ooh, look up at that, will ya? Do you see it too? I can see a crouching ram!”
(If you say so) The brightest star shown here at the bottom is Hamal, the head of the Ram.
Shepherds in the Near and Middle East, looked up at the starry skies, watching their precious flocks by night and pictured the star Hamal as the head of the Ram, critically noting that it was always’seen’ overhead at lambing time. They saw that those patterns repeated over and over. And so in time we got Aries -and by a similar approach- all the rest of the zodiac pantheon based on the 12 constellations visible within a narrow arc of sky, the imaginary pathway known as the ecliptic.
The word “zodiac” comes from the Greek meaning “circle of animals.” The only non-living symbol in the astrological Zodiac is the scales of Libra, but even these are formed from the same stars that make up the claws of Scorpio, the celestial scorpion next door.
The Lion
The Gilded Tarot
My darling mother, a Capricorn sun sign native, first decan, and with a massive dose of Sagittarian vision and curiosity; beautiful, brave, self-reliant, wise, witty, and above all, a most determined person, was saying to me, not long before she died in February this year, that there was this theme tune on the box that made the hairs on her neck stand up every time she heard it.
She had been watching that drama series, Versailles, on the box. The theme tune was Outro by M83, as also used in the movie, Cloud Atlas, based on the novel by David Mitchell.
“I’m the king of my own land Facing tempests of dust, I’ll fight until the end Creatures of my dreams, raise up and dance with me Now and forever I’m your king!”
-(Outro- M83)
Listen here– as being used as the score for a film, “Melancholia” by Lars von Trier. (Don’t be thrown by the really long pause in the introduction.)
She greatly admired, and had a great sympathy with lionesses, for their courage, but also for their incredible devotion, duty and unselfishness, she said.
Number 8
The Lions’ Gate portal is a cosmic, and perhaps karmic expression of the power of the number 8.
The number eight is like a lemniscate- a symbol of infinity, only now it’s standing upright. Note the lemniscate above the head of the figure with the lion in the Rider-Waite tarot deck.
The Strength card in the Tarot is major arcana number 8. The Strength card is about moral fortitude and stamina as much as it is about physical strength and courage.
Strength is self- mastery. Self-control. Taming the inner lion. Leo rules the heart, and the passions of the heart.
The word ‘Karma’ means ‘action’. This is read by some as a celestial signal for Action. Plan, execute, and materially manifest. The glory and the grandeur of the Lion contain on occasion something lonely and forlorn.
For folk not familiar with a tarot deck, in a 78 card deck of cards deck we have five cards that bear the number 8. Besides the Strength card, major arcana 8, we also have 4 minor arcana cards bearing the number 8
(22 Major arcana cards=greater secrets or mysteries. 56 Minor arcana cards =lesser secrets or mysteries, but these are no less important in any reading)
We have:
8 of Cups (Pisces)- acceptance of disappointment in developments, walking away
8 of Swords-Gemini- mental impasse, drama, entrapment, indecision, refusal to face a problem
8 Wands -Sagittarius- speed of developments, generation of news and activities
These apparently immovable number eights all belong to the MUTABLE signs of the zodiac- the signs where one season gradually merges into another.
8 of Cups= Pisces, winter becomes spring, 8 Swords= Gemini, and spring becomes summer, 8 Pentacles, Virgo, summer becomes autumn/fall, and 8 Wands= Sagittarius, when autumn now segues into winter.
The eights are mutable, twining, stable because symmetrical and yet subtle, complex, shifting.
There are no easy answers in life. The miracle is that we are here at all. But we do know from all the entire known history of the human species that the experience of happiness is found through a sense of connection with others. Who wants a paradise all to themselves and all alone, except in small doses? The misanthropes can object all they like.
We were never meant to be a solitary animal, any more than the lion, who suffers trauma as a young adult male; when he leaves the pride aged two or three.He must leave or else he will be driven out, to go and fight for, and create his own pride; exiled from his home turf and everyone he has always known.
The lionesses do the dangerous work of hunting. But the lion controls the territory and all its resources on behalf of the pride.
We want- we need- to share our joys and sorrows alike. Part of the tapestry of all Humanity. But we come in alone. We leave alone. And sooner or later, if we are ever to become The Lion, then at some point, we will have to face- and outface- and defy- “tempests of dust.”
The zodiac sign of Leo rules the human heart. Leo can be loud. The dreams are big and bold. But Leo understands what it is to be lonely- or simply alone.
But like the lion in exile, who must fight tooth and claw for his own patch of turf, for his place in the world, for his chance of founding a pride of his own, and for his very survival, we will and must sometimes stand alone, in rising to meet a challenge.
Harvest Moon, Samuel Palmer,1833, Yale Center for British Art via Wikimedia Commons
Today, 1 August 2023, marks the start of Lammas, or “Loaf Mass”, marking the start of the Anglo-Saxon harvest season as first recorded in the 10th century.
Word origins Old English hlaf, ‘loaf’ and mæsse, ‘mass.’
Neo-Pagans and many others see Lammas as being one and the same marker in the calendar as an older pre-christian Celtic festival, Lughnasadh (pronounced Loo-na-sa), named for Lugh Celtic god of justice, victory, statecraft, crafts and the harvest. Lugh was widely worshipped in Europe before the advent of Christianity.
This connection seems entirely likely, though there is apparently no known surviving documentary evidence.
We are at the height of summer and now at harvest time we are entering the final stretch, but Haer-fest/harvest was the Old English word for autumn. August was also known in Old English as “weed month” (Weodmonað) meaning the month of long grasses. This didn’t necessarily suggest unwanted plants, only plants that were wild and uncultivated one, and this time of year is prime growing season as gardeners can attest.
Around 7 August is the half way point between the summer solstice and the autumn/fall equinox.
The Tarot cards associated with August are Strength (Leo), the Six of Wands, the Seven of Wands (Leo decans), the Eight of Pentacles (the first decan of Virgo) and The Empress, manifesting as Harvest goddess/Ceres/Demeter.
She is the principle of creation. Fertility. She is all things female. She is all mothers. She is Gaia. Mother Earth.
The Legacy of the Divine Tarot, artist Ciro Marchetti
Tonight is the first of this month’s two full Moons. Tonight’s full moon is in Aquarius. We have a New Moon in Leo 16 August which promises to be…lively and then we have another full supermoon 31 August, this one in the zodiac sign of deepest Pisces.
Not only do we have two full moons this month, so that August 2023 is a Blue Moon month, but these will both be a supermoon, coming closer to Earth than usual, 15 % larger and brighter in the sky.
It has been shown that we sleep less deeply and that we also sleep at least 20 minutes less on average during a night of full moon, and with 30 % less of that sleeping time spent in restorative deepest sleep, compared with other nights in the lunar cycle. One way to combat this effect is to reduce our exposure to blue light in the evening. Switch off your computer at least two hours before you settle to sleep tonight.
Or don’t. Test it out and see what, if any difference you notice.
Tonight’s moon rise is in the east at a distance of 222,159 miles (357,530km) when the supermoon will be visible shortly after sunset from around 9pm – if the skies are clear enough. At its furthest point away from the Earth, when it is in apogee, the Moon is about 405 696 km (252 088 miles) away
Let’s call the maximum range a difference of roughly 30 000 miles. But the Moon and the Earth are drifting apart at a rate of about an inch and a half every year. It’s the effect of gravity, it seems a ridiculously small change, and we need not concern ourselves about it personally, but multiply that effect over millions of years and they will become profound.
Once a year, Earth flies between the sun and Saturn. In 2023, this will happen August 27. Saturn, old Father time, the astrological planet of law and order, and of discipline and restriction, is also now getting closer and brighter…
Old heads on young shoulders. Wise heads on old shoulders. Money stuff, work stuff, and family responsibilities get serious
Image via Earthsky
Tarot Full Moon Guidance 1 August
Well, what do you know. We have only drawn The King of Swords.
So what?
Tonight’s Full Moon is in Aquarius,and the King of Swords is THE court card associated with the zodiac sign of Aquarius (the major arcana card of Aquarius is The Star and the decan cards of Aquarius are the 5,6 and 7 Swords.
Typical tarot. Real time synchronicity – or coincidence if you prefer.
From The Rider-Waite Tarot
The King of Swords may be male or female. This doesn’t matter for the purposes of guidance.
The Tarot is sensing a collective and individual need to stay especially cool, clear, calm and collected during the next few days.
You do not have all the information you need in respect of critical decision making right now. Seek advice, or further research is required before you make any far reaching decisions or enter into long term commitments.
This king operates strategically and judicially. S/he can be ruthless and intent on conquest, but his primary objective here is to guard and protect his/her space, resources and those things and people s/he holds most dear.
S/he is analytical, forensic, surgical in accuracy. In real life s/he may be a leader, a military person, a judge, a doctor, pilot, IT specialist and so on.
Volodymyr Zelensky is an Aquarius subject. Several people were tragically killed yesterday in his home city in a Russian missile attack, but now the Ukrainian counter offensive is underway and Moscow has finally experienced a taste of its own airborne aggression, although Ukrainian drones have not been targeting residential areas, so far as we know.
There does seem a strong likelihood that the war may achieve some formal ending or resolution before entering its second winter, and this is to be welcomed, but seems almost certain to be brokered in terms which neither side will find satisfactory.
Meanwhile, in general we can achieve a lot this month, with the caveat that we seem best served by staying watchful, keeping a cool head, looking every gift horse in the mouth, separating workable fact from opinion or wishful thinking, and cutting our cloth with care by the light of tonight’s full moon, and its afterglow in the next few coming days.
Clearing, sorting, sweeping clean, ordering our paperwork. We have 5 planets in retrograde by the end of August. Venus, Mercury, Pluto, Saturn and Neptune. This is a time for avoiding random choices , knee jerk reactions or sudden moves. The end of this month is a time for deep reflection, reviewing, reassessment, risk avoidance and judicious, methodical planning.
True Tarot Tales 