What’s the push and pull in the collective energy today? I draw two crux Cards from the Touchstone Tarot deck by Kat Black and I draw Death and the Page of Coins (Pentacles)
Saturday 6 January 2024
It is a waning moon, not a time for sowing and planting. We are haunted, maybe grieving. Dreams are vivid. Today’s waning moon is in the fixed water sign of Scorpio, denoting a strong outgoing tide of deep feeling with a sting of loss attached but we may also experience a sense of irritation, not quite knowing where to put our physical, intellectual and emotional energy.
The Death card, curiously, is the card corresponding with the zodiac sun sign of Scorpio. The appearance of this card signifies endings. Many readers these days will state that the Death card never, but never represents an actual death or bereavement. My twenty odd years of reading for other people tells me that in general, the Death card is talking metaphorically. A job may come to an end, or a relationship for instance. But it can raise the question or the spectre of an actual human death. Oh yes it can, it will and it does. And so it should. Death is part of Life. It colours our experience of Life through the awareness of our own mortality and that of all those we love most. Death – and Birth are THE greatest life events, our own. The Death card needs handling with care. I do not make predictions of Death. I could be wrong. Nor will I avoid the conversation.
The appearance of the Death card reflects the dreadful events we are seeing on the news, if we are not living through them ourselves. And the Death card shows that we are feeling acutely aware of the passage of time, and of our own mortality. Time and tide wait for no man. Oh, do they not? I have known when loved ones were about to go. I do not mean that I was sensing anything imminently. But it was there all the same. Their tide was on the turn for the last time. There was a presentiment. An ebbing tide, pulling at my own inner water.
And yet the appearance of the Page of the element of Earth is timely. Mercury has now gone direct again, while energetic Mars has entered pragmatic Capricorn on 4 January and stays there till 13 February. The echoes of recent troubles may be powerful, yet this new wind may still prove favourable. Hold fast to the greatest tasks in hand…we have been stuck, but now necessary things can and should and will get done.
We are now in the second decan of Capricorn, associated with the creative and productive Three of Coins or Pentacles. This card, again from The Touchstone Tarot shows a master craftsman at work. See the sketch and quill behind him. An eager patron looks on, agog to see what beauty shall be created, proudly sponsored by him. Oh yes, he gets to claim much kudos. This is the card of making a house a home, but above all it is a card of excellence.
This is a good time to surge ahead with creative projects and businesses. A Tamil friend has a silk weaving business for instance, making sarees/saris. The Three of Coins is an apposite card for ant kind of business like this.
A medicine for grief -or anxiety is to do something constructive, creative or useful. Sort your admin (yawn -but it feels so good once you’ve done it.)
Or read and study. Learn something new.
“The best thing for being sad,” said Merlin, “is to learn something. It is the only thing that never fails”
(T.H. White The Once and Future King)
DO something. This is a medicine, a reliable Ju-ju for blasting the cobwebs or soothing sorrow. Action in the material world. Anything really, so long as it ain’t stupid. The young man representing the Page of Coins is a scholar (from an original painting by Hans Holbein. He could equally be a crafts-person or a cook or a pet owner.
When we are treading water, or right up in our heads, we can earth ourselves by going for a walk, feeding the birds, or by giving our mind and our hands something to work on front of house.
This day of a legalistic waning Libra moon we learn that the next UK election will not be in the spring as has been lately rumoured, but will be in the second half of the year.
The UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is a Taurus sun sign native, and the leader of the Opposition Keir Starmer is a Virgo sun sign native. Is Rishi waiting until after late May when Jupiter will move into Gemini, or will he wait until the 2 October eclipse in judicial, contractual Libra to call the election?
There is plenty good about Jupiter in Gemini for communications, publishing, teaching, aviation…but Jupiter is in detriment in Gemini, meaning that when it is in Gemini, Jupiter is sitting opposite Sagittarius, the sign it naturally rules. What this can mean is that we have super intelligent decision making during Jupiter in Gemini, or a load of flopping about, quibbling and hot air and nothing of great moment actually gets decided.
Globally, we are witnessing such dreadful devastation. Mars in Capricorn seeks to acquire- territory, resources, status. But it also seeks, like the Page of Coins or Pentacles, to rebuild.
Resolutions and rebuilding in Gaza and Ukraine can’t- and won’t come fast enough to satisfy any ideals of justice, kindness or basic decency. It never does until that last moment has long, long since passed. Those tides have gone right out, and are coming in again as tsunamis- “waves in the harbour”. I write this, realizing that I am speaking metaphorically in the very same week that Japan has experienced earthquakes and tsunamis on the very first day of 2024.
Source: Wikipedia
“As above so below.” The planet Earth, Gaia is unsettled, and so are we. The hive is rattled. The bees swarm, buzzing. We are experiencing Solar Cycle 25 and all that. This was expected to be a weak cycle in terms of solar flare activity. And maybe it will still be weaker than the average solar cycle. But it is early days in this cycle, and it is already proving stronger than was predicted back in 2019, with the next solar maximum expected any time between now and October 2024.
The stone associated with Capricorn is the garnet, symbolic of loyalty and devotion, The garnet is considered a lucky talisman of protection, and for the health of the heart.
A Mars cazimi is happening Friday 17 November, when Mars conjuncts the Sun in the night sky to within around 1 degree, seen close to Capella, aka the Goat Star in the constellation of Auriga, The Charioteer. Mars is the traditional ruler of (cardinal fire sign) Aries and (fixed water sign) Scorpio in Western/Tropical astrology while the Goat star, Capella, was regarded by the ancients as an omen of high renown.
Via Wiki: Capella is the brightest star in the constellation of Auriga (upper left).
Cazimi comes from the Arabic word word “kaṣmīmī ” which in turn is thought to have evolved from the Greek “kardia” meaning “in the heart” – or in this context translating as, “in the heart of the sun.”
Mars rises at the core. What are our core objectives right now? What are our core values?
This Mars Cazimi marks the start of a new 2 year Mars cycle for each of us, upping the ante wherever it happens to be sitting in your own birth chart. In which astrological House might that be for you?
Mars initiates. It is ardent, proud, fierce and above all pro-active. Living it large. In Tarot, Mars may be expressed through drawing The Tower card, The Emperor or the Death card (modern ruler Pluto) and the potential for destruction could not be plainer, as we are witnessing right now in tragic real time world events.
The Tower card represents shocks and storms, both literally and metaphorically. It may describe or detect collapse. Forthcoming explosions. It tears things down whether for good or ill.
The Tower from the Golden Tarot, Emperor from the Legacy of The Divine Tarot and Death card from the Rider Waite
The Emperor of Aries season is law and order on the one hand. Wise governance. Or conquest, excess, tyranny and cruelty or maladministration on the other. Note the Aries Ram’s horns adorning his throne.
Aries is headstrong. In medical astrology it rules the health of the head and brain. When ill aspected it may warn against an excerbated risk of accidents and injuries caused by a) speed b) fire.
The homeopathic tissue salt of Aries is Kali Phos, Potassium phosphate, used as a “coolant” or calming agent on the nervous system.
From The Rider Waite Tarot deck
The Death card of Scorpio, ruled by Mars and Pluto, may, and sometimes does refer, not only to the idea of human mortality, but to the death of someone in the literal physical sense, but more generally stands for any and all kinds of endings. The end of a situation or a job, or relationship, and in this context,the Death card may be a welcome sign of much needed change.
The homeopathic cell salt of Scorpio is Calc Sulph, Calcium Sulphate, used as a cleanser of “overheated” blood for removal of pus, fever and other manifestations of infection, or strain upon the liver and gallbladder .
From the Rider-Waite Tarot deck
The world stage is non stop fieriness between now and the spring/vernal equinox 2024 – bookmarked by entry into ARIES. Even though the spring equinox in 2024 technically occurs during the last day of Pisces season, 20 March, still, the spring equinox is associated with Aries, while there is also the solar eclipse in Aries on April 8 2024 to be factored in here, signifying monumental Mars type events, though I do not personally detect any sign of an impending WW3.
Mars Cazimi is warrior energy. But it is more innocently, newborn optimism. The ebullient primal energy of the first ram lamb of spring. New things. Young energy. Birth itself is a fierce act, whatever kind of birth it may be; a person, an animal, a nation state, a business, or some great creative work; a building, a bridge, a machine, or a work of art, music or literature.
Life, as Professor Malcolm so famously put it in Jurassic Park, “finds a way.” And Mars in Aries MAKES a way, charging headlong, while Mars right now in Scorpio is steaming and blasting or plotting its way through opposition.
The Aries lamb can kill you once it grows to be a ram. It’s not personal. You got in its way and you were on its own territory. If it knocks you down, then stay down, and chances are it will wander off. Unlike the Scorpion which may bide it’s time and catch you later unawares. Both are the faces of Mars.
Where the passion is, and the will-power of Mars, then, like it or not, whether by playing fair or foul, the thing gets done.
The zodiac sign of the Scorpion is also a symbol of rebirth. Another face of Scorpio is the Phoenix. Maps get redrawn. Life is for living and while we live, we can still arise and act to launch or build anew.
That’s the wind now blowing through. We can stand foursquare in our power, raise the roof, blast free and shake off the dust during this Mars Cazimi. If we have been stuck, it looks as though we are going to get ourselves unstuck during the next two years.
Once more unto the breach.
“Happiness we can only find in ourselves, it is a waste of time to seek for it from others, few have any to spare. Sorrow we have to bear alone as best we can, it is not fair to try to shift it on others, be they men or women. We have to fight our own battles and strike as hard as we can, born fighters as we are.”
–Axel Munthe, The Story of San Michele
Bon courage! Let us discover what new things we shall do and build and make over the next two years, driven by that adrenaline of this incoming Mars Cazimi in Scorpio season 2023, and thank you for reading.
The old Norse rune associated with this Mars Cazimi is Tiwaz, associated with Tyr, the god who gave his name to Tuesdays, signifying war, justice, nobility and physical and moral courage.
The rune Tiwaz is reputed to bring good luck in health and legal matters
Tyr put his hand in the mouth of the giant wolf, Fenrir, as surety, and then Fenrir permitted himself to be chained. But when Fenrir discovered he had been tricked and would not be released, he bit off the hand of Tyr,who had known this would happen. But the wolf had to be tricked and bound, or he would have devoured the Sun itself. Perhaps this myth was inspired by the fear of a total solar eclipse.
Tyr matches courage with duty and integrity.
Artist John Bauer, 1911
May Tyr be with us, and may Fenrir never break his chains.
“In times of war, the law falls silent”. ― Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, writer and staunch republican, assassinated 43 BC on the orders of Mark Antony who was then defeated by Octavian, the future Emperor Augustus.
Wiki Commons
The Tarot detects, reflects and may then project or predict in respect of a given situation. Its limitations are in the reader. Sometimes we may think we want to know something but actually, we don’t. Or we may indulge wishful thinking in interpretation unless we are careful. The less personally involved the reader feels, the more likely it is that the reader will see clearly, looking further down the road.
Late last night (28 February) I drew the card below, asking the Tarot for its comment at this juncture re Mr Zelenskyy (I understand that strictly speaking it should be spelled with a double’ y’.)
We have here The Hanged Man reversed. This is a card of Neptune. This is a card that is strongly associated with Pisces. and we are in Pisces season until 20 March 2022.
Card meanings: meditation, ultimate surrender, sacrifice, suspended in time, indecision, Drawn reversed: duty, the body politic, the crowd, breakthrough, giving to get.
Events in Ukraine are moving on apace. Everyone has their own thoughts, opinions or responses. Me too, but when looking in my cards I must remain dispassionate if humanly possible and honestly record and report what I see or do not see. Right or wrong.
There is first the act of divination, the actual drawing of the cards. This is the psychic or occult element of the process if you will. That we expect to draw a card that will first of all, mirror with sufficient accuracy the issue being presented for left field analysis. What makes us draw one card and not another instead?
Some might say the reader can just make up anything they like. But if they know anything about Tarot, they know that each card has a list of associated interpretations. This list is long. It has to be. 78 cards must cover any topic, any question, any situation known to human experience. But the cards, while there are areas that lap over with one another, deal in particularities and not just broad themes and can only be made to stretch so far.
My core service for 20 years has been personal readings. If a reader is blagging it, talking mush, the client would know right away. For the avoidance of doubt, and to set the baseline of the rest of the reading, the reader must deliver something that is relevant, timely, specific and particular, and that can be validated or verified at once by the client. Preferably they will do it at once, with the very first card.
This kind of reading we are doing here is a different challenge, just as mundane astrology -using astrology to look at world affairs- is different from doing natal astrology or personal horoscopes.
The Hanged Man reversed was THE one single card I drew last night, asking to be shown a Tarot snapshot of Mr Zelenskyy.
That we drew The Hanged Man, and not only does the symbolism resonate but I see a physical resemblance to the living person is the mystery. What Jung termed the synchronicity of Tarot:-
Until last Monday evening, I did not draw cards clearly indicating war in Ukraine. They were mixed, ambivalent. I drew The Hermit in the mix (maturity,solitude, quiet reflection) and hoped for the best, having expected instead these following cards; The Tower, Ace Swords, The Devil, The World card reversed, or other combinations which, when added up would clearly point to a clear threat of war.
Mr P has clearly been war gaming this through the past two years of covid. He wants it all but without having to resort to a policy of scorched earth.
From The Golden Tarot by Kat Black
The Hermit is also about crops. Grains. It correlates with Virgo and the harvest. Both Russia and Ukraine are top exporters. Ukraine more so, I gather, able to provide food for 600 million people. There is going to be a sharp rise in the price of grain. But perhaps The Hermit is also a sign of hope because The Hermit is a pathfinder. He shows the way ahead.
I drew The Tower, The Devil and The Chariot Reversed six hours before the terrorist attack in Nice, Bastille Day, 2016. I did not know what they meant exactly. I did not know in what exact shape they would manifest in real life. There were a number of possible scenarios. I only felt that something terrible was going to happen imminently and that it would involve a vehicle, and I asked Il Matrimonio to go and check the tyre pressures on the car.
However, while logic said Mr Putin had clear and obvious designs on annexing Ukraine, and developments were deeply unsettling, the cards did not show these combinations, and so that’s what I recorded at that point. To do anything else to make it fit in with a conscious assessment of a situation would be to falsify the process of cartomancy. Even if it might be tempting, and not that one is not partial to one’s dignity, but to do this stuff at all, you have to be prepared to look like a fool or how can you learn?
The reader frames a question or states an issue, draws the cards, blindly and at random, lays them out, turns them over, and then tries to make sense of what they are looking at.
Last Monday afternoon, talking on the phone with my mother who knows a LOT about WW1 and WW2 and she said, “there is not just a whiff of Munich here, it’s a stench.”
I mentioned that I hadn’t been shown war yet, despite the growing signs, and had not drawn The Tower card, and did not understand why not yet.
The Tower. A shock. A lightening strike. A storm, Thunder. War. Hubris. Pride before a fall. A Tuesday. Mars. A bomb. Air attack. Earthquake. Tsunami.
A little while after our call I sat down for another look, and blow me down, there it finally was; The Tower, sitting smack in the middle of the cards.
Tarot Spread, Ukraine-Russia-West, drawn 20 Feb 2022, The Illuminati Tarot
Top left Mr P debating, wants those 2 states, wants ports, land bridge, do a deal? (2 PENTS) or go all out (central TOWER) What may prevent all out? Critical factor, bottom right. HIEROPHANT Reversed (tradition, govt turned upside down, key, faith, church, rules, banks) Fear of the anger of his own people.
These cards suggest
Best case scenario: Based purely on the potentialities contained within the book meanings of these cards. Deal might be Zelensky agrees to signing away the 2 separatist states – (IF it can be fairly demonstrated there is a majority support for them to rejoin Russia?)
Worst case scenario: Mr P trapped and desperate, fighting for his political life, and perhaps his actual life, goes nuclear beyond Ukraine’s borders. There are rumours Russia has already deployed a thermobaric weapon in his determination to ‘liberate’ the people of Ukraine.
Second worst case scenario: Mr P, trapped, frustrated and frightened at the prospect of a long drawn out Ukraine insurgency, decides to take the gloves right off in Ukraine, aided by Belarus, ganging up 2 to 1, and defying any other country to intervene to help Ukraine on a military basis. This would require that he must seize or crush Kyev now and quickly.
This seems the most likely scenario but the cards still reflect hope it may be avoided. We will come to that in a minute.
Let’s post the image again, save scrolling up.
Column 1 Mr P
Recent Past
2 Pentacles weighing risks/gains, land bridge, 2 ports(see the ships) 2 rogue states, weighing income streams pipelines NS 1, 2 and the proposed new pipeline to Beijing
Present
King Swords RX clever,, determined, ruthless, air sign king (Libra) cerebral, cool, cautious in calculation but decisive in action. This is Putin himself.
Future
10 Swords ruin, ill, (head/spine/cancer/bowel/kidneys?) coup, back-stabbed, (but at what cost meantime, this v likely won’t happen yet…astrology suggests he goes c March 2023 so….) Nuke Ukraine, wreck it this card is reflecting his calculation scorched earth = pyrrhic victory
Column 2 Mr Z
Past
3 Cups, friendship, female support, past enjoyment (his background?)
Present
TOWER war future air strike/nuke? (Mars ) foreseeing last Tuesdays outright invasion only the day beforehand
Future
Ace Swords clarity, victory, command of air space or satellite communications (eg Elon Musk Star link re communications/propaganda war for Ukraine) Cutting a Gordion Knot (the very thing we do not want Putin to do)
This card is AQUARIUS. Mr Z is Aquarius. Modern tech/social media. Not so much Putin’s strong point nowadays.
Column 3The West
Past
6 Wands, riding high, team, success, arrogant, smug sports a priority, brave card goes with LEO and therefore high summer, page cups reversed, failed diplomacy, immaturity, naivete, attack from the SOUTH
Present
Page Cups reversed Failed diplomacy, empty cup, childishness, immaturity, naivete, the suit of cups correlates with the compass direction of west
Future
Hierophant Reversed What the West sees. Mr P fears ‘excommunication’ temporal. World bank global banking against Mr P. Much of this, we are already seeing.He may not care because future mega new income streams via China, but oligarchs and people care right now. This card is the thing he seems to fear most at this juncture. Ostracism by his own people.
SUMMARY
It does not look as though Mr Putin is not going to win this. There can only be losers here. He may achieve a military victory, and this is a dreadful and deeply unjust prospect given the circumstances. But should he seize Kyev in the coming days, aided by that gangster he keeps in his pocket, the kidnapper Mr Lukashenko.
But Mr Putin’s goal was not to wreck the Ukraine, but to harvest it. The Hermit. A military victory needed to be quick and clean. This is messy, dirty, vile and slow and makes him look like mud – a pyrrhic victory, as signified by that Ten of Swords. Mr Putin is acutely aware of this, but can not acknowledge it, which makes the situation even more terribly dangerous.
A number of astrologers (inc my favourites Patrick Arundell, Jessica Adams, Victor Olliver) have mentioned 3 March in terms of a potentially critical conjunction for this situation, between Mars and Pluto, occurring specifically at 8.43 AM GMT. This may be mitigated by a apparently happy and lucky New Moon in Pisces, Wednesday 2 March. A moon influence lasts two and a half days. Unless it means that some fortuitous development on Wednesday heads off something far less welcome in the nick of time.
The cards say Mr Putin needs to beware Taurus the Bull. The Hierophant Reversed. April and May. Global banking, agriculture, food security, ‘excommunication’ by the wider community but far more fatal for him- by his own people. Incidentally, there is a Taurus eclipse this year, Saturday 30 April.
The scenes are heartrending and this is a tragedy for the people of Russia too. Mr Putin is right to fear their anger. That Ten of Swords indicates his eventual over reach and downfall, left hand column, bottom card. Hubris.The West has also been guilty of hubris or complacency and this is a wake up call.
One astrologer has suggested President Putin is gone by some time round March 2023. Gone from office or just gone? But he can still do an awful lot of damage in that space of time, can’t he. The question is the final cost, and this is a karmic question of collective destiny.
Some very great, very deep loop or pattern is being replayed. This loop began December 2019/January 2020 and history -and astrology- suggests it will run till 2025/6 and we will then have a different looking world order.
We can see how frighteningly easily or quickly this situation could become WW3 or even a nuclear holocaust. No one knows. But I would suggest that Hierophant Reversed is not nearly sufficiently combustible. The Tower card is definitely sufficiently combustible BUT it is sitting in the centre. It is righthere, right now. The Hierophant Reversed is a crux card that will manifest in the near future.
The Devil is absent, and while the Hierophant Reversed can be read as authoritarianism, The Devil is a spectre of a holocaust, just as the Holodomor was a holocaust.
Sympathetic Magic
People have been known to mistake divination with ‘witchcraft’. Divination is one thing. Sympathetic magic is a different thing even though they may use the same tools or objects.
Magic, one might say, is a refuge of last resort and is a measure of desperation. Not so. We use it all the time and hardly give it a second thought. We say, cheers, all the best, goodbye (God be with you)
Words have power. People have been known to mistake divination with ‘witchcraft’. Divination is one thing. Sympathetic magic is a different thing even though they may use the same tools or objects. Prayer is a form of sympathetic magic.
It is said that witches of Plymouth whistled up a storm as the Armada approached the English coast. You can read more about that and other related stories HERE
Using runes in sympathetic magic to protect a home or a homeland, we might use several runes, either singly or in combination, like so –
Top rune: Algiz/Elhaz/Eol. TheElk, called sedge by some. General umbrella protection
Central rune: Nied. This rune literally means NEED. As in, here we need protection for a household or homeland or our parents.
Left hand rune: Othala meaning homeland, a family household or stronghold, family inheritance, legacy, ancestry, parents and ancestors
Right hand rune Thurisaz, the Thorn, used in attack and defense. A powerful rune of protection, associated with Mollnir, the hammer of Thor the Thunder god
Bottom rune: Dagaz. We get the modern English word Day from this rune. As in, for instance, let there be another dawn for those under fire this day. Fiat lux!
NB: You don’t need to buy runes. You can just draw them, say their name, call on the influence they represent. Just as we sign off messages with “Best Wishes.” The principle is the same.
The Sun from The Golden Tarot by Kat Black
“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength but loving someone deeply gives you courage.”― Lao Tzu
As we watch that 60 km invasion convoy coming in, and all seems well nigh lost, I draw the Eleventh House card for Mr Zelenskyy…..Aquarius, technology, Star Link, Elon Musk. Eleven is a lucky number. This card was drawn last night.
True Tarot Tales 