Season of the Celestial Scorpion

Tomorrow is a partial solar eclipse in Scorpio…time to take another look at the mysterious, deathless Scorpion…

Katie-Ellen's avatarTrue Tarot Tales

Photo by Irina Iriser on Pexels.com

Common Associations

Zodiac symbol

Dates:  October 23 –November 22

Ruling planets:  Ruled by Mars. After Pluto’s discovery in 1930, considered by many modern astrologers to be co-ruled by Pluto

Symbols:  Scorpion, Serpent, Eagle/Phoenix (nearby constellation, Aquila, the Eagle)

Zodiac element:Water

Zodiac quality:Fixed

Keywords: I desire. I transform

Colour: Dark red

Birthstone: Yellow Topaz, Opal, Aquamarine, Tourmaline.

Tree: Walnut. Hawthorn. Blackthorn

Tarot Card: Death

From The Gilded Tarot

Note the Biblical ‘pale horse’ and the white rose. The rose signifies beauty and immortality.

All that has ever once been, is recorded somewhere, somehow, forever.

Astronomy

Scorpius is a massive, spectacular j- shaped constellation located in the skies over the southern hemisphere near the centre of the Milky Way. In the Northern hemisphere it can be seen in July and August, and is most visible in July at 9.00 PM. In the Southern…

View original post 3,562 more words

Tarot talks October, Putin, Poseidon and the nuclear threat

Photo by Ray Bilcliff on Pexels.com

Disclaimer. This is a Tarot reading only, for readers generally interested in the modern use and applications of Tarot and cartomancy divination.

War is raging, people are dying. The political seas are boiling, the news is non stop, but we will all be glad if it gets no worse in light of Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons.

This deeply unprepossessing personage below, Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov, 46, son of a Muslim cleric, Head of the Chechen Republic, who is apparently nicknamed Putin’s lap dog or Putin’s attack dog, has reportedly been urging Putin to up the ante, deploying tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. He has just been promoted to the rank of general and looks like a choleric killer-gnome with high blood pressure. Better learn to calm himself down if he wants to make old bones.

Ramzan Kadyrov

Kadyrov fought against Russia in the first Chechen war, when he was pro Chechen independence. It is only natural and laudable to defend one’s own homeland, but he swapped sides in the second Chechen war. His province is economically weak, it has been reported. He relies on the Kremlin for money, and has a reputation for ‘human rights abuses.’

Kadyrov has said he will send his three sons to fight in Ukraine – aged 14, 15 and 16.

Putin’s PR man, Dmitry Peskov has apparently lamented that Kadyrov gets ‘too emotional at difficult moments’.

If this isn’t an exceedingly difficult moment for President Putin…

Let’s hope that Kadyrov’s promotion is actually Putin’s way of managing him, kicking him upstairs,keeping him sweet while at the same time, putting the frighteners on everyone.

Biden has said that Putin is not joking. Ukraine knows he isn’t, and we have all seen that Putin’s regime is capable of pretty much anything. It’s not that he’s bluffing. But I am not seeing that he will do it.

Dmitry Peskov

President Xi meantime has plainly intimated that the deployment of nuclear weapons is a red line that Russia had better not cross, while Saudi Arabia has joined up with Russia to agree a managed reduction of oil stocks from November, which will drive up prices, and which the Biden administration views as an act of betrayal by OPEC and the Saudis, driving up the price of Brent crude oil just before peak season demand. US views this as an act of solidarity with Russia. OPEC says they have done this to stabilize the market.

Will Putin deploy nuclear weapons? On the face of it it may seem entirely plausible that he will do so, given the current desperate circumstances, but he has many different audiences, each with their own stakes in play.

What does the Tarot show in respect of this nuclear threat this coming month?

Events in October

Tweeted 6 October

@truetarottales

#Tarot #Ukraine #Putin October direct nuclear attack not shown, test not unlikely. 5 Swords=defeats. King Cups=water/Poseidon/threat +message to Biden. Week 3 fiery+4 unstable. 9 Pentacles/Temperance/3 Coins-China would be alienated. No clear gain +P hopes winter splits opposition

Tarot readers don’t claim to know ‘the future’. They use their cards, that is all, to try and sense the coming weather, and articulate their findings.

October is deeply worrying, The fourth week is potentially most worrying as seen in the cards. November too, highly likely. But I am not being shown an impending nuclear Armageddon outcome. Let’s consider the cards in more depth.

Issue: The Five of Swords and The Seven of Cups

The Five of Swords is Defeat, rage, mortification, humiliation and chagrin. This is a reflection of the recent defeats experienced by Russian forces, but is also holding up a mirror to the defeat he wants to inflict. He wants it finished by Christmas. This may not be possible. The Five of Swords is Aquarius, late January to late February. Putin could make use of a pause at this juncture. Ukraine has no reason to seek one, but it does have every reason to push harder and not lose momentum

The Seven of Cups talks about ‘castles in the air.’ Daydreams and potentially, delusions. This is about Putin’s dream, his vision. This card generally talks about those things which inspire us, but which are not realized. In terms of timing, this is a card of Scorpio and late Scorpio time, late November, suggesting that Putin is envisioning a next stage strategy working towards that date frame. This is a card of deep water, which in the context of the Poseidon submarine being deployed in the Kara Sea, is not a reassuring card. This card therefore, benchmarks the threat. (Not forgetting the nuclear train being deployed to the border with Ukraine.)

Week One: The King of Cups

This card represents a number of possibilities:-

  1. A man acts as a broker or peacekeeper. The suit of Cups is calming in general
  2. The card represents Neptune- dominant planet in 2022 and the alter ego of Neptune is Poseidon- well, here we are, in week one, talking about the Poseidon missile threat.
  3. The deployment of the submarine-and the train- is a direct threat and intended as a rebuke to the ‘King of Cups’, which is the court card representing Scorpio native President Biden in response to recent further US armaments to Ukraine and the new Lend Lease.

The Russian Poseidon submarine is in the Kara Sea, in the Arctic, a prime fishing ground with vast reserves of untapped petroleum and gas. The US government sanctioned Exxon from drilling there in 2014. One wonders whether this is Putin’s way of reminded the US government that he has the means to prevent them from accessing those energy fields.

If I am understanding this correctly, for Putin to use that Poseidon submarine to carry out a nuclear attack on Ukraine it would need to enter the Baltic undetected.

Image via Wikipedia

However, this Neptune card conveys a strong sense of key coastal or maritime developments.

Aug. 24, 2022 

On the 31st anniversary of Ukraine’s independence, the United States is reinforcing its long-term commitment to the nation with $2.98 billion to train and equip the Ukrainian armed forces for their struggle against the Russian invasion.

President Joe Biden announced the aid at the White House. He said the people of the world have been awed and inspired by Ukrainian resistance and pledged the United States will stand with the people of Ukraine as they fight to defend their sovereignty. 

The aid “will allow Ukraine to acquire air defense systems, artillery systems and munitions, counter-unmanned aerial systems, and radars to ensure it can continue to defend itself over the long term,” the president said. SOURCE

Week Two: The Empress Reversed.

I am struggling with this one, to gauge its meaning apropos of the question. The Empress is Demeter, so, land and agriculture. The Empress is mothers and motherhood eg; Mother Russia. Maybe to Putin she is a vision of Catherine The Great, and attached to this, the city of Odessa which she founded. If so, perhaps this card is detecting that Putin may seek to scatter Ukrainian forces with further attacks on Odessa this month.

I think this card pertains to the problem Russia now has during this time, of identifying and declaring the boundaries of the land they have claimed via the four ‘sham’ referendums, now that Ukrainian counteroffensives are reclaiming ever more territory in those four Oblasts, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Wherever Russia now declares those lines to be drawn, are the lines that Russia must be seen to defend. They have not as yet made that announcement. Let us wait and see if Putin’s military chief minister, Shoigu falls down the stairs this month in weeks three or four.

There has been a sense since February, as seen in the cards, that Putin will end up with much less than he wants, but more than he should rightfully get, and finally comes a cropper. It will not be an easy exit for him, says the Ten of Swords. Perhaps it will be Donetsk that he gets to re-acquire, which may just possibly have a genuine majority in favour of returning to Russia. But now he risks losing what he has already seized by invasion, however ‘peaceful’.

Ukraine is now a hive of fury and is set on taking back the Crimea.

Curiously, the moon in the second week in October is a waning moon in Taurus, the zodiac sign of agriculture – Virgo is the other. Taurus is ruled by the planet Venus, all things sociable, beautiful, harmonious and luxurious. This means money.

A waning Venus-Taurus moon…this for Putin could therefore signify waning money, the erosion of the boundaries of the four annexed Oblasts, and in addition there may be some private worry or grief to do with a significant woman in his life.

This is a man whose upbringing and mother, The Empress Reversed, is a mystery. The mother, rather a touching figure in this photograph, the child withdrawn and anxious.

By Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5389243
Week Three and Four: The King of Wands Reversed and The Fool Reversed

A man who is a’king of wands’ may leave the scene. A man of action. Is this a reference to Sergei Shoigu, who has been the Russian Minister of Defense for some years? Astrologically this card represents Leo, but the planets are Mars and Jupiter. One can see the potential for heat here, suggesting missiles used or exchanged with Ukraine. But the card is reversed, and it remains possible that the situation may be somewhat defused by this time. There is a strong feel of ‘fire and water’, this could mean explosions rather than missiles but these are traditional, so to speak, below the grade of nuclear.

The Fool is the most dangerous card here in this spread, in this context. The Fool is the wild card in the Tarot, never to be discounted. ‘Accidents’ can happen. Fools jump in. Surprises are likely, putting it mildly.

But the more Putin looks before he leaps, the less likely it looks here that he will act to unleash nuclear weapons, however much he is tempted. Why will he not? The reader looks for the cards that follow, to get clarification on The Fool. People talk about the Death card. This most numinous card represents the concept of zero and can mean death. For whom, apart from all those who will certainly lose their lives this month, on both sides, not to mention the blameless Ukrainian civilians?

That Three of Pentacles tones down the Fool, and suggests Putin decides to stay his hand on the nuclear option at least until the winter. The Three of Pentacles correlates with 1) a team of close advisors 2) second decan Capricorn, late Dec-late January.

If it was a regional nuclear wipe out, I’d be looking at the World card reversed.

Putin does want this war ended as soon as possible, and he may not care how. He has lowered his sights. He would settle for Crimea and those four annexed Oblasts -for now. He wants it done but such is the damage done to Ukraine, a ceasefire may not be a realistic prospect.

But given the risks to him of using nuclear weapons, the Three of Pentacles suggests Putin hopes a delay will work in his favour, not least because it gives him more time to produce/manufacture the resources he needs to support the now expanded military logistical demands. Another factor in his favour, from now on the cold weather will put pressure until spring 2023 on European support and UK support of Ukraine’s defense. It will now cost even more, thanks to the decision by OPEC.

Other cards

The Nine of Pentacles says Putin must be able to see a clear material gain as his justification and reward for deploying nuclear weapons. Such an action must be able to be presented as justifiable, at least, to those allies who are already maintaining a critically delicate diplomatic position. The Nine of Swords reversed shows the grief and anger of mothers in Ukraine, and now in Russia too, the mothers of the newly mobilized civilian population. Fathers too, of course, but we are working with the card language.

President Putin dare not push Russian public opinion ‘too far.’ The danger here is that these Russian mothers, however ambivalent they were before, would support the use of nuclear weapons, and likely they would, if it meant their own loved ones were sent home again safe and sound, and were not needed to fight after all. This would likely be Putin’s justification at home then.

But he needs China onside. Would this excuse wash with President Xi? Highly doubtful.

Temperance is a mighty card of restraint. This plus Putin’s OPEC ‘coup’ offer a modicum of hope that Putin will not order the use of these weapons during October. He can just wear Ukraine down and wait for the West to get fed up.

The intensity of the risk continues into late November or even Christmas, based on the connection of the Temperance card with the zodiac sign of Sagittarius, the Archer.

Ukraine’s war so far has been largely defensive. Its offensives have been counteroffensives and its civilians have been shelled in their beds by Russian long range missiles. But if we think of Temperance as the archer, then Ukraine’s increased HIMAR capability and longer range missiles, would be a significant ramping up of their own deterrent, since after all Ukraine was persuaded to forego its own nuclear capability in return for the promise of protection.

SOURCE NPR

Three decades ago, the newly independent country of Ukraine was briefly the third-largest nuclear power in the world.

Thousands of nuclear arms had been left on Ukrainian soil by Moscow after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. But in the years that followed, Ukraine made the decision to completely denuclearize.

In exchange, the U.S., the U.K. and Russia would guarantee Ukraine’s security in a 1994 agreement known as the Budapest Memorandum.

Ukraine has been asking for long range missiles, able to cover four times the distance of the HIMARS to help them level up with Russia, and has said they are wiling to have the use of these overseen by the US. Biden at this time of writing, is still reluctant to provide these to Ukraine for fear of escalating the war by crossing Putin’s declared red lines.

The Ukrainian defenders must then, either cede that seized territory, or fight to take it back. up against a superior Russian artillery capability, with one hand tied behind their back, so to speak.

But by the same token, the Temperance card suggests, should Putin proceed to deploy tactical nuclear weapons against the Ukrainians, then he is aware- and so is President Xi- the US is liable to change its mind about supplying those long range missiles.

Cartomancy Spread

Tweeted 6 October 2022

#Cartomancy nuclear threat Oct 2022 5, 8,10 Hearts Water theme dominant, maritime. 10 = ocean/Poseidon. But no ace to show nuclear ‘tsunami’. 5 Hearts=Scorpio/23-25 Oct+ (eclipse?) brings a change to situation 5 Clubs. If there is an escalation however, cards suggest contained.

In Summary

Back in December 2021, in an article published in January 2022 I wrote among other things here and at AskAstrology.com that I didn’t like the Neptunian feel of things for the coming year.

Neptune is associated with all manner of desirable things; imagination, compassion- but I didn’t like its boundlessness in 2022, the lack of boundaries or the breaching of boundaries. Without boundaries, there is chaos. Where there is chaos there is distortion, madness and cruelty.

The cards for this coming month have that Neptunian feeling again, especially in the second half of the month, combined with that deep water fire of Scorpio. Both Putin and Biden have Scorpio written large in their profiles.

This, by the way, is not to suggest anything negative about this zodiac sign, or indeed any zodiac sign or its natives. Every zodiac sign has its positive and negative aspects, just the same as in every season of nature. Scorpio is also associated with great vision, drive, natural physical charisma and a gift of healing.

I am seeing correlations between the cards and the astrology in respect of this particular situation, that is all. Every zodiac sign has its positive and negative aspects.

But the ‘graph line’ of the cards does not look what I might expect to see if we were looking at a nuclear attack. I have seen a terrorist attack once before in the cards, before it actually happened. That was terrible. But this would be something far worse.

I had drawn the Chariot reversed, the Devil and The Tower in a casual ad hoc reading done around half past three UK time, a few hours before the truck attack in Nice, 14 July 2016. I did not know exactly what was coming, but I knew I did not like it, that it involved a vehicle and a collision, but with an added element in the mix, a suggestion of intent and of malice.

The key cards were:

The Chariot drawn reversed=a defeat, the zodiac sign of Cancer (14 July is Cancer) A transport accident/disaster /armour (truck, car,train- here it could be a submarine)

The Devil =desire, rage, lust for power, chaos,extremism, terrorism

The Tower, pride, fall, sudden shock, impact+explosion

That presentation has been absent in both of these card spreads today. Of course the reader must point out that this IS only a card reading, done as a demonstration exercise, for general interest, and is to be regarded as such.

None of these findings are to downplay the danger which is very real and present, not only as reported in the news but as reflected in the cards.

However, it seems to the reader, based on these cards drawn yesterday, 6 October, and on further cards which were drawn this morning 7 October, that there is no clear sign of a full on nuclear attack.

It is not evident in the cards, that Putin will deploy tactical or other nuclear weapons. It depends upon how he calculates the risks of doing so. This thing he has agree with OPEC possibly makes it less likely, more than more likely, strengthening his hand as he hopes to grind down Europe, the UK, the US and Baltic countries supporting Ukraine’s sovereignty.

It seems clear that Putin would not hesitate to use anything at his disposal if he could get what he wanted by those means. He may carry out ‘tests’ or demonstrations. That Eight of Diamonds can mean ‘performances.’ But it is a cautious card, the Eight of Diamonds, and here it’s being counterbalanced by the Eight of Hearts which is in essence, a card of balance and restitution. Possibly there will be a positive diplomatic development this month.

What seems likely to limit Putin’s scope for using nuclear weapons, apart from the delicacy of his relationship with President Xi is the problem of the ‘optics.’ How it will look to the world. That card, the Eight of Diamonds also refers to eyesight or specifically spectacles. Perhaps Putin now sometimes wears spectacles- away from the public eye.

Putin has no way of knowing what will be the full extent of the fallout of using such weapons-both literally and physically, from his own point of view-politically and militarily upon Russia, and upon himself personally.

There is a whiff of poison in these dominantly watery cards. Spite. Putin may well be considering biological or chemical weapons, or thinking how and where to do more damage to Ukraine’s water supply infrastructure.

When the Romans went stamping about invading other folk, they used to drop silver coins down the wells to disinfect them. Silver has antibacterial properties. The Maltese and the Knights of St John poisoned the wells in the south of the island, resisting the Turkish invasion during the Great Siege of Malta 18 May 1565 – 11 Sept 1565 (and for the full story I heartily recommend this astonishing book.)

Putin wants to flatten Ukraine once and for all. But the gruesome gnome, Kadyrov, and doubtless there are others of his ilk, are at this juncture, monkeys on Putin’s back. They have agendas which are nothing to do with Ukraine as such, making them as dangerous to Putin as they are to everyone else, including Russia.

Maybe he’ll poison the Kara Sea or drown an island, you know, just to show everyone and especially Biden who’s in charge.

No-one is not saying that the West is free of blame or that it has clean hands. We can all speculate, but had there been a different response to the annexation of Crimea in 2014, who knows, we might not be looking down the barrel of this nuclear threat right now.

This conflict is a polarizing beacon showing that the world order is drawing up and hardening into two global zones- broadly a face off between the model of democracy v the model of autocracy.

I don’t imagine President Putin is having a happy birthday. I don’t see him smiling, cutting the cake, all around him a vale of tears.

The Ten of Swords awaits. Ruin. That card was drawn right back at the start, the day of the invasion of 24 February. How can he avert that now, for himself? Next spring may tell us and he is pinning his hopes on the worst that the winter can do.

But the Empress is not smiling upon him.

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

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

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.

From The Golden Tarot

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

Photo by Emma Li on Pexels.com

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

Till next time 🙂

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

The Harvest Mother at The Autumn Equinox

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Thursday 22 September marks the mythical British mid-harvest festival of Mabon, heralding the arrival of the autumn equinox which in 2022 is on 23 September.

During an equinox, the Sun crosses what we call the “celestial equator”—an imaginary extension of Earth’s equator line into space. The equinox occurs precisely when the Sun’s center passes through this line.

In the Northern Hemisphere, when the Sun crosses the equator going from north to south, this marks the autumnal equinox and when it crosses from south to north, this marks the vernal equinox. This is reversed in the Southern Hemisphere.

Now we leave the zodiac sign of Virgo, the Queen of the Harvest, and enter the astrological territory of Libra The Scales, representing the ever changing balance of day and night, represented in Tarot by The Justice card.

From The Legacy of The Divine Tarot

Libra is the only Zodiac constellation represented by an inanimate object, and not by an animal or a mythological character. The stars that represent the scales of justice are borrowed from the constellation of Scorpio next door, the claws of the Scorpion.

Those born under Libra are famously cool in temperament, intellectual, and can be somewhat emotionally detached but also volatile. According to the Roman writer Marcus Manilius, Roman judges were born under the sign of Libra. The moon was said to have been in Libra when Rome was founded, and therefore the Roman empire itself (at least, according to Manilius) began on a just and balanced foundation. Or at least, a legalized, rational, process based system.

The first harvest festival of the year was Lammas (‘Loaf Mass Tide) celebrated on the first of August. This later second harvest, Mabon, ends on 29 September.

Mabon ap Modron, -Mabon the son of Modron, was a figure from Welsh mythology who by the tenth century AD, and the first written record of him in an old Welsh poem, had became associated with the story of King Arthur. In these stories, he was one of Arthur’s war band, but the roots are much older.

The origin of the name, Mabon is related to the Romano- British god Maponos, whose name means “Great Son”; his mother Modron, in turn, is likely related to the Gaulish goddess Dea Matrona. (modern word Matron) (Via Wiki)

The Empress from The Legacy of The Divine Tarot

Dea Matrona was the Divine Mother Goddess. The River Marne in France was named in her honour and Gaulish religious images included mass produced inexpensive terracotta statues for domestic use in household shrines. These little statues showed mother goddesses nursing babies or holding fruits, other foods, or small dogs in their laps. 

Mabon may be a semi-fictionalized festival. The name is not known to have been associated with this late harvest before the 1970’s, and may be at least in part, a Neo-Pagan confection.

But there is only humility and gratitude, in seeing stories in the seasons, honouring the great earth mother, whether we think of her as Modron, Virgo, Astrea, Demeter, Gaia or Persephone, or simply as the earth itself.

All stories grow out of some real soil.

The stories are all true.

Dea Matrona

The fall or autumn equinox is especially associated with apple picking. Bring on the scrumping, the crumble and the cider.

The best cider vinegar still contains the living ‘mother.’ This vinegar is made through a two-step process. First, yeast is added to apple juice to break down the sugars and turn them into alcohol. Then, bacteria is added, converting the alcohol into acetic acid. This bacteria is what is known as the mother, This is the catalyst that gives rise to the vinegar. Many apple cider vinegars have the mother removed because it gives the vinegar a cloudy appearance and some people think it’s gone bad. Not so. The mother is the best bit, the most nutritious element.

Medicinally it is reputed to work as an antacid.

Photo by Tom Swinnen on Pexels.com

Back soon 🙂

Tarot 2022, The Queen and a Time of Mourning

From Urania’s Mirror

Our Queen Elizabeth has died at a good old age. She has been taken away in Virgo season under the watch of the stars of The Virgin, under the planets of Neptune and Jupiter. She, a queen of fixed Earth, a Taurus sun sign subject born 21 April, has been gathered up in harvest time and given back into the keeping of the mutable Earth of Demeter.

Now Elizabeth becomes a different kind of star in the firmament, a chapter between chapters, linking her father George and her son Charles, in a story and in a chain 1000 years long, broken only by the years of the Protectorate 1653-1959, forging the dramatic, complex and sometimes violent history of kingship in these islands.

George never expected or wanted to be king. Elizabeth did not ask or expect to be Queen, or to become Queen so soon and so young. Charles? Now he must change his life, and do it late in life, to assume that added weight of kingship.

Lady Colin Campbell tells us that the Queen died at 14:37 PM on Thursday 8 September.

The State Funeral will be in Westminster Abbey 14 September at 11 AM but then she will be taken to Windsor to lie in the Chapel there.

Information here

Elizabeth as Queen of Scotland

Elizabeth was crowned Queen of the United Kingdom of England, Scotland,Wales and Northern Ireland and was the Head of The Commonwealth, her unique world legacy after the end of Empire. No other former Empire has created its equivalent.

Much has been made over the years of the Queen’s German blood. But she died in Balmoral, in her beloved Scotland, and was descended on her mother’s side from the beautiful and tragic Lady Glamis, Janet Douglas Lyon.

Lady Glamis was judicially murdered, burned at the stake in Edinburgh Castle in 1537 on charges of treason and witchcraft, cooked up by James v for reasons of personal hatred of her brother, the king’s former regent, Archibald Douglas.

Balmoral 1800-1900 Unknown Author Public Domain

I was watching the live television as the Queen’s body was being driven from Balmoral down to Edinburgh, where it will lie in state tomorrow in Holyrood House.

It brought back personal memories too, of happy times up in Scotland when my own children were small and I was still physically mobile, and eager to show them some of the beautiful places I had been taken by my own parents.

There was something immensely poignant at the sight of the coffin, draped in its red and golden yellow flag, the Royal Standard, leaving the place of Queen Elizabeth’s last happiness. The ghosts there were powerful for her, and now she will be leaving her own ghost.

Princess ‘Lilibet’ 1929

We know Balmoral was a place of many happy memories for the Queen. Being there reminded her, she said, of her childhood, playing in the garden at her mother’s home in Glamis, where the sun always seemed to shine. This is the human experience encapsulated in the The Six of Cups, old family times, old friends, says in the sun. Simpler times, and the timeless moments when we were small and the world seemed full of marvellous mysteries. Well, it was.

The Six of Cups: The Gilded Tarot: By Kind Permission of Ciro Marchetti

But as for happiness:-

“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

Harvest Moon in Pisces

Harvest Moon by Samuel Palmer 1835

The Harvest moon 9 September was brilliant in the zodiac sign of Pisces, the sign of visions, ghosts and dreams, in the Twelfth House of Unknown Destinies.

Pisces is associated in the Tarot with- well, The Moon card.

From The Legacy of The Divine Tarot

This card talks about the cycles of Nature, the power of the wild and the wild creatures, fertility, contagion, danger, high tides, a hunter’s moon. Hear the barking of the dogs and the howling of the wolves.

We are experiencing a Twelfth House event. This is something more than the death of an old lady, however grand, at a good age. It is also the death of something in her people, a link to the past and Britain as it was after World War 11.

As an omen for the Accession of Charles, it is a benign, potentially visionary Full Moon. His vision may outstrip his means or freedom to execute. But at least he has vision.

In The Season of Virgo

The Queen Elizabeth has died in the second decan of Virgo, associated in the Tarot with the Nine of Pentacles, ‘The Lord and Lady of Material Gain’.

This card describes a life that has every appearance of luxury but it has come at great hidden cost. There has been untold personal sacrifice behind the scenes. Personal wishes denied. What has here been sacrificed has been a normal personal freedom, symbolized in the Tarot by the falcon sitting on the lady’s wrist.

The ‘Gilded cage?’ Balmoral was this bird’s escape.

From the Rider-Smith-Waite

Many of us had been inwardly preparing for this news, while hoping that the Queen would get to celebrate her Platinum Jubilee. Hoping that her last months, now that she was living this strange new life without Philip, her husband, ally, friend and companion of 73 years, would not be too greatly darkened by two particular family troubles involving scandals and rifts.

Tarot Predictions December 2021

It is not OK to issue predictions of death. And once upon a time, and for reasons of state security, it was an act of treason, punishable by death, to issue a prediction concerning the death of a monarch.

However I had been expecting we would lose the Queen this year, 2022, based partly on feeling and observation. Many of us will have felt the same. The feelng was also based on what I had seen in the Tarot, and I dropped a broad hint, based on a Tarot reading written up in mid December 2021, which was later published at AskAstrology.com

The cards had indicated it would happen anytime between July 2022 and the end of the year. This was based on the appearance of the Three of Swords drawn against the position I had allocated to the month of July/zodiac sign/House of Leo. The Three of Swords is severance. Leo is the sign of Royalty and also corresponds with high summer-late summer. So this was not quite right, though it was close in respect of the actual timing.

I was working with The Gilded Tarot, and as you’ll probably notice, this deck is pretty well used but I had felt drawn to use it on this occasion.

Extract from the article published December 2021:

Leo: 5th House (July-August 2022)

Heartland, creativity, passion, romance, royalty, children

Tarot card ~ 3 Swords Reversed

The Gilded Tarot

This is always a challenging card, but is one of those cards that are actually better news, being drawn reversed or upside down. The Three of Swords is about grief, loss, bereavement, arguments, Drawn in the Fifth House, it suggests that tensions between certain countries may ease. On a personal level, we are coming to terms with a family loss, or quarrels may be settling down.

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

Leo is the zodiac House of royalty. There could be national mourning in 2022 for a much loved figurehead.

Public Domain

Other Comments, December 2021

This was a very general reading for the year ahead in 2022, using just 12 cards, in which I was looking for the tone and feel of the coming year 2022, looking out for anything that jumped out as a recurring theme or a spike.

I saw a turbulent year in general in 2022. I sensed deepest waters, seismic levels of trouble. It looked and felt like Moby Dick.

‘Canst thou draw forth Leviathan with a hook?’ -Book of Job

Photo by Emma Li on Pexels.com

I did not like it. It looked both Neptunian and Plutonian. It still feels like that and I still don’t like it. America too, is in a strange place. But it will start to feel different March- May 2023, and not just because we have come through winter.

I did not, back in December 2021, see the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022. I may do divination but I am not Nostradamus. I commented on risks of invasion, but I was mainly thinking of the Strait of Taiwan. I mentioned a possible breaching of boundaries in February 2022 as signified by The Hanged Man. This card is ruled by Neptune in Pisces and it shows a lack of boundaries. So it was this card, The Hanged Man, that was the clue to Russia’s invasion.

I further commented on likely problems to do with energy and specifically NordStream2.

Like many other people I am anxious about Ukraine, especially with winter coming. But I remain reasonably sure, as I have been since the invasion, that Putin will not succeed in annexing Ukraine. If he does manage it, we will be on a clear road to a pan-European conflagration and another World War.

But the Tarot has consistently shown me a nemesis for Putin, in the shape of the Ten of Swords. Failure. Ruin. A possible Night of The Long Knives.

Illuminati Tarot

Ukraine is right now fighting a fierce counter-offensive in Kherson and Kharkiv. There is much hopeful talk on social media tonight that Putin’s demise is well nigh imminent, people mightily encouraged by events such as this footage of a fleeing Russian tank in Kharkiv Oblast.

Putin is taking a pasting. Municipal councillors in 18 municipal districts in Russia are calling for his resignation,and putting their signatures to it. The Ten of Swords could be coming over the horizon now. But theirs is no longer a functioning democracy. What kind of leader would they get next?

However, for now, Putin is sure to push back hard, says the Four of Swords followed by The Eight of Wands. If the counteroffensive should falter, not for lack of will, but for lack of support, and Putin hangs on and launches back, then we hit winter and then, should Europe bail on Ukraine, then for all the courage of the Ukrainians, Russia COULD still get Ukraine under its hammer. Confronted with certain failure, Putin could decide to try and send us all to Kingdom Come if only to spite everyone. He’s not mad. But he is shameless, and he dare not, and cannot be seen to lose at home, which makes him exceedingly dangerous. And Biden is not strong.

It still looks most likely that it is Putin who will fail, and Lukashenko with him, but I don’t expect it’s going to happen quite yet. Some astrologers however, suggest his collapse is imminent.

The dates that correlate with the cards do not necessarily match up with the card meanings. President Putin is in trouble. But if he gets through this patch, then the Ten of Swords may be seeing that he will be in heap big trouble by or before late Gemini time, 2023, 11- 20 June.

For now, although the Ukrainians are giving the Russians a richly deserved kicking, while unearthing new horrors all the while, Putin is still looking confident that he knows who he is dealing with. That ‘we’ softies, we self-indulgent pampered degenerates in Europe are the real antagonist, and that we won’t take the pain required to defeat him. That we’re soft, that we’ll fold, and leave Ukraine naked unto his vengeance, and he has shown himself utterly bestial. ‘All’ he has to do is take a financial hit himself, and keep turning off the gas taps.

The Pisces Full Moon said that we are living in a Twelfth House moment. A Destiny moment. It clearly is.

The ghosts in these lands are louder than usual right now, and not just in these lands, while we reckon with our memories, ancestral, shared, and deeply personal.

“We know that we are going to die, in fact it is the only thing we know of what is in store for us. All the rest is mere guesswork, and most of the time we guess wrong. Like children in the trackless forest we grope our way through our lives in blissful ignorance of what is going to happen to us from one day to another, what hardships we may have to face, what more or less thrilling adventures we may encounter before the great adventure, the most thrilling of all, the Adventure of Death.”

-Axel Munthe, The Story of San Michele

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com


― 

God Bless the Queen. RIP.

God Save the King.

Virgo, Heavenly Harvest Goddess

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

Katie-Ellen's avatarTrue Tarot Tales

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Pexels.com

“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…

View original post 1,995 more words

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.

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.

‘Zombie’ Government- contest for the new Prime Minister

Photo by dalia nava on Pexels.com

Tweeted 15 August

This was a quick look at the cards for Rishi Sunak v Liz Truss using the Illuminati Tarot deck, author Kim Huggens, illustrator Erik C Dunne

Video demonstration of the artwork:

What would be the outcome for each of these candidates? Earlier in the contest I had noticed that Rishi Sunak had drawn more consistently stable cards, although I was being shown an Empress,’ and at that time Penny Mordaunt and Kemi Badenoch were still in the running.

#Tarot in the glass darkly, cards today re outcome for RS v LT as UK’s new PM? Basis of situation. The Tower. BJ A shock/fall/blow. RS: Judgement, 5 Pents, 8 Cups LT: 7 Cups, 8 Pents, Queen Pents.

RS started stronger but 8 Cups=’walking away’. 8 Pents=Sept. Queen Pents = LT

Outcome for Rishi Sunak as shown by the 8 Cups: Disappointment, walking away from a situation in which many hopes were invested. But the door did not open. Off to explore new horizons.

Outcome for Liz Truss as shown by The Queen of Pentacles; Capricorn, banks, economy, money, a shrewd, pragmatic woman.

If Liz Truss is selected, as indicated by these two cards, then this card says that it is on an economy ‘ticket’.

Capricorn is also the zodiac sign of Russia. Its dates correlate with midwinter when energy shortages are projected to create problems in the UK, specifically supplies of Liquid Natural Gas, with problems projected to peak around 4 January.

As ever, only time will tell, though Liz Truss is currently the favourite to win and seeming almost a dead cert, cards or no cards. I do know this reading is not a projection of personal wishful thinking in terms of one candidate or the other. I think they are both very capable people, but do not see stature demanded by these exceptionally precarious times, and I feel deeply ambivalent, flat and discouraged about the whole situation, and the way it has come about.

Liz Truss is actually a Leo subject, while Rishi Sunak is a Taurus subject. The Queen of Capricorn is not therefore an astrological identifier for Liz Truss, but should she prove to manifest these archetypal qualities – well, you can see, this Queen is no pushover.

Queen Capricorn can appear cool, remote, rigid, intransigent, occasionally awkward. She is diligent, dutiful, and while that is important, it is not nearly enough for a Prime Minister. But she is nobody’s fool and can prove surprisingly and unexpectedly nimble, agile and sure footed. Whoever is the next PM will need vision, agility, rigour. And a rear view mirror.

Till next time 🙂

Rex Factor

Reviewing all the Kings and Queens of England & Scotland

The World's Passenger Ships

Ship History site, a compendium of passenger ships 1858- today's new builds

Capricorn Astrology Research

Research into Astrology

WAR STORIES

WWII & its Aftermath - Jennie Mack Gray

Quintus Curtius

Fortress Of The Mind

Jessica Davidson

Astrologer ~ Mystic ~ Writer

Mythology Matters

Matters of Myth, and Why Myth Matters

The Sanctuary of Vindos

Brythonic Polytheism and Shamanism