“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…
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.
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
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.
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.
Today is a New Moon in Leo, a moon phase of endings and beginnings. Kings and empires rise and fall, but to paraphrase Outro M38, ‘we are all the kings in our own land’…Facing tempest of dust/ I’ll fight on till the end/Creatures of my dreams/Raise up and dance with me/ Now and forever, I’m your king.’
There is something unsettled right now, says this Taurean subject born with a first quarter Moon in Leo. The astrology paints this New Moon in buoyant, passionate, Jupiterian terms, though with a potential for chaos. But a New Moon phase only last two and half days, while a rare and major Mars, Uranus and North Node in Taurus triple conjunction is approaching 31 July/1 August. This is a rare event, historically associated with major political, weather, explosive or seismic events. Such events may not occur precisely on these dates but are set…
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.
#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) ?
J
#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.
(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..
There is something big happening here now and through August, Japan and the US gearing up in response to moves made by China in the South China Seas, the Strait of Taiwan and the Solomon Islands.
The recent China-Solomon Islands security agreement has sparked concerns among the United States and its allies about a Chinese naval presence in strategically important waters. In response, Washington should ramp up diplomacy in the South Pacific.
A clause in the agreement says that China can “make ship visits to, carry out logistical replacement in, and have stopover and transition in Solomon Islands,” as well as send Chinese forces to the country to “protect the safety of Chinese personnel and major projects.” This has stoked concerns in the United States and its allies in the region that China could send troops to the Solomon Islands and establish a permanent military base there, less than two thousand kilometers from Australia.Source
The Prince of Pentacles presages key developments in the early autumn, for the UK government but also in other world arenas. These will centre upon homeland,boundaries and borders (based on the central Nine of Pentacles=Virgo=Spica=wheatsheaf) and harvests and global food production and supplies.
That Nine of Wands at the bottom represents a collective sense of battle fatigue. For many of this, this is literal, while for others it is an emotional or nervous fatigue based on monetary anxiety and the wider events of the last two-three years.
The Devil warns that there are further crisis to come before this current seismic activity in human affairs settles into its new fault lines, whatever those may look like.
The Nine of the Wands and the Nine of Pentacles however, are cards of fortitude, determination, courage, stamina and tenacity.
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends”….
In terms of timings, the Nine of Pentacles-Nine of Wands spans early October-early December for pivotal developments in the Russia-Ukraine crisis. A treaty? Likely not so soon, because of The Devil. Ukraine, if Putin offers terms for a ceasefire, which may happen if he consolidates possession in the Donbas, may not agree terms at his price.
The Prince of Cups, a most happy, congenial and positive card in general terms ‘-summer time and the living is easy’- is drawn with the Moon card (danger by night, danger by water, or by contagion) possibly detecting key naval and maritime events between late summer/early autumn and early winter, in respect of Russia or China or both.
The Devil card represents frustration, entrapment, desire, temptation, and
a) authority in all its forms, positive as well as negative, eg, responsibility, care, duty, wise counsel
b) Capricorn in terms of timing.
This seems to show an up-scaling of the situation in the Black Sea, where Russia is essentially blockading grain exports from Odessa, and other Ukraine Black Sea ports, exporting stolen grain.
NATO have been laissez-faire, had their eye way too long off this potential Achilles heel in the Black Sea is a point being made in the YouTube presentation below.
It needs tackling with a will before winter, suggests the ISA rune- (the ICE rune is the little black stone painted with what looks like a capital letter I.)
Putin will understand this perfectly and won’t be in any hurry.
However:-
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.”
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.
Here we go again, a new contest for a new PM. I will be reporting the Tarot’s further findings as this moves forward. But what did the Tarot show last time, in June 2019? A quick look back…
And here we are again…embarking on the selection process of a new Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party
I will be looking further in the Tarot as this new contest unfolds. We will all know sooner or later of course, and in that respect, one might say there is no need and little point in doing any Tarot reading. But this is a Tarot blog, and I am writing this for those people who are interested in divination or psychic thinking and its workings. That’s what this blog is about, getting the Tarot’s Eye view on a real life situation and then seeing how that works out on the ground.
Rishi Sunak is the obvious front runner at the time of writing, and he could well get the post. I have drawn the Nine of Cups for him (the card means wishes…
We are coming ‘home’ again, entering the zodiac sign of Cancer the Crab on Tuesday 21 June, the day of the summer solstice, the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, and the shortest day in the southern hemisphere.
The word ‘sol –stice’ is from the Latin ‘solstitium’ and means the ‘sun stands still.’
The month of June has got a lot going on, calendar-wise. We have got:-
-The meteorological start of summer (1 June)
-The astronomical start of summer, the solstice (20, 21 or 22 June)
-Midsummers Day (24 June.)
Meteorological or Astronomical Summer?
What does it mean?
Public Domain The British Library
The meteorological calendar is a more recent invention based on seasonal temperatures, separating the year into four groups of three months, based on the observation that summer is the warmest time of year and winter is the coldest, with transitional seasons in- between. These seasons are always 90 to 92 days long, and always start on the first of the month except for leap year. This definition makes it easier to calculate seasonal statistics for the purposes of weather forecasting.
The astronomical calendar is ancient, based on thousands of years of observations of natural phenomena used to establish and mark time. This calendar follows the Earth’s rotation around the sun, defining the four seasons by two solstices and two equinoxes. The Earth’s tilt and the sun’s alignment over the equator determine these events, so the two solstices mark the times when the sun passes over the equator, on June 21 and around December 22 and the two equinoxes are on or around March 21 and September 22.
At the summer solstice, the Northern Hemisphere receives sunlight at the most direct angle of the year with the North Pole tilting towards the Sun at its maximum (about 23.5 degrees) resulting in the longest period of sunlight hours. In the Southern Hemisphere, it’s the opposite and the Sun is at its lowest point in the sky.
Astronomical timing is variable, depending upon when the Sun reaches its northernmost point from the celestial equator, and this date varies between June 20, 21, and 22.
Midsummer’s Day, 24 June is an ancient agricultural festival. It marks the midpoint of the growing season, halfway between planting and harvest. It is traditionally known as one of four “quarter days” in some cultures. Folks celebrated by feasting, dancing, singing, and lighting bonfires to usher in the hot summer days ahead where once the mighty auroch roamed and the prowling sabre tooth tiger crouched low, watching and waiting in hope.
Every summer solstice in the UK, as many as 10,000 people arrive at Stonehenge for a pagan style summer solstice festival on British shores, complete with druids. The main event is sunrise, when the first rays of the sun strike the gigantic Heel Stone and illuminate the centre of the stone circle, and people are allowed to touch the stones- a rare opportunity, and the only day of the year they are permitted to do so.
The Tarot and the Sun card
The Sun card is the ultimate summer card in the Tarot deck; number 19 in the Major Arcana. This positive card signifies all kinds of good news, starting with sunny weather in the literal sense, and overseas travel, usually to a hot country. It is our moments in the sun. It is the state of childhood. It is good health or recovery from sickness. The Sun card is vitality, just as the sun is life itself. The Sun card can therefore be predicting new life- a birth.
The Sun card, when it is drawn reversed is like the setting sun. It can mean the memories of childhood, nostalgia, beautiful, bittersweet twilight. It may mean sadness or delays or getting less than you hoped for.
Every card has its downside, just like every situation in life. The fire of the sun can also be cruel, even savage when ‘reversed.’ We might have drought. We might have wildfires. And then the Sun means death and we pray for rain.
The Sun gods can be cruel; Ra, Arinna, Surya, Mithras, Helios, Apollo, Sol – by whatever name we have called the Sun.
Reincarnation and The Sun card?
As the sign of the Sun’s highest point in the skies as seen from Earth, the constellation of Cancer the Crab was considered nearest to the highest point of heaven. Greco-Roman philosophers (The NeoPlatonists) called it ‘the Gate of Men.’
Decapoda, the Head of The Crab, Acubens, The Claw, Al Tarf, the Foot.
The stars of Cancer, specifically The Beehive Cluster, were the gateway, the portal in the heavens through which souls descended to Earth to be born.
Thee Beehive Cluster also known as Prasaepe, THE MANGER
The opposite constellation, Capricorn, marked the midwinter solstice and was the ‘Gate of the Gods,’ where the souls of the departed rose back to heaven.
But did they later descend again to be reborn, in a cycle of reincarnation?
A true story
From The Golden Tarot, Kat Black
I have sometimes been asked, do I believe in reincarnation? I don’t believe in it. I don’t disbelieve in it. I don’t know. But many people do believe in reincarnation around the world. The Hindu and Buddhist faiths believe in reincarnation, while Easter is the great Christian celebration of Resurrection, signifying the hope of the soul’s eternal life.
Nature is cyclical. The seasons run in cycles and life runs in cycles. Our lives only seem linear because they represent such a short piece of a curve. Perhaps it is only logical and natural that some will see human life as cyclical too, not only in terms of successive generations, but in terms of the individual persona, spirit or soul as something that is continuously recycled.
As the American poet Emily Dickinson famously wrote, ‘the mind has many corridors.’
Many years ago I did a distance Tarot reading by email for a young lady who wanted to know, was her brother OK? This struck me as a strange question. I asked her, what did she want me to investigate that she could not ask him herself?
The lady answered that her brother was dead, and that he had committed suicide. She did not tell me more, nor did I ask about the circumstances, but as one would expect there was great distress attached to her questions:
-Where was her brother now?
-How was he now?
I do not advertise as a psychic medium. Not at all. Nor did I agree to accept payment for this particular reading and am not handling new readings just at present. But I have, all the same, over the past twenty years done a number of Tarot card readings which have been focused on client’s questions about deceased loved ones, when the Tarot has facilitated me in offering feedback which only the client could verify, and there have been some deeply curious and strange, and equally, deeply moving responses.
Now, looking at this lady’s brother, wondering what on Earth the Tarot would make of this. I drew the Sun card, the card of sunshine, happiness, innocence, childhood. Birth.
The Sun is life itself. If our planet were closer to the Sun, or further away, there would be no life on Earth. People like to post images of Earth to make the point that we are tiny and insignificant. I think those images from space, the photographs taken by Cassini from Saturn, showing Earth as a teeny white dot make the exact opposite point; illustrating the enormity of the miracle that was the sweet spot of a ball of rock exactly the ‘right’ distance from the Sun.
But where was this young lady’s brother? Some would say, perfectly reasonably, that the question was nonsensical. That he was gone. That he was nowhere or that he was in the grave.
But it wasn’t them she was asking. It was my Tarot she was asking.
It is hard to describe, but as you look deeper into a card, a door opens in the mind, or in the imagination if you wish to classify it as that. The brain wave activity has switched from conscious, intellectual, beta state wavelength to a more meditative alpha state wavelength.
I gazed into the Sun card and it suggested to me that ‘wherever’ her brother was, ‘whatever’ he was, he was like a child again, sometimes awake, sometimes asleep. I received the strong impression- there is no other word for it- that he did not remember his death. Not at all, or whatever it was that drove him to it.
He was a little boy again. And then I was struck with another sudden but vivid impression. I saw him kicking about, splashing in a puddle. He had his back turned on the Earth. He was neither bored, nor sad nor lonely, simply quietly, happily preoccupied.
He had forgotten how he died. He did not remember whatever it was, however it had been for him, what it had felt like, being him in his life, that had driven him to such a point of nihilism.
If her brother had any memories or consciousness surviving death- if that could be possible, then this was his afterlife, all trauma forgotten.
It may simply have been telepathy, and I was picking up on the lady’s own memories of her brother. I had never met her
But then, and again this was prompted by The Sun card, I told the lady that she would soon be hearing news of a new baby on the way. This was probably a birth within the immediate family, and whether it was a boy or girl, the Tarot was suggesting the possibility, however bizarre, that it was the soul of her brother being reborn. Or that he could be reborn, when he was ready. The Sun card said that her brother would be returning soon, whether or not the coming baby was her brother returning again (down through the Gates of Men)
Some souls, it is said, wait many centuries before they are ready to get in the queue again. Others wait decades. Others only months. Time means nothing to them. It is when they feel ready. Just that.
Stanley Kubrick was a visionary. A seer.
The Star Child, Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick
Has someone been here before? This is not a thing that can ever be known, and in this instance, the coming baby was his or her own unique self. Each birth is unique. And if we are reborn, we are not clones or carbon copies of the person we were before. The soul needs free of old burdens.
I once had a small experience that has sometimes made me wonder. I was in the kitchen, stirring a pan when suddenly the kitchen changed around me. I was now standing in a very different kitchen with white walls, a stone floor, a high ceiling. It was simple, a few notches above basic, an urban kind of rustic, not rural. There was an open door to my left, with an evening light sunshine streaming in at a low angle, and I knew that the door led down a set of steep stone steps to a small, rather dark cobbled courtyard. I was not anxious but I was starting to wonder where Pietro was, and when he would be arriving home. I know no such person as ‘Pietro.’
A vision. A day dream? An hallucination? Of course. It could have been anything or nothing. It has only ever happened that one time.
I sent off the lady’s email reading and three weeks later received an email in reply, telling me among other things that her sister had just found out she was expecting a baby and was about six weeks pregnant. Wouldn’t it be something, she joked, if she was going to be her brother’s auntie this time around?
Again, this story is easily explained away as a co-incidence. But if nothing else, the Tarot was proven absolutely correct in predicting the imminent news of a new birth in the family.
I would like to think the Tarot’s vision offered this lady and her family some kind of comfort, however peculiar, for a truly terrible grief. Some griefs are more natural to be borne than others. Not all griefs are equally terrible.
“There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy”-Hamlet, Shakespeare.
Indeed, Mr Shakespeare.
There are many documented stories of people claiming that they have lived another life before this one; some so detailed, that it does at least offer food for thought.
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.
True Tarot Tales 