Tag: astrology
Tarot talking 2024
Let’s take a quick look at the Numerology of 2024. The key numbers of this year are 2, 0, 4 and 8. Why 8? This is the number we get when we add up the digits. You’ll notice we have a dominance of even numbers: 2, 4 and 8; all of them divisible by 2.
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This is all about creating or protecting our stability during a time of great shifts, but the 0 stand for the wild cards at work in our lives. Births and rebirths, literally or metaphorically. Zero is the most numinous number, or non-number. Originally invented as a placeholder, The Fool card in the Tarot stands for Wyrd or Destiny, and is the greatest mystery of all the cards in the deck.
The Major Arcana card representing the Number 8 is Strength. This card correlates with Leo, which like Aries, is also ruled by Mars. This card stands for health, strength and courage. This is both physical and moral strength, resilience and fortitude, the kind that says we don’t give up. The one who wins is the last one standing. “Tomorrow is another day.”
There are no easy answers. We will all be tested this coming year, guaranteed, and this will be collectively and personally. This is not a quiet cycle we are in, the whole world is feeling it, and we may not come out of this cosmic wash-cycle that began in 2019/2020 until February 2026 when Saturn quits Pisces for the final time in this current cycle of transits.
When I look at Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy, time and again I draw The Hanged Man reversed, signifying either significant Pisces timing and/or an unwanted compromise that is ultimately reached. This card of Pisces points out that Saturn moved into Pisces in March 2023 and does not finally move out of Pisces until February 2026. This does not mean the war can’t end sooner. The Hanged Man could indicate Pisces season 2025, possibly triggered by events around the time of the eclipse in Libra season 2024. As ever, only time will tell. The reader is always “looking in the glass darkly.”
I have been struck by the physical resemblance to Zelenskyy of this card from The Tarot Illuminati deck. This card below, I drew in a reading for Zelenskyy back in March 2022. I was looking to see if Russia would succeed in assassinating him, as we understood Russia was trying to do at that time, and the feeling was no. The cards showed he will come through all this, but emerge a very different man. Not defeated, not diminished but disappointed. Reading between the lines, Russia’s President Putin will get away with far more than justice says he rightfully should, although much less than he wants.
We are all desperate to see an end to the darkness of the wholesale horror we are witnessing in Ukraine and in Gaza. There could be crucial turning points in these and other conflicts (and also in personal matters) around 14 February, around the solar eclipse of 8 April, during Leo/Virgo season- July and August, and again, around the solar eclipse in Libra, 2 October (ruled by Venus, cards 2/3 Swords- diplomacy/severance) and again towards the end of the year in Sagittarius around Christmas Eve, 24 December 2024, though this last date could likewise prove very tricky.
My cards have not so far seen a second term of office for Donald Trump. I first looked at this in 2021, looking to see signs of a second term after the Capitol Riot.
Link to that 2021 reading is here.
But nor are they showing me a second term for Joe Biden. I will be looking more closely at this later, as will twenty gillion other readers and astrologers. Some Vedic astrologers do say it will be Trump.
May-June could prove the most productive and easygoing months this coming year when Jupiter moves from productive Taurus into agile arch-communicator Gemini.
The April solar eclipse in Aries suggests a window of opportunity, bold decisions finding ways forward, and at a personal level for any of us, but especially for the Aries native or those with Aries rising, brave new initiatives in prospect.
The tarot card of this eclipse at 19 degrees of Aries is the expansive, outgoing and far seeing Three of Wands.
The possible negative interpretation of this card is the clear and present danger and obvious potential in 2024 for an escalation of maritime aggression in any of these areas: the Black Sea, the Red Sea, the Straits of Hormuz, in the South China Sea or the Straits of Taiwan.
This is a twitchy year and the very end of the year may prove the trickiest time.
Image from The Legacy of The Divine Tarot.
First comes the vision, but planning, co-operation and timing is everything. We are equal to these challenges, and we can achieve more by approaching our most personal problems with an attitude of kindness and respect. The lady in the Strength card does not subdue the lion by killing it. This card references an old story, Una and the Lion from Edmund Spenser’s 16th-century poem The Faerie Queen. Una is the daughter of a king and queen who have been imprisoned by a dragon. Most unfortunate.
Una undertakes a quest to free her parents, but on her journey she encounters a lion. Rather than eating her, the lion is so captivated by Una’s innocence that he follows her instead, accompanying her as a protector, and in the painting by William Bell Scott, Una gently rests her fingers in the lion’s mane, as they make their way together through the autumnal wood.
But the lion is not going her to kill her, either. She calms its threat by holding her nerve, moving decisively but quietly, and using a carefully measured restraint with the lightest touch.
Image from The Gilded Tarot.
This is a year of gravitas. We are changing, and we are feeling that change. There is a sense of a greater self discipline, but also striking out in a new direction, expanding our lines of vision, enlarging our horizons as per the Three of Wands. We are starting new things or revisiting old things and re-imagining them anew.
These are just seeds or buds in 2024. We won’t see the results this year, but we are changing direction. The particular nature of this, and the life departments it will affect will depend on our own natal charts.
Jupiter is on our side in 2024, and he can be a big old bully. But Jupiter is also “the bringer of jollity.” People need to eat, but they also need beauty. They need laughter and they need other people. Jupiter keeps it large, and Jupiter in Gemini can be a big fat beautiful butterfly, the symbol of Psyche, the soul.
Airy, breezy, airy pollinator of renewal of the richness of the earth of Taurus, Jupiter enters Gemini 25 May 2024 and stays there until 9 June 2025. This can be all manner of good news, with April, May and June are the most promising months for communications, networking, teaching, publishing, business, study, travel and progress in the most general terms.
Jupiter in Gemini is endlessly curious and enquiring. Jupiter is however, in detriment in Gemini, meaning that Jupiter is opposite the sign of Sagittarius where it is exalted (most naturally at home.)
There could, in politics and geo-political conflicts, be a lot of dithering, delaying and fair- weathering.
But even so, Jupiter in Gemini may bring better things to the world, while the Aries Eclipse in April is an even bigger hitter this year. Big and brave. What brave new stories shall you be creating this coming year?
Thank you for reading.
Wishing you a very Happy New Year, 2024.
Songs of Solstice, Capricorn the Cosmic Sea-Goat
On 22 December 2023 at 3 AM we experienced the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere, and thereby entered the first decan of the zodiac sun sign of Capricorn the Goat.
Traditional associations
Symbol:
Date of Birth: 21/22 Dec to 20 January
Ruling planet: Saturn
Lucky Day: Saturday
Lucky Numbers 2 and 8
Energy: Yin
Element: Earth
Quality: Cardinal (the start of the season of winter)
Key phrase: I build, I use
Body: Skin, knees, skeletal system
Birth Stone: Red Garnet and Black Onyx
Colour: Deep red
Herbs/Flowers: Wintergreen, Ivy, Carnation
Origin Story
The story of Capricorn evolved from an ancient creation myth of the Akkadians and the Sumerians. Enki the Mer-Goat, the wise teacher, found himself all alone when the rest of his kind left the oceans for ever, and went on to the land, ascending to the mountains.
Enki mourned the loss of his children, and in his terrible loneliness was placed in the heavens where he could look down and still see them, following their new destinies as creatures of the land. The Greeks later told a similar story, in which Enki was known as the Sea-Goat Pricus.
But why was earthy Capricorn ever seen as a sea-goat? A mer-goat? Here is one of those curious things. The planet Neptune was discovered in the constellation Capricornus, near Deneb Algedi, the brightest star in the tail of the goat, on September 23, 1846.
This illustrates a powerful mythic connection between earth sign Capricorn and the deep water sign of Pisces the Fishes. This connection is many ages old and goes back to the Babylonians 21 centuries BC. But how did the ancients know? How could they have known, to have come up with the story of the Sea-Goat?
So far as we aware, they didn’t. They could not have known about Neptune to have made any such connection. And yet somehow they seemed to have apprehended this cosmic connection, poetically, understanding that life on Earth had begun in the seas, and then some of that life had left the seas for ever.
The constellation of Capricorn which gives its name to the sun sign, was known to the Neo-Platonists as The Gate of the Gods, through which the souls of the newly dead ascended, returning home to the Source of all things.
Tarot
Tarot cards: The Devil (Pan/Nature, Mystery, Charisma, Fascination, Obsession, Powerlessness, Fear, Entrapment.) Also the Queen of Pentacles and the 2, 3 and 4 of Pentacles.
Tarot card: The Devil (Pan/Nature, Mystery, Charisma, Fascination, Obsession, Powerlessness, Fear, Entrapment.)
This card from the Gilded Tarot deck paints The Devil as one hell of a beguiling sexy beast. We know that the Devil- whether this is our own worst nature or Nature itself -can be downright cruel, vile and nasty. “Nature red in tooth and claw” (Tennyson)
But one can appreciate the artist’s take on this. The Devil is also the angel of the Morning Star, fallen or not. And if he is invariable hideous and stinky and manifestly hostile, who is going to let him anywhere near them? Whom shall he snare? Whom shall he tempt? And entrap.
The complexity here is that the cardinal earth sign of Capricorn is the most grounded and self-disciplined of all sun sign archetypes. Responsible, shrewd and also devoted. But “all that glitters” is not gold. For someone to get EVERYTHING they want, who is going to get hurt? Who else is going to do without? Capricorn at the macro level is about worldly power and the price that is paid for that power, and by whom. Capricorn represents the rock bottom line of our material reality and all that attaches to it: safety, comfort,identity and the luxury of free time.
Resources are not infinite. Who loses so that someone else gains? Here is the the danger of Capricorn as the Devil. Here is the flex playing out on the world stage as power-monger Pluto gets ready to leave Capricorn by stages in 2024. Pluto sweeps a board clean, but not kindly, and not without creating a whole lot of mess.
History has shown this many times. When Pluto changes signs as it will finally do in November 2024 when it settles in Aquarius until 2043, world changing events occur.
1853 Pluto into Taurus: The Crimean War
1914 Pluto into Cancer: World War One
1938/1939 Pluto into Leo: Spanish Civil War/World War 2
It does not always or necessarily signify war when Pluto changes sun signs, but it is always huge.
1984 Pluto into Scorpio: the AIDS epidemic
2008 Pluto into Capricorn: the financial crash which impacted the entire global financial system, caused by bad lending practices which created a mortgage crisis in the United States.
In 2024 we say farewell to Pluto in Capricorn. Astonishing things are in store during Pluto in Aquarius, the sun sign of I.T and Space Tech and “The People” versus “The Establishment.” The possibilities are fascinating, the challenge being that history shows us “The People” have a way of becoming “The Establishment.”
The Queen of Pentacles
From The Sacred Circle Tarot.
The court card of Capricorn is The Queen of Pentacles. She may equally represent a Taurus or Virgo subject, and she may be male or female when we are reading for someone, but this is her specific archetypal card.
She is the Queen exalted in the Earth. Born older than her years. Wise and canny, shrewd and patient, she initiates. She works. She provides. She creates and conserves all things beautiful. Her feet are planted in the soil, connected with the wild creatures but her spirit spans the globe. She is a cook. She is a gardener. She is a keeper, a curator, the queen of rocks and gems. She is a wise woman, consulted by many, bridging traditions of the the ancient past with the present, building a future, sure-footed, one nimble step at a time.
In some tarot decks she is called the Queen of Pentacles. In others, the Queen of Coins, Disks or Stones.
The Stone People
We are the people and we are the stones
The greater the stones the higher we stand
We are the stones, our feet in the earth
And under the earth and over the ground
The shape of the stones is the shape of the land
And the shape of the land is what shapes us
And the shape that we are says who we are
The shape of our land is the secret of us
And we are the stones, and our bones are the stones,
And the stones are us, are us.
Margaret Whyte, 23 December 1939-27 February 2023
Capricorn says we stay earthed and grounded. We keep our own counsel. We look out of the window, lick our finger and stick it in the air to feel the wind direction for ourselves. We neither preach to others nor do we subscribe to mass hysteria, dogma or disinformation. It is hard right now, not to get angry and upset at the things we see and hear. But Capricorn has a way of going high while staying rooted. We know where we came from. We are children of the stones of our forefathers. We know where we belong. We are of a people, shaped by the landscape that formed our people, whomever they may be.
But a people, however distinctive, is not a homogenous, uniform entity.
Capricorn says we honour the land but we think for ourselves.
Back soon with more stories about Capricorn, the cosmic sea goat.
Thank you for reading.
Sagittarian vulcanicity…and tarot in real time synchronicity
We are about to leave the season of Sagittarius, entering the celestial territory of Capricorn 22 December 2023.
The astrological sun sign of Sagittarius the Archer represents the elemental power of Mutable Fire. The sun sign of Sagittarius is represented in the Tarot deck by the Knight of Wands, generally signifying an explosive speed of travel, attack, or action, or, whether these things are connected or not, a string of beacons. Passing of messages. The Ace of Wands is the Divine Spark. Inspiration, vision and philosophy. The Knight comes and goes without warning. Changeable states. Well, blow me down, if this depiction of Sir Knight Sagittarius does not actually show a volcano spewing magma.
IMG from The Gilded Tarot Royale.
In Sagittarius season 2021 the La Palma eruption became the longest running on the island. Then in Java, Mount Semeru erupted 4 December 2021, spilling out a deadly pyroclastic flow with tragic consequences and widespread disruption.
So far, the latest ongoing volcanic eruption in Iceland is not declared to be a danger to life. May this continue. The Earth itself is always restless but currently more unsettled than “normal.” Perhaps it is little wonder that we are too. The world is never quiet, never at peace. It is always relative. But we are in a particularly unsettled geomagnetic cycle. Solar Cycle 25 is turning out much stronger than predicted. Read more about that here
On a mundane level I have known this card to alert me, correctly, to client problems with travel plans, with boilers, cars and central heating. I have known it to advise me, correctly, that a client is struggling with liver problems, or with side effects of medication which are having an adverse effect on the liver. Why might that be, I wondered, deducing it was because the liver is a powerhouse, aka the engine room of the body’s metabolism.
Meanwhile we are witnessing horrible terrible events; man-made fire raining down relentlessly on the heads of the defenseless masses in Ukraine and Gaza.
None of this is to say that the month of the zodiac sign of Sagittarius= volcano eruption month. This would be a false equation. Nevertheless, we do say “as above, so below.”
And as within, so without.
And here it is. A tarot card specifically correlating with the dates 22 November-21 December and we are looking at vulcanicity in full flow. The oddity, the sheer symbolic synchronicity of Sagittarius as the vulcan archer of Fire in 2021, and now again in 2023 may be mutable as we segue between seasons.
And yet it is irrefutable.
Second decan Sagittarius
Nine of Wands: Standing to and Standing by
IMG Abstract: Sagittarius. Own image in watercolour and pen
We’re in the second decan for just a few more days, till the New Moon in Sag 12 December, represented in Tarot by the Nine of Wands.
The keywords here are vigilance and stamina. This figure, stalwart but injured, is resting, battle weary. The second decan Sagittarius native is quick of mind, good with their hands, adventurous, technically proficient, Sagittarius-Aries fire. More generally, this card says we would rather not go it alone. But we’ll do it if we have to. Oh yes. And we’re not done. Oh no. We’re still standing, and we are standing by. Sentinels. Watchmen. Ready. You won’t catch us with our guard down.
Neptune has gone direct in Pisces as of 6 December, having been retrograde since 30 June. We might have been having some mighty odd and vivid dreams just lately. In my own case, there has been a rather entertaining spate of dreams involving raccoons popping up in odd places, possibly reflecting symbolically tricky dealings to do with certain matters. The raccoon can warn against dealing with tricky people and those who aren’t dealing straight with us, wearing its little bandit mask. The raccoon has positive associations too, of course. The raccoon is agile, and endlessly resourceful.
But it’s curious where these things come from. And I wouldn’t mind but we don’t even have raccoons where I am (in the UK, North West W England) I can’t just put it down to watching nature programmes on the box either.
Things have been heavy going in recent months for almost anyone. Something has been weighing heavy on our minds for some time. Problems for which there can be no solutions as such. We’ve just had to do the best we can, maintaining a holding position, and trying meanwhile not to make matters worse.
The New Moon in Sagittarius 12 December suggests new possibilities, and a clearer way ahead. And don’t we all wish that for the whole wide world. Looking into my cards for 2024 there are no clear signs of a lasting resolution in the dreadful conflicts and events in Ukraine and in Gaza. Though there are windows of opportunity, and perhaps I will write more about that later.
But right here, right now, says this card is our individual power of action in our own, personal battles.
The New Moon on the 12 December is in 20 degrees of Sagittarius. We might get the strong urge to go somewhere new, learn something new, change our horizons, however vicariously. Even reading a book is a form of travel. Reading rolls up telepathy, mind reading, space travel and time travel all in one page. Each page a magic carpet.
There are so many sad events, and we might well ask ourselves, what use is philosophy? What use is poetry? (Or Tarot)
We are made that way. Words can lift us up. Why else do we conjure special words for births and weddings and funerals? Words are invocations. Words are comforters. They can help us readjust and regain our equilibrium when everything is dark. Words contain the magical power of Wyrd. We get the word weird from Wyrd, meaning mystery and destiny.
Word. Weird, Wyrd. They are all the same thing.
“I will lift mine eyes up to the hills from whence cometh my help.”
-Psalm 121
The higher we can go, the more bearable or at least, immediately manageable things are when the going is really tough. We don’t have to be religious to feel the truth of this.
“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow (on his pipe. “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails.”
-T.H.White, from The Once and Future King.
Till next time.
Mars in Scorpio transit, 2023
The Scales of Justice and the Claws of The Scorpion
The current Mars in Scorpio transit began 12 October and continues until 24 November. Mars in Scorpio is passionate, intuitive, subtle, cunning, proud, brave, strong and energetic. But may be violent or downright cruel. Vengeful and vindictive. A lot of stuff can get sorted out on a political or personal level, but it is wiser to do it with restraint and respect, or else watch out for the karmic comeback, and that sting in the tail. It may be a long time coming, but come it will.
The Tarot card associated with Mars in Scorpio is the Death card. Other Mars cards are The Tower (shock, storm, cataclysm) and The Emperor (war, government, law and order) Sweet reason and moderation. Desperately needed in the world right now.
But Scorpio steams and bubbles and boils. It is not moderate. It is Life and Death and they are not moderate. It takes a massive surge of energy to get born. It takes a massive release of power to release our hold on life and get ourselves dead, returning to the source or the dreamland from which we have come. Unless we die suddenly, the natural dying process is a job of work, requiring our co-operation. I watched my mother having to work at it, dying with pneumonia that did not respond to three courses of antibiotics.
The fixed water zodiac sign of Scorpio is a metaphor of water (feeling) that bubbles up from deep down, whether this is down on the ocean bed or on land. It emerges under pressure like a geyser.
Such is the power of Scorpio. And the Scorpio native may have healing charisma. But for healing we think more of the Temperance card of Sagittarius or the hopeful Star of Aquarius. It is no coincidence however, the stars that were originally known as the Claws of the cosmic Scorpion, were later made to do double duty as the Scales of Justice in the constellation of Libra next door.
No lasting peace without justice, at home or abroad. We talk about natural justice, but there is no justice in Nature. only natural law is red in tooth and claw. But we are part of nature, so why do we cry out for justice like we do? We’re hardwired for justice. Even small babies have been proven to demonstrate a keen sensitivity to what is fair and what is not, while the Roman writer and poet Manilius apparently observed that a higher than average number of judges in Rome were born under the sun sign of Libra, which had by his time, borrowed, shared or co-opted the stars of the constellation next door. The Claws of the Scorpion were now Libra’s Scales of Justice.
Death in natural. It is deeply painful to lose loved ones. It is frightening to contemplate our own ending. But we can rise to it with a measure of philosophy and poetic understanding. But we can’t do that when we have experienced an injustice. If it is small enough, we may shrug and walk away. But only if it really is small enough. While there may be no justice in Nature, nothing corrodes, nothing eats away at the human heart like Justice denied. It is the sting the corrodes like acid. The sting is pure venom.
Famous Scorpio natives:
Hillary Clinton, politician, born 26 Oct 1947
Dylan Thomas, poet, born 27 Oct 1914
Billy Graham, evangelist, born 7 Nov 1918,
Carl Sagan, astronomer, born 9 Nov 1934
Robert Kennedy, born 20 Nov 1925
King Charles 111, born 14 Nov 1948
Until next time. Thank you for reading True Tarot Tales.
Mars Cazimi, 17 November 2023
Both Celestial and Earthly-The Heart of The Ram, The Scorpion- and The Phoenix
A Mars cazimi is happening Friday 17 November, when Mars conjuncts the Sun in the night sky to within around 1 degree, seen close to Capella, aka the Goat Star in the constellation of Auriga, The Charioteer. Mars is the traditional ruler of (cardinal fire sign) Aries and (fixed water sign) Scorpio in Western/Tropical astrology while the Goat star, Capella, was regarded by the ancients as an omen of high renown.
Cazimi comes from the Arabic word word “kaṣmīmī ” which in turn is thought to have evolved from the Greek “kardia” meaning “in the heart” – or in this context translating as, “in the heart of the sun.”
Mars rises at the core. What are our core objectives right now? What are our core values?
This Mars Cazimi marks the start of a new 2 year Mars cycle for each of us, upping the ante wherever it happens to be sitting in your own birth chart. In which astrological House might that be for you?
Mars initiates. It is ardent, proud, fierce and above all pro-active. Living it large. In Tarot, Mars may be expressed through drawing The Tower card, The Emperor or the Death card (modern ruler Pluto) and the potential for destruction could not be plainer, as we are witnessing right now in tragic real time world events.
The Tower card represents shocks and storms, both literally and metaphorically. It may describe or detect collapse. Forthcoming explosions. It tears things down whether for good or ill.
The Emperor of Aries season is law and order on the one hand. Wise governance. Or conquest, excess, tyranny and cruelty or maladministration on the other. Note the Aries Ram’s horns adorning his throne.
Aries is headstrong. In medical astrology it rules the health of the head and brain. When ill aspected it may warn against an excerbated risk of accidents and injuries caused by a) speed b) fire.
The homeopathic tissue salt of Aries is Kali Phos, Potassium phosphate, used as a “coolant” or calming agent on the nervous system.
The Death card of Scorpio, ruled by Mars and Pluto, may, and sometimes does refer, not only to the idea of human mortality, but to the death of someone in the literal physical sense, but more generally stands for any and all kinds of endings. The end of a situation or a job, or relationship, and in this context,the Death card may be a welcome sign of much needed change.
The homeopathic cell salt of Scorpio is Calc Sulph, Calcium Sulphate, used as a cleanser of “overheated” blood for removal of pus, fever and other manifestations of infection, or strain upon the liver and gallbladder .
The world stage is non stop fieriness between now and the spring/vernal equinox 2024 – bookmarked by entry into ARIES. Even though the spring equinox in 2024 technically occurs during the last day of Pisces season, 20 March, still, the spring equinox is associated with Aries, while there is also the solar eclipse in Aries on April 8 2024 to be factored in here, signifying monumental Mars type events, though I do not personally detect any sign of an impending WW3.
More here about the spring equinox.
Mars Cazimi is warrior energy. But it is more innocently, newborn optimism. The ebullient primal energy of the first ram lamb of spring. New things. Young energy. Birth itself is a fierce act, whatever kind of birth it may be; a person, an animal, a nation state, a business, or some great creative work; a building, a bridge, a machine, or a work of art, music or literature.
Life, as Professor Malcolm so famously put it in Jurassic Park, “finds a way.” And Mars in Aries MAKES a way, charging headlong, while Mars right now in Scorpio is steaming and blasting or plotting its way through opposition.
The Aries lamb can kill you once it grows to be a ram. It’s not personal. You got in its way and you were on its own territory. If it knocks you down, then stay down, and chances are it will wander off. Unlike the Scorpion which may bide it’s time and catch you later unawares. Both are the faces of Mars.
Where the passion is, and the will-power of Mars, then, like it or not, whether by playing fair or foul, the thing gets done.
The zodiac sign of the Scorpion is also a symbol of rebirth. Another face of Scorpio is the Phoenix. Maps get redrawn. Life is for living and while we live, we can still arise and act to launch or build anew.
That’s the wind now blowing through. We can stand foursquare in our power, raise the roof, blast free and shake off the dust during this Mars Cazimi. If we have been stuck, it looks as though we are going to get ourselves unstuck during the next two years.
Once more unto the breach.
“Happiness we can only find in ourselves, it is a waste of time to seek for it from others, few have any to spare. Sorrow we have to bear alone as best we can, it is not fair to try to shift it on others, be they men or women. We have to fight our own battles and strike as hard as we can, born fighters as we are.”
–Axel Munthe, The Story of San Michele
Bon courage! Let us discover what new things we shall do and build and make over the next two years, driven by that adrenaline of this incoming Mars Cazimi in Scorpio season 2023, and thank you for reading.
The old Norse rune associated with this Mars Cazimi is Tiwaz, associated with Tyr, the god who gave his name to Tuesdays, signifying war, justice, nobility and physical and moral courage.
Tyr put his hand in the mouth of the giant wolf, Fenrir, as surety, and then Fenrir permitted himself to be chained. But when Fenrir discovered he had been tricked and would not be released, he bit off the hand of Tyr,who had known this would happen. But the wolf had to be tricked and bound, or he would have devoured the Sun itself. Perhaps this myth was inspired by the fear of a total solar eclipse.
Tyr matches courage with duty and integrity.
May Tyr be with us, and may Fenrir never break his chains.
Till next time 🙂
Tarot, Farewell To a Queen and a Time of Mourning
On the first anniversary of the death of Elizabeth 11
Original post 10 September 2022
“Our Queen Elizabeth has died at a good old age. She has been gathered in at harvest time, taken away in Virgo season under the watch of the stars of The Virgin and the planets Neptune and Jupiter. She, a queen of fixed Earth, a Taurus sun sign subject born 21 April, has been 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.
More 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 she 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 malice, out of hatred of her family, and especially her brother, the king’s former regent, Archibald Douglas.
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.
Now perhaps she will be leaving her own ghost.
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. Seasons in the sun. Simpler times, and the timeless moments when we were small, and the world seemed full of marvellous mysteries.
Well, it was.
And it is.
Life is inevitably sadder the older we get, our losses etched deeper and deeper.
But that doesn’t make the world any less wonderful and mysterious, and the greatest mystery and miracle is, that we are even here at all.
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
The Harvest moon 9 September 2022 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.
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 has become after World War 11.
Eminent astrologers see the reign of Charles as an event of ill- omen for the future of the Monarchy as an institution. I can see that potential and the Moon card is anything but comfortable whenever it appears. But this is a benign, deep, visionary Full Moon. His vision may outstrip his means or freedom to execute. At least he has vision. But though he will do his dutiful best, he no longer wants to hold this Cup, if he ever really wanted it.
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 been lost or sacrificed has been normal personal freedoms, symbolized in the Tarot by the falcon sitting on the lady’s wrist.
The ‘Gilded cage?’ Balmoral was this bird’s escape.
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. Once upon a time, for reasons of state security, it was an act of treason in England, 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 feeling 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 my cards were not completely spot in in terms of the timing. But they came pretty close.
I was working with The Gilded Tarot, and as you’ll notice, this deck is pretty well used but I felt drawn to use it on this occasion.
Extract from an article at Ask Astrology December 2021:
Leo: 5th House (July-August 2022)
Heartland, creativity, passion, romance, royalty, children
Tarot card ~ 3 Swords Reversed
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.
Whatever people may feel about our constitutional Monarchy, or the Queen, the death of Elizabeth marks the end of an era in Britain.
There is not just a sadness but a profound strangeness on the land.”
A year on, much of that strangeness endures.
Thank you for reading.
Till next time.
True Tarot Tales 