psychology – Page 3 – True Tarot Tales

Tarot and The Scorpio Eclipse Season

Scorpio is the season of Halloween, when the sap drops, the leaves fall. The year is dying in front of us. Scorpio in the Tarot is represented by the Death card, and this is the reason why.

Next stop, the winter solstice.

This autumn/fall’s eclipse season means the partial solar eclipse, New Moon in Scorpio 25 October 2022, and a lunar eclipse at the Full Moon in Taurus, 8 November 2022.

Eclipses have been viewed as omens or portents since ancient Mesopotamia, and doubtless, long before that.

They announce momentous changes, unfolding over the next two weeks-six months.

What could this eclipse season mean in terms of real life events over the next six months?

The Astronomy

Like the Full Moon, a New Moon happens at a particular point when the sun and moon have the same ecliptic longitude and this can be measured down to the exact second that it happens.

On the day of the New Moon we don’t see the moon. It is too close to the sun, rising and setting with the sun. The night sky is darker, making the New Moon an ideal time of the month to see other celestial objects more clearly.

A solar eclipse is seen when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, blocking Earth’s view of the Sun, totally or partially. This latest one 25 October blocked our view of the sun by about 25%.

A lunar eclipse is seen when the Moon moves into the Earth’s shadow. This can occur only when the Sun, Earth, and Moon are exactly or very closely aligned and the Earth is in between the other two, which only happens on the night of a full moon.

The Astrology

23 October we entered the zodiac sign Scorpio, named after the constellation of Scorpius with its alpha star, the Heart of the Scorpion, red Antares, the rival of Mars/Ares.

October’s New Moon on the 25th was also a partial solar eclipse in sun Scorpio.

In astrological terms, this signified the advent of an intense period, opening new doors and bringing fated changes into our lives.

This is not a time for making big decisions or taking risks with our wealth, health and personal relationships. This New Moon eclipse can come with a sting in its tail…taking that chance or forcing that situation, pushing that envelope might look OK right now…

The sting comes later.

Astrology advises us to be especially careful with financial, land and property dealings around the time of this eclipse, and for the following couple of weeks.

This Scorpio sun eclipse will be followed by a Taurus lunar eclipse. The two will work together in their effects- which will be to do with our security, finances, food and comfort in a deeply unsettled world where aspects of the past have been coming round again, including the ghosts of the world wars.

Eclipses announce turning points. Their effects are deep, not felt at once but over a longer period. This October, that means the next two weeks until the following lunar eclipse in Taurus 8 November, or over the next six months until the next solar eclipse in Aries, 20 April 2023.

But other planetary factors are also in play during the rest of October and November.

The Saturn-Uranus square

This is a big feature in astrology during the past two years and only becomes more influential throughout the rest of October and November into December. We’ve been living with Saturn square Uranus for nearly two years, with respite when the planets have separated due to retrogrades.

This big, difficult planetary square goes exact this month so will be at its most intense from now and through November, when the square starts to separate in December 2022. There will likely be a cooling off, then, however temporary, of the conflict in Ukraine.

The Saturn square Uranus influence is challenging, full of contradictions. On the one hand there is history, tradition, duty and order. On the other, there is innovation in technology, but also rebellion and chaos.

On a collective level, this means continuing tensions, disruption and instability on the world stage, on our streets and in our personal lives, continuing well into November at least. Human society in general is in a strange, disordered place, almost hysterical, like ants running about all over the place, not quite knowing what they’re meant to be doing.

This is something that has been observed to happen from time to time in human history, particularly during the first decades of a new millennium. It will start to pass off again. Some astrologers suggest in 2026. Others think sooner. But big changes are happening. The world is reordering its axes of power and influence in a new Aquarian high tech era. This is a time for resilience and robustness on the one hand, and circumspection on the other in counterbalance the shocking speed of change. I remember in 1990, telling students about this new ‘thing’ that was coming- the ‘Information Super Highway’. But we didn’t know what it looked like yet.

It was the Internet.

Mars stations retrograde in Gemini

Fiery action planet Mars has been transiting airy Gemini since 22 August but it goes retrograde 30 October.

This may turn up the heat in trade and communications including politics. This will affect the city of London which is ruled by Gemini.

A few short days ago it meant I was wondering, could Liz Truss survive as Prime Minister beyond this date?

As it turned out, Liz Truss could not survive as PM even until this date, with another three days still to go.

(See my previous blog where we looked at the cards surrounding the contest for the new Prime Minister of the UK. https://truetarottales.com/2022/10/24/the-contest-for-the-new-pm/ )

This eclipse season is going to be a bumpy ride. Fasten your seat-belt, avoid making life changing decisions, and especially avoid confrontation until the timing is more favourable after 8 November- and delay it longer if you can.

We also need to avoid gossip. Gemini is a chatterbox, but when it is in Mars retrograde, this isn’t friendly chatter and misunderstandings will easily arise. Things may not be what they seem. Switch off the television and social media if it all gets too much. Very likely, it will.

The Tarot

*Author’s own image, The Legacy of the Divine Tarot, Ciro Marchetti*

The Water Element

Three out of five cards are water element cards, Cups card, dominating the mood and feel for the period between now and mid-November. (The Hanged Man, King of Cups and Two of Cups drawn reversed.)

The court card designating Scorpio in particular is The King of Cups, though he will also stand for a Pisces or Cancer subject, usually male, though not necessarily.

Scorpio is a water sign and looks set to deliver according to its deep and secretive cosmic personality. The water element was the key theme in the predictions for 2022 in general as published here at Ask Astrology in January. 2022 has been a tsunami of challenges. These are mysterious, dangerous and unstable times for the whole world.

We also predicted a more than usually high risk of extreme flooding for 2022.

Sadly, the reality has meant catastrophic flooding in Pakistan, and also in Australia, in Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania only six months after the disastrous east coast flooding in March and April.

The Hanged Man

In general terms this card represents a time of withdrawal, of solitude and introspection. It can be indicating that we are looking at a situation the wrong way round. Maybe we need to take another look and think again. Sometimes we realize that something isn’t working like it used to. It hasn’t been working for some time now but we don’t see a way to fix it. Perhaps it can’t be fixed. Then we can either accept it for what it is and make the best of it. Or we let it go. Surrender it. The Hanged Man is doing some deep thinking.

The reader has come to associate this tarot card with President Zelensky in particular when looking at world events. Astrologically The Hanged Man corresponds with the zodiac sign of Pisces. I am very concerned for him, though here comes better news to offset the bad news. Jupiter, the giant planet of opportunity is re-entering Pisces 28 October 2022, moving retrograde until it turns direct on 23 November 2022. It then goes direct, moving forward in Pisces until it heads into Aries on 20 December, 2022.

What does this mean in practical terms?

Jupiter is known as the Greater Benefic. Jupiter can be a bully, king of the gods, but it is happy in Pisces, even when retrograde.

President Zelenskyy is an Aquarius subject, an air sign king, and he has been well served by an ability to emotionally detach himself during critical decision making in moments of crisis. This does not mean he does not care. Far from it. But this is what has made him such an effective leader, but this detachment may fail him from time to time, when dealing with an adversary who is operating at a primeval level, caring nothing for the damage he entirely deliberately inflicts on non combatant civilians. This new Pisces season, may be something of a personal struggle for President Zelenskyy on this long haul.

President Biden is a Scorpio subject, with mid term elections falling on the lunar eclipse and a potential money nemesis in Taurus.

Putin has Scorpio rising. The implications of this, I do not find welcome, though the prospect of an eclipse now kicking in over the next six months would be a massive relief to a very great many people who just want to go home and live their lives.

This influence is bold and expansive, opening new doors. This is a powerfully positive aspect for growth and new opportunities in any area of life, especially if there was something that we started back in May 2022. It could finally start to move forward between now and Christmas.

The King of Cups

This court card is representing the zodiac sign of Scorpio itself, sitting centrally in the reading. This is a curious coincidence, given the focus of this reading which is the eclipse in Scorpio, but then again, that is just typical of the Tarot.

UPDATE 2/112022

Curiously, this card could stand for President Erdogan of Turkey. He is a Pisces subject, a water sign king. This figure is deep. He isn’t particularly talkative but he can be relied on for sound, calm advice.

In this instance, his personal intervention has helped restart grain shipments from Odesa which Russia had blockaded again, although Russia has still attacked a civilian cargo ship and killed two of its crew.

In a personal reading he will often represent a father, husband or mentor.

Additionally, the King of Cups followed by the watery Two of Cups reversed shows that Scorpio subject President Biden is in for a tough mid-term election 8 November and the Democrat Party may be weakened in Congress.

The Two of Cups

In Ukraine we had a temporary pause, de-escalation and standoff- (The Hanged Man) But only temporary.

What will be the final outcome? What seems likely is that Russia will escalate again, but end up with far less than Putin was aiming at he started this war. But that Hanged Man can’t discount the possibility that Russia may still end up getting more than simple justice says it should.

When? The Hanged Man suggests that there could be an end to the Russian attacks on its neighbour 2023- late February-late March, but this does not mean the end of the consequences, which will be politically long lasting and far reaching.

The Two of Pentacles could mean a ceasefire in late December. This card correlates with the first decan of the zodiac sign of Capricorn, approx 21 -31 December. This may be due simply to weather conditions rather than an attempt at resolution.

These are indisputably dangerous times, this second half of October month especially, although the cards have not shown a nuclear catastrophe.

resident Putin is subject to at least one rather significant check on his freedom of action in the shape of the newly reelected President Xi.

The Two of Cups reversed

This card correlates with the first decan of the zodiac sign of Scorpio= the first ten days of Scorpio.

This card of diplomacy is drawn reversed, reflecting the fact that President Zelensky is not ready to engage in talks with Russia, though President Putin has recently made a few noises to the effect he might be open to talks via third party mediation.

The cards weakly signal a small range of possibilities as to when there will be a ceasefire, including just before Christmas 2022, decans 2 and 3 of Capricorn, then into Aquarius 2023 and Pisces into Aries, by or before March-April 2023.

But a whole new escalation of crisis seems likely meantime, and this could come any time during this eclipse window between now and 8 November, or then again, in late December.

For us personally, what can be achieved between now and mid- November? Deep changes are happening now, whether these are personal or professional. The Hanged Man and the King of Cups are visionary cards. This might not be the time to act on them.

But something is stirring, and when the time is right, big changes will be happening, some driven by circumstances beyond our personal control but others, definitely created by us.

So much for the water cards. New readers will often discuss the water cards in terms of how lovely they are, and healing, and sensitive, beautiful, ‘spiritual’ and emotional. And they can be. But great emotions will just as readily wreak great turmoil. There are floods. There are storms at sea. Sometimes tsunamis.

The fixed water sign that is the Scorpion of the zodiac is ruled by Mars and Antares. It doesn’t freeze. It may steam. It may gently simmer. But it may scald. It may boil.

Photo by Buu011fra u00d6zcan on Pexels.com

Three of Wands Reversed

This is fiery Mars energy. The Three of Wands is great news for global business or launching an enterprise, but the card has been drawn reversed. There could be snags or delays with exports, imports and deliveries, whether we are sending them or expecting to receive them. If we’re going off on foreign travels we had better treble check every single travel document and take out comprehensive insurance cover.

Any renewal of escalation in Russia’s aerial attacks against civilians in Ukraine would seem most likely to happen around this time, 23-30 October and the following few days, but this does not mean that it WILL happen.

Tarot shows the human weather conditions, but no reader can claim to see ‘the future.’

What the cards do is detect, reflect and project past, present and possible future events and the reasons for them, glimpsing hints of the most and least likely possibilities.

Two of Pentacles reversed.

This card is about juggling finances and options and is talking about the continuing global economic situation which seems likely to continue more volatile than usual until Christmas (Capricorn).

Personal Hints

The Hanged Man

This card requires us to recognize that we are not in control of some situations. There are times we just need to go with the flow. This is a time to watch, wait and reflect. This is not a time to push an issue. If in doubt, as always, it is probably wisest to do nothing.

The Two of Coins reversed

We probably need to take things a bit easier this month. We’re rushing about juggling time, energy and finances. We are spreading ourselves too thin, and need to reconsider our priorities. This also means looking for where there is money wastage e.g.; with standing orders and subscriptions we may have forgotten that we even had, looking for easy ways to reduce financial wastage and tighten the budget.

The King of Cups

This king is the court card associated with the zodiac sign of Scorpio but more generally stands for any mature man born under one of the water signs, Pisces Cancer or Scorpio. Maturity demands that we learn to exercise our best judgement and self-control even when feelings are running high. That’s the best policy this eclipse season- but there is plenty of scope for enjoyment with the King of Cups. When he represents a life partner or a potential new partner, he is deep, devoted- and passionate.

The Three of Wands reversed

This eclipse is not the time to launch-well, anything really. A work or business plan or project may require more planning and research before it’s ready to go, or there could be tensions within a small group or a team at this time.

Easy does it. When this card is drawn the right way up, it’s time to go for it. But right now, we need a bit of a rest. Scale back. Reschedule. Turn the volume down. Nothing constructive is likely to be achieved at this time by rushing.

The Two of Cups reversed

This card appears to be detecting the upcoming Venus in Scorpio transit, 23 October and it’s talking about relationships and money for the next six months. The Two of Cups is about love relationships and friendships. Scorpio is about passion. The card has been drawn reversed so things could go either way, or both ways. On the plus side, we could be in for a truly wonderful time with our loved one, or we could meet someone we are very attracted to. On the other hand, the intensity might be welcome or it might not.

Admirers can be obsessive when Venus is in Scorpio, whether we feel the same way or not. Beware unwanted admirers and be careful how much information you share with other people.

When it comes to existing relationships, the Two of Cups says Venus in Scorpio can bring power struggles and money concerns out into the open. How money is spent or invested is about to become an intense point of focus in partnerships where financial resources are shared.

Venus in Scorpio is powerful stuff. Allure, sexual desire, lust for power or wealth. Secrets.

This is looking like an especially profound and powerful eclipse season for us, Halloween 2022

When will there be an end to the war in Ukraine? The Crow caws. The Hanged Man speaks

No-one knows the answer to this question. I certainly don’t. But what does the Tarot have to say about it? I have looked at the same question in another very recent post, where I used ordinary playing cards. We seemed to be seeing a Russian regrouping with big bumps in the road Oct and Nov and again before Christmas, a new offensive in January, and something big happening in March, and then again by Gemini time, late May-late June.

Last night I asked again, this time working with Tarot, asking, “in what month or year will there be a truce, ceasefire or permanent cessation of military action in Ukraine?”

I drew a single card. This was The Hanged Man- yet another outing for a card which has been jumping out of the deck since the invasion 24 February.

The Hanged Man stands for a waiting game, a state of limbo, an inability to make a decision. Or it can signify a sacrifice for a higher purpose, surrender, letting go, breaking a pattern, metamorphosis, suspension in time, meditation, changing one’s perspective, transcendence.

The Knight of Cups also corresponds with Pisces and The Hanged Man. He is the warrior who is a bringer of peace. He is the bearer of the Grail, of the loving cup or the healing chalice, who may be seen as Siegfried, or as one of the Knights of the Round Table, Lancelot, Galahad or Percival.

He rides along the shoreline, the knight of the liminal spaces.

Traditionally, the image is associated with a punishment once meted out to traitors in Italy, who were hung upside down by one ankle. Another interpretation is that this ties in with the story of the Norse god Odin. He hung upside down on Yggdrasil, the giant ash tree in exchange for the knowledge of the runes and they came to him in a vision on the ninth day without food or drink. One imagines he also had a mighty headache by that point. But the Tarot has its artistic roots in the courts of northern Italy during the Renaissance.

From the Tarot Illuminati, artist Erik C Dunne

Turn this card the other way up. Does he remind you of someone? Who does he look like? OK. He is not a dead ringer for Zelensky but let’s be reasonable- the Tarot is doing its best.

Tarot is not astrology and I am not an astrologer. However, there is a lot of astrology embedded in the Tarot, and clients have often asked the reader to have a stab at timings, with interesting feedback in respect of results.

In astrology The Hanged Man signifies Pisces, and the dates of Pisces in 2022 were 19 February to 20 March. This card was an apposite reflection of a recent event that had already happened since the invasion happened 24 February

This is what Tarot does- it detects, reflects and projects. Just treat this as a curiosity. I had not predicted the invasion of Ukraine, except that in a general 12 card reading done in December 2021 the Tarot had alerted me to a issue or problem attached to energy supplies from Russia, specifically NordStream 2.

I had also commented in an article published on Ask Astrology in January, that I had misgivings about 2022 on account of a general theme to do with the blurring or crossing of boundaries and borders. This again was connected with the Hanged Man. Its traditional ruler in astrology is Jupiter but its modern ruler is Neptune. Either way, 2022 was promising to be a year of deep waters and seismic events, metaphorically as well as physically. Jupiter goes large. Neptune goes deep.

Pisces, *Atlas Coelestis* John Flamsteed

“John Flamsteed FRS (19 August 1646 – 31 December 1719)^[a] was an English astronomer and the first Astronomer Royal. His main achievements were the preparation of a 3,000-star catalogue, Catalogus Britannicus, and a star atlas called Atlas Coelestis, both published posthumously“-Wiki

According to Western/ Tropical astrology, Jupiter is currently retrograde in Pisces and goes direct again 28-29 October-20 December 2022

According to Eastern/Vedic astrology Jupiter will remain in Pisces until 23 April 2023.

In Summary

Based purely on the appearance of The Hanged Man, we have a range of possibilities here, suggesting that the war in Ukraine will end when:

-Mr Zelensky agrees to make a sacrifice, Hanged Man style, and decides to relinquish the Donbas to Russia. Mr Putin would claim this as a win, and use it as his way out of an increasingly untenable situation, though he or a successor of his same ilk could be back again in time, for another bite of land.

There is no reason why Zelensky should agree to such a thing, since Russia has broken international law and then gone on to commit war crimes. But if the population of the Donbas genuinely were more than 50% pro Russian separatists, might Zelensky decide that Ukraine would do better without them in the long run, given the state of affairs since 2014. Mr Putin after all, *only* wants to protect the 25 million Russians now living outside Russia’s borders in Ukraine and all across the Baltic.

Without Ukraine’s agreement to recognize referendum results held under the current conditions of duress, Putin will be forever fighting to hold on to the Donbas, and that’s no substantive win.

But it’s not a win for anyone else either, and won’t be unless the West can dig itself out of the hole it has got itself into, and continue to say no to cheap Russian gas this winter. If not, this whole thing simmers indefinitely or escalates next spring.

-or the war may end when Jupiter goes direct in Pisces, Tropical astrology style, 29 October-20 December. This seems highly improbable. Putin will want to squeeze the situation as hard as he can over the winter, praying the energy crisis will really bite down on the current levels of western support for Ukraine and leave her naked unto her foe.

-or the war may end during Pisces season, 20 February- 20 March. Saturn enters Pisces March 7, 2023 until May 24, 2025. Saturn is big on the status quo, on law and order, and it is big on boundaries and borders. The aftermath of this war will bring a long period of turbulence in its wake.

-or the war may end c late April 2023, according to the status of Jupiter in Pisces in Vedic astrology.

Photo by Sebastian Voortman on Pexels.com

There’s a feeling of events moving in stages, pointing towards something more conclusive or definitive March/April 2023. Tarot seems to be seeing a ceasefire slightly earlier than was indicated in my earlier cartomancy reading, though not hugely so.

But supposing the fighting stops right now, the political backwash runs high until 2025/2026. There will also be the small matter of reconstruction.

Something to watch for that is happening sooner, is an eclipse in Scorpio 8 November. Eclipses do not signify immediate changes, but historically they announce profound changes. Mr Putin is a Libra sun sign subject with Scorpio rising, and conjunct his sun is the fixed star Algorab, the wing of The constellation of the Crow, merciless and rapacious.

It doesn’t feel as though it bodes at all well for him personally. But Putin is choosing to wage a total war, so that any victory here, whether for Russia or Ukraine is a pyrrhic one.

The west is clearly not blameless either in all this, but it likely doesn’t bode too well for Scorpio subject Mr Biden either, in the US mid term elections 8 November.

What a year, this Chinese year of the Black Water Tiger

#BookwormSat 2022, Year of The Black Water Tiger

-Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.

-Jorge Luis Borges pic.twitter.com/UehfCu6KVc
— Katie-Ellen H. (@KatieEllenH) August 27, 2022

Till next time 🙂

Further reading https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Ukraine-Nuclear-Weapons

Virgo, Heavenly Harvest Goddess

Here comes Virgo Season again. But what’s the ancient story – and the modern reality behind the zodiac sign?

True Tarot Tales

“The Virgin with her sheaf belongs to Ceres,” The Astronomica, Manilius, 1st century AD.

Common Associations

Zodiac symbol

Dates: August 23-September 22

Symbol: The Virgin

Element: Earth

Quality: Mutable (Sagittarius and Pisces are also Mutable signs, marking the transitions between seasons, suggesting these subjects are capable and versatile; and generally inclined to conform, going with the flow if it’s for the greater good.)

Ruling planet: Mercury (Travel and all forms of communication)

House: Sixth, ruling health, habits and routines

Colour: green, white and yellow

Body: Virgo rules the Intestines/Digestion

Birthstone: Carnelian

Flowers: all small, bright flowers, clover, buttercups

Tarot cards: The Hermit (introspection, perception, analysis, care for nature)

Also the Eight, Nine and Ten of Pentacles, beneficent cards to do with art, craft, and productiveness as a direct result of study, craft, diligence, application and direction of discipline, focus and a sustained…

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In the glass darkly, Tarot and the battle for Kherson

Photo by Daniel Eliashevsky on Pexels.com

Article from American-Canadian journalist and author Diane Francis, dated 15 August 2022:

“Yellow ribbons painted on poles or walls suddenly appear in Kherson, the only regional capital city that Russia has captured in this war. The symbol, memorializing missing loved ones, has taken on a new meaning and represents defiance against Russia’s upcoming phoney referendum votes in Kherson and other occupied regions to approve annexation by Russia. Kherson’s vote is scheduled for 9/11 — the anniversary of America’s worst terrorist attack — and only half of its 280,000 residents remain there after it was occupied in March. Russians offer $165 to vote in favor of annexation and may end up forcing most of them to do so. People are being jailed or shot there for protesting, speaking Ukrainian, or refusing to use the Russian Ruble and yet resistance builds. Now Russian soldiers stay off its streets following assassinations and last week its Russian-backed Mayor was poisoned by his chef. Now in the run-up to the vote, a military battle has begun to recapture the region and a great deal rests on its outcome. Read more HERE

Diane Francis also has fascinating things to tell us about the largely silent ‘war’ in the Arctic, the ‘battle’ for control of the Arctic Circle.

She is on twitter @dianefrancis1

Update: Posted on Twitter today, 22 August

@WarMonitor3

Ukrainian forces destroyed a whole convoy of Russian logistics crossing the Antonivskyi bridge when the bridge was hit. Reportedly the trucks were carrying ammunition.

When Russia first invaded Ukraine in February, I drew cards asking about Putin’s objectives.

I had not predicted the invasion. I don’t know any Tarot readers who did. It was predicted in astrology, by Vedic astrologers in India, who were mostly emphatically pro-Russian and were, at least back, In February, extremely confident of his successful conquest of Ukraine. They do not seem to have posted again since. Perhaps they see no need. They have spoken.

Fortunately for me, I do not work for the likes of the Emperor Tiberius, or he’d have had me hurled over the cliff. I had expressed misgivings however, in a general world reading posted January 2022, and published at Ask.Astrology.com that we were in for a dangerous year, deep, dark waters, Pisces in Neptune, full fathom five.

My focus at that point, in so far as I specified arenas, was the Strait of the Taiwan. This is a Chinese Year of the Black Water Tiger. Neptunian and Mercurial, mega mercantile and expansionist, although China’s room for manoeuvre has possibly been complicated by Putin’s invasion, and we’re all watching that space. And we need to do something radical about upping our own, independent chip production in Europe and the UK, and we need to do it yesterday.

Jupiter is re- entering Pisces in late October-where it was when the war in Ukraine started in February. October seems to bring the end of a cycle, and the start of a new cycle in this war in Europe. A card that I have drawn many times for Zelensky is The Hanged Man, a Piscean figure rendered almost transcendental by his responses, in this fateful trial on which so much hinges.

Fire/water. 2022 -Chinese Year of the Black Water Tiger
Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.
Jorge Luis Borges pic.twitter.com/tYVM3QBizs
— Katie-Ellen (@KatieEllenH) August 9, 2022

When Russia invaded Ukraine 24 February 2022, I looked in the Tarot for its take on what Putin wanted, and the eventual outcome.

Two cards in particular came up, and have come up again many times since: the Two of Pentacles and The Ten of Swords.

The Two of Swords

This juggling earth suit card card is saying, what does Putin want? He wants earth-territory. He wants gold and grain. He wants that land bridge to Transnistria and Moldova, next stop, the Baltic all the way through to Kaliningrad. But he is operating on ‘shifting sands.’ Putin must juggle his military actions and what he really wishes to do, or needs to do militarily, against the economic disadvantage. That mega deal with China, and the projected Siberian pipeline to deliver energy to new markets in China is no help to him now, and won’t be for years to come, while ships are taking over from giant pipelines. New ships, three times as long as a football field, are delivering natural liquid gas in volumes equivalent to three days delivery via the biggest pipelines.

The Ten of Swords

This is another card that has come up repeatedly when I look at President Putin, and has done so since the invasion began 24 February. This card means ruin. Hitting rock bottom. It can mean serious health issues too. This card says to me that Putin will do a huge amount of damage, but he does not achieve his objectives and by this, I am envisioning that he wants Odessa, all of Ukraine, Transnistria, Moldova and then more.

The suit of Swords in terms of timing is tricky. It can mean that something happens very swiftly, like the strike of a sword. But Putin did not succeed with his February lightning strike, and now it seems entirely possible that this conflict could carry on as a war of attrition over the next ten years.

But that Ten of Swords can’t be fudged in terms of its basic meaning, ruin, failure, and it can mean sickness or death. This card says to the reader that Putin, for all his brutality and patience is not going to achieve that goal of the land bridge, while astrology suggests the inexorable turning of a tide against him from March 2023 while in terms of zodiac correlations, the Ten of Swords correlates with the last decan of Gemini, meaning roughly 11-20 June.

It’s no use counting on such things, if one is counting on them. But experience says it’s worth noting, at least. The reader notes it, that is all, and time will tell.

Can/Will Ukraine retake Kherson?

Lord Dannett, former chief of the UK Armed Forces has said we need to be realistic; that we must help Ukraine, Putin’s actions and weaponization of oil and gas supplies, are a direct and calculated threat to all Europe, but that Russia will not lose this war.

Defining the winning and losing for both sides- what that will look like- there is the rub. A victory for Ukraine would mean in clear terms that Russia is pushed all the way back out of Ukrainian territory and reclaims the Donbas in entirety. I can’t see in my cards that Ukraine will win back Luhansk.

But Kherson, it looks as though Ukraine can take it back and quite possibly will, but not yet awhile. I drew this spread asking for the Tarot’s impressions of the progress and outcome.

The top central card is a benchmark card.

The left hand column represents the Russian forces.

The right hand column represent the Ukrainian forces.

The Queen of Swords here represents the question being reflected back at the me as the Tarot is seeing it:

-Putin himself, as a Libra sun sign subject, born 7 October 1952 or possibly on the same date but in 1950

-Libra season 22 September -23 October

-Justice, rule of law, truce, agreement

Just as a matter of incidental curiosity, countries that are ruled by Libra include: France, Tibet, Argentina, Austria, Burma, Canada, China, Japan, Siberia, Botswana, Equatorial Guinea, Fiji, Iraq, Israel, Lesotho, Nigeria, Palau, Saint Lucia, Saudi Arabia, Tuvalu and Uganda.

Cities that are ruled by Libra include: Lisbon, Frankfurt, Paris, Copenhagen, Johannesburg, Nottingham, and Antwerp.

Russia’s cards

The King of Wands, Six of Pentacles, Eight of Swords and Nine of Swords.

Russia succeeded in capturing and occupying Kherson shortly after the invasion, hence we have drawn that upbeat King of Wands card (I go abroad and I am victorious.’

The Six of Coins means community, translating here as the Russians saying ‘this is our place, ours again now’. The Ukrainians have blown up the bridge, more than once, but has not made any significant progress as yet in retaking Kherson. But it has forced the Russians back across the river Dnieper (Dnipro) to the east bank. The Eight of Swords (stuck, trapped, no way forward) is reflecting a situation in which the Russian occupation is starting to experience difficulties, now that Ukraine is better equipped to mount a counteroffensive.

The Eight of Swords shows a lady tied up outside a city. This describes a situation where someone has got stuck. It does suggest a siege type situation. Meanwhile the Ukrainian citizens of Kherson are under siege from a hostile occupation inside their own city.

That last card at the bottom of the column, the Nine of Swords means ‘stress, sleepless nights.’ Again, and the timing may prove a red herring, the Eight and Nine of Swords, like the Ten, refer in terms of the calendar, to something pivotal in late May-late June, Gemini season, 2023.

Ukraine’s cards

Strength, Three of Swords, Four of Wands, Ace of Cups

The Strength card is reflecting the fact that Putin had a great shock when he discovered the Ukrainian resistance was so much stronger than he had anticipated. We are just leaving the season of Leo, and though Ukraine has lost Kherson, and the Ukrainian front line is still apparently 60 km away, some parts of the region of Kherson have recently been recaptured, thanks in part to new arms supplies.

The Three of Swords signifies very great anguish. Here is loss, mourning, deprivation, severance and separation. Russia has severed part of Ukraine from itself, and has not cared in the process to limit the damage, but has used calculated acts of gratuitous violence and cruelty against a civilian population, while proclaiming that they are all one family, one people of one motherland.

How many Russian motherland Ukrainians died during the horror of The Holodomor, Stalin’s entirely deliberately manufactured famine of the winter of 1933/39? Conservative estimates put it at 3.9 million, other estimates suggest 7 million or more.

President Putin may prefer to disassociate himself from Stalin, and see this invasion in Imperial terms, Peter the Great and Catherine the Great. But there speaks the history of the 20th century: Lenin, Stalin, and now, still in that mould, Putin, who yesterday closed the Nordstream 1 Pipeline for three days for ‘unscheduled’ maintenance. There will be few who will not see in this, a warning act of retaliation against Europe for the armaments now being supplied to Ukraine, and in response to recent Ukrainian strikes on Russian targets in Crimea. Severance of energy, here is another manifestation of the Three of Swords.

The Four of Wands is a different card altogether as we work our way down Ukraine’s pictorial timeline. This is the outcome card for Ukraine in response to the question. Unlike the Vedic astrologers, whose confidence I admire, issuing statements about the future as if they were a given, I am not supremely confident of anything, ever. But I do not argue with the cards that I have drawn, in trying to tap into, fetch up and articulate verbally my inner feelings on the matter. The Four of Wands detects a real prospect that Ukraine will ultimately succeed in recapturing Kherson. Why? The Four of Wands represents success, completion, a building made perfect, a home made beautiful, a gathering and a celebration. This is cardinal Aries energy, the bounding Ram, which is represented by The Emperor card. But here it is Ukraine that is ‘The Emperor.’

Key timings suggested in these cards are Libra time, October 2022, Aries time, April 2023, and Gemini time, late May 2023, Putin possibly in situ till around October 2023.

These are deeply disturbing times. NATO has started moving forces into Latvia.

The entire Baltic region is now a buzzing hive on high alert. Ukraine was hardly caught napping. Anything but. But if Europe was, after the annexation of Crimea, now it’s not, though whether it (in particular Scholz) can and will stand firm this winter remains to be seen.

Armchair experts. Everyone can make their own assessments and this Tarot reader is certainly no expert. But whether right or wrong the reader chooses the cards blindly and entirely at random. The final card on the Ukraine timeline is the Ace of Cups. This card holds out the offer of the Chalice, the Holy Grail, the Healing Cup. It is a card of a rebirth, but a good one. Peace. Restoration. ‘My cup floweth over.’

Till next time 🙂

The video below is a demonstration of artwork from the deck being used today, The Illuminati Tarot.

Scorchio- sundry Tarot in a summer of sizzling cauldrons

In the UK

In the wake of the resignation of Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party, although not as Prime Minister until the autumn (unless Labour, the MSM and the newly re-elected Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 Committee and its members have their way and force him out with immediate effect)

Yesterday I drew the following cards, following a speech from Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party.

Were we looking at a future Prime Minister?

Cards shuffled blindly and drawn at random.

Tweeted 11/07/22

@KatieEllenH

KS future PM? 5 Swords -a pyrrhic victory is won. 2 Cups=celebration, Knight Pentacles rev. Interesting. Knight Pentacles=Virgo & KS = Virgo sun (KS zodiac sign). But reversed indicates no. Why not? Virgo agility, cool analysis & conscientiousness is hamstrung by limitation of vision #tarot

Click to view in full.

@KatieEllenH

21h

#Tarot #PrimeMinister Knight of Pentacles- Virgo-Mercury is reflecting wider economic picture, a temp slowdown, shrinking bear market which will be a problem for Virgo sun KS if elected as for any other candidate. Knight Pentacles reversed translates as slow, dead slow=inchworm

What does the same question look like when I use playing cards (cartomancy) ?

Jul 11

#Cartomancy KS speech. Future PM? Poss not prob. Ace Spades=BJ resigns. Ace Hearts=KS delighted, making his offer. 6H=finds favour with existing voters+8D=economy (his best ‘bet’) Working against him 7D + 8 Spades slander/mistrust. #Runes say secrets/bear market/defence? 1/ cont

There is a preponderance of red suit cards and a minority of black suit cards. Read in this way, – an accepted method of interpretation is via colour counting, we can read this as a yes answer.

But when I look at the overall pattern, the strong cards, the Aces are in the column that represents the premise of the situation. These cards have already been played, if you like. The answer to the question as stated is contained in the central column and while these cards are positive, they are weak. The 8 of Diamonds is stable, and represents money, but the suit of Diamonds,while it is the speediest of the suits- it is the suit of RIGHT NOW – is the least stable and the most volatile of the suits.

The cards in the right hand column represents factors that will influence the outcome.

Without a second Vote of No Confidence, or a snap General Election, voters will be without an outlet of expression. The Seven Diamonds says an element of fiscal instability- although it may not be his fault, any more than certain things have been the fault of Boris Johnson- bad luck or mistrust seems likely to dog his chances all the same. The Eight of Spades, nicknamed the Hospital card also suggests that the NHS will be a thorny issue for Keir Starmer, as it is for any Prime Minister faced addressing the unthinkable heresy- that the ever mounting demands uponthe NHS have long ago outstripped its original remit of provision.

The writer is here speaking as someone who first approached the NHS for help in 1986 (PM Margaret Thatcher) and then again in 1990 (PM John Major) and then again in 2000 (PM Tony Blair) for a mysterious problem that was only getting worse, and was eventually diagnosed as chronically acute sero-negative rheumatoid arthritis/spondylarthropy. By this time there was significant malaise, fatigue, pain, affected mobility and other movement and joint damage in multiple joints. By 2013 (PM David Cameron) I had lost the ability to walk or even stand. It meant a wheelchair, with surgery ruled out as no longer viable. The damage already done was too great.

The point here, as something of a floating voter, is that it is all too easy to blame any one government for the vastly expanded load and mission creep that has been happening over a long period of time within the NHS.

Another reading of the Eight of Spades within the context of this particular reading, is that the same thing that may be our strength may also be our weakness. In this case, the appearance of this card means that Keir Starmer is a stickler for detail, a famous weak point of Boris Johnson. But as Prime Minister he may prove intellectually inflexible in responding to grade A crises requiring vision, strategy, agility and utmost speed of decision and response.

But something is missing here from this reading for Keir Starmer. A reader looks for what is absent as well as what is present.

Tweeted

2/ Majority red suit=+ve but something’s missing. No card or rune that outright says leader/government. Diamonds=money, yes, good but least stable suit. Clubs =THE suit of government/government leaders. No Ace, King, 2, 10 Clubs. No Ansuz/Othala/Tiwaz #rune No Joker (destiny)

On the world stage

What do the cards suggest for the dynamics in the coming weeks through till late August?

There is a dominance here of the suit of Pentacles- earth suit cards to do with the bottom line: economics, money, food in the mouth whether there is a table or not.

The King of Pentacles is the first card drawn in this spread, sitting in the job, work, home and money department. Money is naturally always a high priority, but this month it is a collective high priority under fierce public discussion.

Rishi Sunak, contender for the position of the new PM of the UK former Chancellor of the Exchequer (literally a Taurean Mr Moneybags) is a Taurus subject. He is currently a front runner for the job. But that Devil card could scupper his chances of the leadership.

This is one of the cards in the Tarot that specifically talk about agriculture. The others are The Empress, Knight of Pentacles and The Seven of Pentacles.

Food security will be a hot news topic in August as we enter harvest time towards the end of the month, especially in view of the Russia theft of Ukrainian grain and blockading of Ukrainian ports. Should Russia manage to re-take Snake Island it is an added threat to Romania also.

Who else might this King of Pentacles figure represent in real life? Possibly Erdogan.

But every deck is different. One look at this artwork says ‘Japan’ and ‘Samurai’.

Readers don’t necessarily take the artwork into consideration, but sometimes it turns out that the artwork itself holds a key. That the picture itself is the Tarot’s answer.

I feel the Tarot is reflecting big developments coming out of Japan this month. It seems this card also personally represents Shinzo Abe, the assassinated former Japanese Prime Minister. An election held only two deaths after his sudden, shocking death was supported by a far higher than expected turnout, by voters who saw his murder as a threat to democracy.

One consequence of the resulting victory for the Liberal Democrat party coalition in Japan, may prove to be that in death the hawkish Shinzo Abe achieves something he campaigned for in life, to repeal Article 9, the pacifist clause in the constitution of Japan that was signed in 1947 after the Japanese surrender at the end of WW11.

Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution

(1) Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.(2) In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as another war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized..

Putin and Zelenskyy edge closer to Black Sea shipping truce

“The leaders of Russia and Ukraine held separate talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Monday on plans to reopen safe routes for shipping grain via the Black Sea.

Erdoğan’s phone calls with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy will boost hopes that he is making progress toward brokering an agreement that would allow shipments of grain from Ukrainian ports to resume.

“President Erdogan noted that it was time for the United Nations to take action for the plan regarding the formation of secure corridors via the Black Sea for the grain export,” a Turkish readout from his call with Russia’s president says.”

More Here via Politico.EU

Less recently:

Full Moon 12 August in Aquarius is conjunct Saturn and is square to Uranus and Mars – a recipe for high global tensions and armed confrontation, suggesting this is not yet the time for any talk of a peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine, or between China and the US

New Moon 27 August is in Virgo, Jupiter is on the seventh house cusp in London, UK. The Seventh house is the zodiac house of diplomacy, marriages, agreements, trues and partnership. There may be talk of a snap election to come in the autumn, though this is not looking highly likely at the time of writing. Jupiter is the Greater Benefic, and symbolically a reason for optimism sitting in the house of negotiations. Could this represent a glimmer of hope for de-escalation of Russia’s war on Ukraine?

Let’s hope Ukraine can dominate/reclaim/secure Kherson.

Till next time, take it easy. Eat/take plenty of vitamin B. Good for the nerves.

I can’t really see Putin eating up his bowl of fortified cereal. Unless it’s made with stolen Ukrainian cereal crops, yum yum. He needs a time sensitive reason to want to talk peace sooner rather than later.

Back soon : )

Premonition, what is it? What use is it? The Premonitions Bureau -a book review and other stories

The Premonitions Bureau Non-fiction by Sam Knight a staff writer at The New Yorker, based in London. “The Premonitions Bureau” is his first book.

Tagline: “Premonitions are impossible –and they come true all the time.”

What do we mean by a premonition? The Cambridge Dictionary defines a premonition as “a feeling that something, especially something unpleasant, is going to happen.”

Synonyms

Feeling (EMOTION)

Foreboding literary

Presentiment formal

What’s the difference between premonition and precognition?

Precognition is a sense of foreknowledge arrived at by “paranormal” means; e.g., via card reading, or a psychic dream or clairvoyance. On the other hand, a premonition is simply a feeling, however powerful, that something is about to happen – usually this means something bad.

The Premonitions Bureau tells a story that started with a tragedy.

Background: Aberfan 21 October 1966

Aberfan is a mining village near Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales. There was a huge colliery tip on a mountain slope above the village, Tip Number 7, and this tip had a natural spring rising up underneath it, bubbling out in a stream that flowed down into the village below.

Heavy rain had led to a build-up of water inside the tip, until one morning it suddenly collapsed and went sliding down the hill. A thirty foot wave of coal slurry hit not only a row of houses but Pantglas Junior School, and killed 116 children and 28 adults, of whom 5 were the children’s teachers.

The following inquiry firmly placed the blame on the National Coal Board, who had received multiple previous warnings about the instability of this particular colliery tip, Number 7 after it was created in 1958 against regulations which said no coal tip was to be raised on top of a spring, but the NCB, although they knew this, had taken only sporadic maintenance action.

After this tragedy a high profile psychiatrist and psychologist called John Barker went to Aberfan to try and support the bereaved. Then he started receiving reports of people who had had premonitions of this disaster. Most tragic of all was a premonition experienced by one of the children who had died in the school and who had been worried, telling her mother about a dream she had had the previous night.

“Mummy, let me tell you about my dream last night.” Her mother answered gently, “Darling, I’ve no time. Tell me again later.” The child replied, “No Mummy, you must listen. I dreamt I went to school and there was no school there. Something black had come down all over it.”

Two other children had done drawings of the avalanche before it happened.

John Barker, who was the resident senior psychiatrist at a sadly run down mental hospital which he was working hard to modernize, went to Aberfan to offer counselling support, and was deeply struck by some extraordinary reports received in the aftermath. He decided, with assistance from a newspaper, The Evening Standard, to make it his mission to collect and collate other premonitions. How common were they? How did they manifest? Could they be logged and used to give an early warning of impending disaster?

“A more predictable existence is, in theory anyway, a less frightening one,” writes Sam Knight of Barker’s motivation. “Societies have always craved prophets, or people who claim to see round the next corner.”

But unless we can do something about it, maybe sometimes we would really rather not know. One day John Barker received two premonitions which were about him, himself, and which seemed to suggest that his own death was imminent…

I won’t provide spoilers, except to say that these premonitions were proven correct.

“It is a story both elegant and eccentric, cleanly capturing that brief moment in the 1960s when extrasensory perception verged on mainstream acceptance. It is also quietly terrifying, a reminder that even those who can see the future have no hope of getting out of its way.”

Source The New York Times

Article: The Psychiatrist Who Believed People Could Tell The Future

The Curse of Cassandra

Coming back to the question of preferring not to know, as a useless burden, the so- called gift of prophecy- assuming we accept there is such a potential, is likely to feel more like a curse. It is not known as The Curse of Cassandra for nothing.

Cassandra (or Kassandra) was a tragic figure in Greek mythology; a Trojan princess, a daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba and a priestess of the sun god Apollo. Apollo had given her the gift of prophesy but when she subsequently rejected his sexual advances, he could not withdraw the gift but he turned it into a curse, such that Cassandra would see and speak the truth, only never to be believed.

Cassandra warned the Trojans to send Helen straight home again after Paris eloped with her and brought her to Troy, taking her away from her husband Menelaus in Sparta. Cassandra had warned the Trojans it would bring disaster down upon them all. They didn’t listen. Then the Greeks came and laid siege for ten long years.

Cassandra then warned them not to bring the giant wooden horse into the city. Again, they didn’t listen. There were Greek warriors hiding inside it, and in the night they crept out and opened the gates and let in all the other Greeks. A massacre followed; the Sack of Troy. The city fell. Cassandra was first raped in the temple of Athena by Ajax, then dragged away to become the slave of Agamemnon, and together with him, was later murdered by his queen Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus on returning to his kingdom of Mycenae.

The takeaway here is that while Cassandra knew her own fate, she could do nothing to save herself. Helen meanwhile, was forgiven by her husband Menelaus, and, restored as his queen, led on board his ship, passing the wretched lines of the other surviving women, now homeless, stateless and bereaved, all slaves and captives now.

It could be said that it was Helen who was really the Trojan horse.

The name of Cassandra has therefore come to mean a person whose accurate prophecies, generally of impending disaster, are not believed.

Cassandra by Evelyn de Morgan: Public Domain

This ancient story, like this new book highlights a big problem with prediction. If the future exists, what can be done about it? If the future doesn’t exist, how is prediction possible?

But prediction is rarer and premonitions are common. Barker reckoned that it was at least as common in the population as being left handed, the experience of premonition, suggesting we are all more connected than we understand or can logically explain.

The Premonitions Bureau is an intelligent, understated, quietly absorbing read. It raises big questions with many fascinating, if often deeply sad anecdotes.

It has been criticized by some reviewers for failing to provide clear conclusions. But this is in the nature of the subject, as it is in life, and there is at least one conclusion to be drawn from this story that is self-evident.

What is that conclusion? John Barker had hoped that a Premonitions Bureau might help save the countless lives through the interventions of a centralized psychic early warning system. But this was never a practical possibility. Why not? A premonition may be an intensely powerful feeling, but it lacks detailed information sufficient for anyone to act on it in any meaningful practical way.

A True Story

June 2016 I was staying away from home in Carlisle when I had a presentiment of a terrible accident or impact that was about to happen. I was shown in my Tarot cards that it would be involve a vehicle, anger and a fiery impact.

My first worry was that we were about to have an accident in the car. Then I decided no, I didn’t feel that was it. I said to my husband, “We will soon find out what this is. It will be on the news soon”.

Two hour later, we saw on the television, the news of the terrorist truck attack in Nice.

“On the evening of 14 July 2016, a 19-tonne cargo truck was deliberately driven into crowds of people celebrating Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France, resulting in the deaths of 86 people and the injury of 458 others.^[4] ^[5] The driver was Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a Tunisian living in France.^{[6] [7]} The attack ended following an exchange of gunfire, during which Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was shot and killed by police”- Wikipedia.

This experience was neither a premonition nor a precognition. It was somewhere between the two. My feeling of unease did not hit me out of the blue. It came to me while I was looking, initially rather casually in my Tarot cards. I drew The Devil, The Chariot and The Tower cards all together in a row and knew I did not like it one bit.

But of what possible potential use was this to anybody? It lacked actionable specifics, and even had there been a whole ton of specifics, there was no outlet, no mechanism or avenue of action or follow-up, such as John Barker had once envisaged in creating The Premonitions Bureau.

Uvalde

May 24, 2022, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos fatally shot nineteen students and two teachers and wounded seventeen other people at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, United States. Earlier in the day, he shot his grandmother in the forehead at home, severely wounding her. Wikipedia

Date: 24 May 2022 at 7:27 pm BST

The night before, I was sitting up late in bed, reading. It was after midnight when I turned off the light and noticed a peculiar sensation, a fizzing, buzzing, tingling sensation that affected my head and shoulders, but only my head and shoulders. I first wondered whether it was a new physical symptom that was possibly affecting my ears or balance. I have severe rheumatoid arthritis which can affect organs as well as joints and muscles. But then the thought came to me, “what is this? Who is it? What bad news is this now, that is coming down the track?”

Was it a family member? I didn’t think so, but I had no idea was it was. All I knew was, and I said this to myself before turning over to go to sleep was, “there will be bad news tomorrow.”

How do any parents bear such a thing as this and it happened for what? One unhappy creature, empty of purpose and full of ugliness, grudge and spite, a loser in the true meaning of the word, was handed the means to indulge himself to the full, unleashing the grotesque horror of the Id, for mere dollars.

On May 24, 2022, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos fatally shot nineteen students and two teachers and wounded seventeen other people at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, United States. Earlier in the day, he shot his grandmother in the forehead at home, severely wounding her. Wikipedia

I’ve been jittery for some weeks one way and another, and possibly so have you. Leo season, I feel, is going to be extra dramatic in world events this August, both the beauty and the beast.

“Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy,” said. F. Scott Fitzgerald.

“Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely”, wrote Edna St Vincent Millay

A Dirge Without Music 
Edna St. Vincent Millay 

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely.  Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,—
They are gone.  They are gone to feed the roses.  Elegant and curled
Is the blossom.  Fragrant is the blossom.  I know.  But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know.  But I do not approve.  And I am not resigned.

But if there is hope for us all- and there is, then it is exactly this. That we have this shared, mysterious but entirely natural human potential to sense what may be happening to others, even over great distances, and to sense, to feel -to work for, care for, or even fight for people we have never met and never will.

It’s a natural magic but it’s not unique to us. Baboons have it. South African naturalist and poet Eugène Marais witnessed it in action. A group of male baboons attacked a stalking leopard in order to defend their group, and succeeded in killing it, but only one of them survived.

Eugène N. Marais – 1871-1935 writer, lawyer and naturalist, Wiki

Marais also observed soldier ants racing up a tree and attacking and killing a praying mantis many times their own size, that was preying on their column,helping itself as the marching column passing under its tree. A lot of soldier ants died in the process but they stuck fast, swarmed on it and finally managed to bite off its head.

What we call courage or duty might be vainglory. It might be the Ego or the tribal Id. But what we call heroism is the readiness to put ourselves last in the service of some quest undertaken for some greater purpose, no fear or favour, no guarantee of success, reward, recognition or memorial.

“If one loves nature, one learns automatically.”
― Eugène N. Marais, The Soul Of The Ape; The Soul Of The White Ant

Back soon. Till next time 🙂

Cancer, Zenith of the Zodiac, The Starry Crab of the Summer Skies

It’s that time of year again. Greeting Cancer, The Zenith of The Zodiac, The Starry Crab in the Sea of the Summer Skies…

True Tarot Tales

Photo by stein egil liland on Pexels.com

We go into the zodiac domain of Cancer the Crab Tuesday 21 June 2022 and we sail once again into the zodiac domain of the mysterious and elusive Cancer the Crab, scuttling across the heavens as we arrive at the summer solstice. The word solstice comes from the Latin ‘solstitium’ – meaning the sun stands still. Now the sun appears to move sideways/crabwise as we pass the peak. The North Pole has now hit its maximum angle of tilt to the sun, 23.5 degrees, and now we are on the return journey.

This is the great astronomical event with which we came to associate the zodiac sign of The Crab. Butwhat does it look like in the night sky, and what’s the story behind it? It’s that time of year again.

Common associations

The pincers: Zodiac symbol of Cancer

Ruling planet:

View original post 1,394 more words

Birds and bees and all that flies. It’s time again for Gemini!

Photo by Marian Florinel Condruz on Pexels.com

Gemini the sign of the Heavenly Twins is a mutable air sign, and the third sign of the western or Tropical zodiac, representing late spring/early summer in the northern hemisphere.

The word ‘zodiac’ comes from the Greek meaning ‘circle of animals.’

The only zodiac sign that is non-representative of a living creature is Libra, representing the Scales of Justice. But even the scales of Libra are borrowed from the stars of neighbouring Scorpio, the heavenly scorpion.

Gemini Associations

Dates: May 21- June 20

Astrological symbol:

Ruling planet: Mercury

Element: Air

Quality: Mutable

Affirmation: ‘I think, I inquire.’

Birth Stone: For Gemini born in May, Emerald. For Gemini born in June, Pearl (although it is not a stone, and it is a product of the sea it is classically ruled by Mercury)

Lucky stone, The Tiger’s Eye. Why? Grounding of ‘flighty’ Gemini energy, brings focus

Colour: Yellow

Tree: all kinds of nut trees

Flower: Lily of the Valley, Lavender

Astronomy of Gemini

The Gemini constellation was listed as one of the 48 ancient constellations by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy in the second century, though Ptolemy referred to it in terms, not of the constellation as a whole, but of its two brightest stars, Castor ‘ The Star of Apollo,’ and Pollux ‘The Star of Heracles’.

Gemini is the northernmost constellation in the zodiac, in size the 30th largest. To see Gemini with the naked eye, we need to look north east of the constellation Orion between the Taurus and Cancer constellations.

Best viewing is during February. By April and May, the constellation is visible in the west soon after sunset.

Castor and Pollux, the brightest stars in the Gemini constellation, represent the heads of the twins from Greek mythology. Fainter stars are the outlines their bodies. Pollux, the westerly twin, is a red giant star, 33 light-years from Earth while Castor is about 51 light-years away.

(One light-year is the distance that light travels in a year – approx 6 trillion miles/9.6 trillion KM.)

Pollux is the brighter of the two stars, orbited by a massive planet orbiting it, Beta Genorium B, 1.6 times bigger than Jupiter.

Castor is actually not a single star, but a star system made of up six stars not visible to the naked eye.

Ancient History

Photo by Victoria Borodinova on Pexels.com

Gemini represents the key principle of duality or polarity, similarities and opposites, life and death, light and dark, night and day, hot and cold.

We see this principle in active operation in spring, in the climax of splitting or cloning. Pollen flies free. Eggs hatch. Butterflies and dragonflies hatch out of their chrysalis. The mythology of twins goes back at least as far as the so-called Age of Gemini, during the Palaeolithic, 6, 500 BCE, arising from our understanding of the duality fundamental to the nature of reality.

There are countless stories of the twins in world myth, representing dualities and polarities; night and day, light and dark, heat and cold, male and female, war and peace, good and bad, life and death. The creation myths of ancient cultures across the world reflect this eternal battle of seeming opposites. Many surviving objects feature twin gods and goddesses. But there is a shadow side. In some cultures twins have been feared

In Egyptian astrology the stars of Gemini were twin goats, or else they were the two gods, Horus the Elder and Horus the Younger, while classical Greek mythology identified them as the twin brothers, Castor and Pollux, The Gemini.

Gemini is the first sign of the western tropical zodiac year that has a human representation rather than an animal one, following Aries the Ram and Taurus the Bull.

Castor and Pollux

Gemini is the name by which the constellation is known today throughout the western world. Gemini is Latin for “twins,” and Gemini is The Hellenistic names of the Heavenly Twins, Castor and Pollux.

Castor comes from the Greek Καστωρ (Kastor) and means “to excel, to shine.” In Greek myth Castor was a son of Zeus and the twin brother of Pollux.

Pollux comes from the Roman form of Greek Πολυδευκης (Polydeukes) and means “very sweet”.

The circumstances of their birth were unusual, to say the least. Queen Leda of Sparta was seduced by Zeus who had disguised himself as a swan. ‘Seduced’ is putting it rather too politely. She was bathing in the river. He glided about pretending to peck at things and then pounced on her while she was looking the other way, minding her own business. Later that evening, notwithstanding this shock, or perhaps, who knows, because of it, Leda also slept with her husband King Tyndareus and went on to produce four children; Castor, Pollux and their sisters Helen (later Helen of Troy) and Clytemnestra (later married to Agamemnon as queen of Mycenae.)

Pollux and Helen were fathered by Zeus, and were immortal, while Castor and Clytemnestra, fathered by Tyndareus,were mortal.

*Source: Public Domain, the young Castor and Pollux (Meissen)*

The brothers, known as the Dioscuri, meaning Sons of Zeus, were handsome, curious and always up to something. The mortal Castor was a renowned horseman and a master at fencing, while the immortal Pollux was known for his great strength and skill at boxing.

But then Castor was killed, possibly in a quarrel over dividing the spoils after a cattle raid. Pollux was distraught. He didn’t want immortality, not if it meant being without his brother, he said, and he begged his father, Zeus to make him mortal, and then kill him so he could be with his brother. Zeus couldn’t bring himself to do that, scratching his head, wondering how to fix this, and decided to place them both in the stars, to be immortal together forever as the constellation of the Gemini.

The Greeks, in particular the Spartans, though the twins had a temple in Athens, worshipped the twins as horsemen, and also as patron saints of shipwrecked sailors. Sacrifices were offered to the Dioscuri before a voyage, with a request for favourable winds.

The Romans later developed a cult around Castor and Pollux, dating back to 484 B.C. They built a temple to the twins in the Roman Forum in 414 BC in thanks for their help in defeating their old enemy The Latins, in the battle of Regillus.

Castor and Pollux were the patron gods of the Roman cavalry, the mounted knights or equites, and appear in this role on many early Roman coins.

The Zodiac Archetype

Mercury by Hendrick Goltzius, 1611, Public Domain

The planetary ruler of Gemini is Mercury, the planet nearest the Sun, representing the winged god Mercury or Hermes; patron deity of all forms of communication, media, trade, global commerce and travel, medicine, research and analytics.

But Mercury has a lesser known role as a psychopomp; one who can go between the realms of the living and the dead, a go-between and safe escort to the dead. It was Hermes who escorted the souls of the newly dead to the banks of the Acheron or The Styx, where they waited for Charon to come in this boat and ferry them across to the Underworld.

It was Hermes who escorted Persephone out of the dominion of Hades to be reunited with her mother Demeter, not knowing that despite his instructions that she was not to eat anything, or the deal was off, Hades had tricked Persephone into eating six seeds of her favourite pomegranate fruit. Seeds don’t count, Hades told her, and she believed him, but now she was bound to his side for six months of the year.

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.

A zodiac sign paints a poetic 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; differences of temperature, hours of daylight, maternal diet during pregnancy and so on, with potentially different effects on the baby’s physical makeup and constitution.

As a mutable sign, Gemini rules a borderline between seasons, in this case late spring into early summer. The other mutable signs are Virgo and Pisces, and all three mutable signs are considered the most changeable and agile of the signs, inquiring, analytical, logical and restless.

Mid- May is the start of grass pollen season which then builds to a peak in mid July:-

“May is quite the rollercoaster when it comes to tracking pollen. Dock and lime pollen start triggering hay fever in May as they begin their season, while both pine and oil seed rape peak and end within the month. Oak and plane end their peak – but grass pollen begins hitting its high notes.“

Photo by Kristina Paukshtite on Pexels.com

The Gemini temperament is friendly yet watchful, generous but changeable -mercurial as personified by Hermes with his winged sandals and his staff, caduceus- emblem of messages and trade. The well-known delivery company of the same name clearly chose its name for this same reason.

In medical astrology, Gemini rules the arms and hands. The typical Gemini native is of above average personal appearance, personable, attractive, usually slim and of average height or taller and with neat, tidy facial features. The Gemini is socially gifted, cheerful, humorous, witty, capable and quick to learn.

Limbourg, Anatomy of The Zodiac, Wiki via ©Photo. R.M.N. / R.-G. Ojda

At the same time, Gemini can also be surprisingly dogmatic, attaching themselves to causes, even inclining towards fundamentalism, whether it is to do religion or some other entirely secular creed or manifesto, or to do with lifestyle, for example, exercise or diet choices.

Gemini can be, not insincere, at least, not in that moment, but quick to lose interest, fluttering like butterflies, looking for the next new thing, looking for some better, brighter flower. This can apply to the way they interact with other people, here today and gone tomorrow, even though once mature, and once committed, they make dutiful and devoted partners and parents.

Gemini in the Tarot

The Tarot cards associated with Gemini are The Lovers, The Knight of Swords and the 8, 9 and 10 Swords.

Rider-Waite Tarot via Wiki

Card Meanings: love, friendships, partnerships, agreements, contracts, difficult choices, decisions

Every suit in the Tarot has its own court with a king and queen, a knight and a page. The principle Court card associated with Gemini is the Knight of Swords.

Card Meanings: speed, action, forward movement, sudden developments, attack, assertiveness, intelligence, sudden news, cunning, calculation, good timing, a pre-emptive strike, a confident, forceful young person, windy weather, east wind, motorbike

The Decans of Gemini

The word ‘Decan’ comes from the Latin meaning ‘ten.’ Each zodiac sign lasts about 30 days and is further divided into three blocks of roughly 10 days each. These are the decans or decanates, or as they are sometimes called, the ‘thirty-six faces of astrology,’ bringing added depth to the psychological profile associated with your zodiac sign/sun sign.

The minor arcana cards associated with Gemini are the Eight, Nine and Ten of Swords and they correlate with the dates of the decans.

If you don’t feel like you are a ‘typical’ Gemini, well, we are all unique, but perhaps you are also a second or third decan Gemini native, rather than a ‘most typical’ first decan Gemini. Gemini is still Gemini, whatever the decan and this holds true for all the zodiac signs. But an early born Gemini is born under a slightly different planetary influence than a later born Gemini. It’s all still Gemini, the same heavenly recipe, but with varying amounts of common ingredients.

First Decan Gemini

(0-10 degrees of the sign)

21-31 May

Card Meanings: Entrapment, uncertainty, a sense of helplessness, waiting for rescue, there is a way out if only you will open your eyes, look around and take a step forward. I have personally also come to associate this card with plumbing, drainage issues.

This decan gets a double dose of the planetary influence of inquisitive, rational, Mercury. This is an alert, perceptive, intellectual and forceful personality. The acumen is sharp. The negative side of this coin is a Gemini native who is just as inquisitive but careless, flighty, forgetful, restless and unreliable.

First decan Gemini is a multi-talented juggler, light on their feet, graceful and agile. But at the same time they tend to develop a strong point of view on a wide range of subjects, and they have a clearly defined belief system. For all their apparent flightiness they are also tough and resilient- even stubborn, a quality more usually associated with Taurus, its next door neighbour and predecessor in the zodiac.

Gemini make devoted partners, contrary to whatever people might assume. They will hang on in there when the going gets tough, though they are prone to boredom, can quickly tire of routine quickly; and have considerable charisma or sex appeal. But they know when they have a good thing so long as there is plenty of social interaction and short distance travel to keep their restlessness under control.

Second Decan Gemini

(10-20 degrees of the sign)

June 1-10

Card Meanings: The Nightmare card. Worry, ‘the black dog’ anxiety, stress, grief, insomnia, things that keep us awake at night.

The personal planet of this decan is Venus, planet of love, beauty- and money. This Gemini has charm, and a generous and giving spirit. The sub-ruler is Libra, ruled by Venus, the natural ruler of the seventh house of marriage, partnerships, close associates, associations, and legal matters. This Gemini is more of a “me-too” person, rather than an “I-am” person when compared with a first decan Gemini.

This Gemini native needs to be especially careful in the selection of companions/associates. The choice of a mate is, of course, of the utmost importance. This Gemini especially needs to avoid making big decisions about a choice of partner when they are too young to fully understand what they are doing.

These are easy going and pleasant people. Gemini strives on change while Libra works to establish equilibrium. Their Venus/Libra influence is their salvation, because it makes them artful in their judgments and full of affection for those they do judge.

Gemini 2nd decan is drawn to quiet, reserved people. Not only do opposites attract, but the secrecy fascinates Gemini-Libra, ans they also match up well with reliable, practical types who can get the job done with little fuss or excitement. A person that will ground, refine and implement the Gemini-Libra.

People respond well to the Second Decan Gemini warm and effusive nature. They also have a sense of adventure, same as the other Gemini decans, and they enjoy travel for the sake of new experiences. Sharing is part of the Gemini-Libra life; they are generous with their time and friendship and also with possessions.

Gemini-Libra is great company, with a great deal of magnetism. They are kindly, sharp and witty. Just cut your cloth to suit and don’t be too surprised or upset if they disappear as suddenly as they appear or go quiet on you without warning. It’s not personal. It’s just the way they are.

Third Decan Gemini

(20-30 degrees of the sign)

June 11-20

Card meanings: Destruction, despair, betrayal, ruin, dark night of the soul, darkness before dawn, the only way is up, illness, comatose, a fall, spinal injury, head injury.

Incidental perhaps, but this card has come up repeatedly in respect of events and outcomes affecting the personal destiny Vladimir Putin since the invasion of Ukraine, 24 February. We shall see what occurs during these forthcoming decan dates, June 11-June 2020.

The personal planets of the third decan Gemini are Saturn and Uranus, painting a portrait full of contradictions. Sometimes this person is ultra-careful, dutiful, responsible, serious, at other times carefree or even careless. Uranus combined with the planet Mercury suggests an unusually active or even brilliant mind possibly even verging on genius. This person may be a thinker who is ahead of their times. Or maybe they are just zany.

Aquarius – natural ruler of the eleventh house of friends, hopes, and wishes-makes this Gemini a social type, a friend-oriented individual interested in social causes. This Gemini is an optimist, always interested in trying out what is new, and never happier than when they are on the move.

Life is rarely dull with a cheerful Decan 3 Gemini around, but they are the most independent- natured Gemini decan. They need plenty of space and freedom, with a partner who makes few demands on their time and attention. They are very hard working when they put their mind to it. But keeping promises, fulfilling obligations and routines are not their strongest suit. It is a mistake for this Gemini native to marry early or settle too soon. Adventure, exploration and experimentation with ideas, people and places- this is what they are about. This is what makes them tick.

Famous Gemini people

Carl Linnaeus, Peter the Great, Adam Smith, Richard Wagner, Arthur Conan Doyle, John Maynard Keynes, John F Kennedy, Frank Lloyd Wright, Boris Johnson. Johnny Depp, Queen Victoria, Charles 11, George 111,George V, Donald Trump, Muammar Gaddafi, Angelina Jolie, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.

Happy birthday, Gemini 2023

What is the advice for Gemini in 2023?

Astro-dice Casting

We have drawn Sun in Gemini in the Second House.

Here is the mystery of synchronicty at work in real time. I throw 3 dice, asking, what is the keynote message for Gemini in 2023, and, blow me down, we have drawn the Sun in Gemini, reflecting an exact mirror image of the question as stated, and then the Second House, ruled by Taurus, represents the answer.

Also, curiouser and curiouser, here is more real time astrology. This astro-dice casting is picking up on the current Mercury (ruler of Gemini) transit in second house Taurus. These die have already been cast. What we have been dealing with since April and May may start to bear fruit (or deliver further baggage) from June onwards in 2023.

The focus this year is on material and financial security, and also perhaps wining and dining and other earthy luxuries. The money sign of Taurus, ruled by Venus, planet of beauty AND money, as the best things in life may be free, but the basics cost money, and beautiful things cost more money. Taurus also refers to agriculture and food- all good things.

The second House is also to do with our values and priorities, and these can change over time.

This is a year for cautious rather than exuberant optimism. New opportunities and adventures are coming this year, and new relationships, though these may be slow to start with.

Taurus gets things done, sharpened by the wit of Mercury. But you may find yourself making slower progress than you are used to. Gently does it.

There is a sense of needing to make peace with the past, letting go of griefs or grudges to do with past disappointments in relationships and business.

Health wise, though butter for instance is a real food, where margarine is not, and Taurus is all about real, rather than processed foods, rich heavy foods may not suit the slightly slower Gemini digestion, or the Gemini mood this year.

Back soon with more to come on Gemini 🙂