Tarot – Page 7 – True Tarot Tales

Aquarius: Stories of Mankind, Rain and Flood, Space and Spirit

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Most of us know our zodiac or sun sign, but what does it look like in the night sky, and what’s the story behind it? This month it’s the turn of Aquarius again, the rain-maker of the Zodiac; the cloud bearer, and therefore an Air sign despite the ‘aqua’ in its name…

‘It never rains but it pours.’

As we enter Aquarius again in 2022, poised right on the cusp today, 19 January, I look back at the flooding that was on the news here in the UK in 2021; Storm Christophe.

I had mentioned this possibility among other things including the trouble that followed the US Presidential Inauguration, in a piece written for Ask Astrology 27 December 2020, though this was hardly any great psychic hit for this time of year, though some years are definitely worse than others.

Aquarius is the eleventh astrological sign in the Zodiac, named after the constellation of Aquarius, recorded by the Greek astronomer and mathematician Ptolemy in the 2^nd Century AD.

Today, 19 January 2022, the greatest storms have been in the House of Commons at Prime Minister’s Question Time. The PM could go, of course, but the signs are, he won’t yet awhile. For all the thunder and fury, this die is not cast. Why not? Bigger storms heading our way in 2022.

Common Associations

Dates: Vary but typically January 19–February 18

Element: Air

Quality: Fixed (meaning a sign that corresponds with the height of a given season) Ruling planets: Saturn the Taskmaster (originally) AND Uranus the Eccentric Upheaver.

Body: The circulatory system, shins, and ankles.

Birthstone: Amethyst

Tarot Card: The Star (Hope, Vision, Recovery, Equilibrium, Bridging, Searching, Exploration, Technology, Space Exploration)

Minor Arcana cards: the 5, 6 and 7 of Swords.

The figure is unclothed because The Star (Truth) has nothing to hide.

Astronomy

From the Earth’s perspective, the Sun actually passes in front of the constellation of Aquarius from February 17th to March 11th, a month later than the dates associated with its zodiac sign.

However, zodiac constellations are not to be confused with zodiac signs. The dates did used to coincide, but Western (Tropical) astrology is a fixed arithmetic system dating back to more ancient calendar systems.

The dates of the zodiac signs and the constellations after which they were named have separated over time due to the ‘wobble’ of the Earth – an effect known as precession.

Astronomers who deride astrology on these grounds are not taking into account the basis and history of western (Tropical) astrology as a mathematical, not an astronomical model of the heavens.

Aquarius the Water-Carrier is one of the oldest identified constellations of the Zodiac (the area of the sky as seen from Earth through which the sun, moon and planets all pass, occasionally or regularly)

Aquarius is the tenth largest constellation, a big though faint constellation in the southern hemisphere, and its appearance is almost universally associated culturally and historically with sky, clouds, water and therefore rain.

Aquarius lies in the dark region of the sky called The Sea, containing other ‘watery’ constellations; Pisces (the fish), Eridanus (the river), Cetus (the whale), Capricornus (the Sea-goat), Delphinus (the Dolphin), and Hydra (the Water serpent).

Helped out here by those added lines, we see the pitcher, pouring out water.

The brightest stars in Aquarius are two yellow super-giants, several times more massive than the Sun; Alpha Aquarii (Sadalmelik) and Beta Aquarii (Sadalsuud) 537 light-years distant.

Sadalsuud is the brightest star in Aquarius, with a mass six times that of the Sun. It’s 2,200 times more luminous than the Sun and its name comes from the Arabic phrase sa’d al-suud, meaning the “luck of lucks.”

Other deep-sky objects include the Aquarius Dwarf Galaxy and the quirkily named Atoms for Peace Galaxy.

Aquarius also contains the Saturn Nebula and the Helix Nebula, the remnants of dying stars, and these are the closest planetary nebulae to Earth, 400 light-years away.

(Talk about The Eye of Sauron)

Aquarius is home to at least 3 meteor showers. The Eta Aquariids, 5th and 6th of May, are the strongest with up to 35 meteors per hour coming from materials shed by Comet Halley as it travels through the solar system. The less active Delta Aquariids peak twice: on the 29th of July and again on the 6th of August. The weakest is the Iota Aquariids, peaking August 6th each year.

The constellation of Aquarius is large but faint, complicated and not easy to spot, though it can be seen from almost anywhere on Earth. The best time to see is 9-10 PM in October but you will need a dark sky to pick it out.

History and Mythology

Throughout the whole of human history, arguably the number one danger to Man has been the threat of flood, knocking spots in terms of the sheer scale of threat off even the Biblical Horsemen of the Apocalypse; War, Famine, Pestilence and Death.

Aquarius overhead meant winter rain was coming to the lands of Mesop0tomia, and this meant the waters of life itself- aqua vitae -but it wasn’t all good news.

The water carrier, the cloud, can also be an agent of death, destruction, flood and disease, and the oldest flood stories underpinning the zodiac story of Aquarius arose in the Middle East. The story of Noah’s flood came much later.

For the Sumerians, Aquarius was a frightening figure. He held the vessel from which a great flood flowed from the heavens onto the earth to ravage the entire planet, while the Babylonians called Aquarius’ appearance in the night sky ‘the curse of rain’.

Aquarius to the Babylonians was the god Ea, or GU.LA , ‘The Great One’ in the Babylonian star catalogues, often shown holding an overflowing vase. During the Early Bronze Age, the appearance of Aquarius or the ‘Way of Ea’, corresponded to the period of 45 days on either side of winter solstice, when the Babylonians regularly experienced destructive levels of flooding.

In Ancient Egypt, their own version of Aquarius, the god Hapi, God of The Nile, was associated with the annual flood of the Nile when Hapi put his jar into the river, and this marked the beginning of spring, replenishing their farming soil. But their flooding season was June.

Greek mythology describes three floods, the flood of Ogyges, the flood of Deucalion, and the flood of Dardanus. The Ogygian Deluge, they said ended the Silver Age, and the flood of Deucalion ended the First Bronze Age, ‘parting the mountains of Thessaly’.

The ancient Greeks naturally feared fire, and the ever present threat of earthquakes ‘convulsions’ and recorded events where fire and water they happened together (tsunamis, and we have of course, just witnessed the Tongan tsunami, 15 January following an undersea volcanic eruption, just days ahead of Aquarius.)

The Greeks said that Aquarius caused a great flood which inundated the Earth during the Bronze Age, of which only Deucalion, son of Prometheus and his wife Pyrrha survived by variously climbing in a chest and toughing it out, or building a great boat stocked with provisions, just as later in the Old Testament, Noah built his Ark.

Ancient Greeks avoided living near lakes and rivers, it’s thought, for hygiene reasons as well as protection from floods. There are apparently, impressive remains of hydraulic anti-flooding works; dams, walls, and channels in cities and other settlements in the Minoan era, and the Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic and Roman periods.

Another very different Greek legend, associated Aquarius with the beautiful Trojan prince, Ganymede, carried off by that arch-sexual predator Zeus (Did Zeus ever give it a rest?) This time, he disguised himself as an eagle, and Ganymede, like it or not, became his lover and protégé, and the cup-bearer of the Gods.

The ‘Age of Aquarius’

Is it here? What does it mean? What might it portend? There has been a lot of discussion about this, and much excitement surrounding the Great Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in Aquarius that occurred 21 December 2020.

The Age of Aquarius has become synonymous with a mythical new Golden age of Mankind, but when was it? Or when will it begin? There is no consensus and no definite answer.

In astrological terms, an age lasts roughly 2200 years and is identified by the name of the constellation in which the Sun appears in on the first day of spring (the vernal equinox). To know when the age of Aquarius begins, we would need to agree the start date for the previous/present Age of Pisces- but astronomy and astrology don’t agree, even among themselves.

Some, but not all astrologers say the Age of Aquarius is already here, that it began in 2012. To arrive at this, they are using the star Regulus, the heart of the Lion in the constellation of Leo as the marker of the ancient border between the constellations Leo and Cancer.

Regulus moved to within 30 degrees of the September equinox point in 2012, Working with the arithmetical model of constellations as calculated by Ptolemy in the second century AD, this places the border of the constellations Pisces and Aquarius at 150 degrees west of Regulus, or at the March equinox point. By this reckoning, the Age of Aquarius started in 2012.

Alternatively, according to the Belgian astronomer and mathematician, Jean Meeus, the sun at the March equinox passed from being in front of the constellation Aries to being in front of the constellation Pisces in 68 B.C.

This would mean that the March equinox will cross over into the constellation Aquarius in 2597 but once again, these are the astronomical, not astrological dates.

The Age of Aquarius denotes or predicts on the one hand the space age, the age of super-technology, and on the other, the age of the human collective, The Brotherhood of Man as opposed to the age of the One, and the individual as in the current Age of Pisces which is associated with the rise of the monotheistic religions; Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Space Technology 2021

Saturn and Jupiter conjunct in sci-fi Aquarius on 21 December 2020 prefigured hi-tech space adventures to come during 2021.

Mars was having visitors -us. Oh yes. Put the kettle on, Mars peeps. And we don’t suppose you’ve got any biccies? Sarnies? Cake? No? OK, OK, well, we know we weren’t invited, but you could have just…you know.

Well, never mind. For a month or so, Earth and Mars lined up in a way that made it viable to land a probe. Miss that window, and it would have meant waiting two years for the next opportunity.

The United Arab Emirates, China and the United States all launched in July 2020, all three due to arrive starting with NASA’a mission, scheduled to land Thursday 18 February 2021.

NASA landed its rover, Perseverance in the Jezero crater, an ancient river delta.

China and the United Arab Emirates sent their own exploration missions to Mars…all due to arrive February 2021.

China sent the Tianwen-1 Rover. After sending a rover to the far side of the moon, this mission was called Tianwen-1, meaning ‘quest for heavenly truth,’ and aimed to be the first Mars mission to drop a landing platform, deploy a rover, and send a spacecraft into the planet’s orbit all at once. The rover has been equipped with a radar system that can detect underground pockets of water and will help China prepare for its own mission to return a sample from Mars to Earth in the 2030s.

The UAE sent The Hope Orbiter, the Arab world’s first mission to another planet, to study the Martian atmosphere.

Russia was planning to send a mission to Mars, as was The European Space Agency, but the Covid pandemic demanded a postponement.

The European Space Agency likewise had to delay the first flight of its new Ariane 6 launcher which was rescheduled to launch during the second half of 2021, and has since had to be rescheduled again for the second quarter of 2022.

NASA is also working to return to the Moon – robotically. The Artemis Project is using commercial delivery services to send science investigations and technology demonstrations to the Moon twice per year, with the first such flight currently scheduled for a flight in 2024.

The Moon in The Space Age

Yes, it is exciting. But one feels conflicted. The Moon is a goddess, sacred, mysterious. Humanity needs its ancient mysteries for its happiness, health and sanity. It needs the siren lure of the ever inaccessible.

This need cannot be explained away nor measured except by an entire history of story-telling, which says we need stories, that we are hard-wired for this need, and that the effects of what we might call sacrilege of the natural world, will only become known by its despoiling, negation or denial.

We need a hill, a star, a shore and a moon to dream on. Free of our footprints.

Let’s hope therefore, that humanity is successful in these explorations, but not too successful, for the sake of its ultimate sanity, which is not a co-factor of reason or science, but the immeasurable spirit, which is the divine spark for which there can be no calculation, no formula, no equation.

We need to beware hubris and behave with respect. If only for our own happiness. Hence, NASA’s Artemis Accords.

Will this be enough? here is a partial list of the artificial objects already now up there on the Moon.

The Artemis Accords

With numerous countries and private sector players conducting missions and operations in cislunar space, it’s critical to establish a common set of principles to govern the civil exploration and use of outer space.

Via the Artemis program, NASA will land the first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024, heralding in a new era for space exploration and utilization.

While NASA is leading the Artemis program, international partnerships will play a key role in achieving a sustainable and robust presence on the Moon while preparing to conduct a historic human mission to Mars.

The Artemis Accords will describe a shared vision for principles, grounded in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, to create a safe and transparent environment which facilitates exploration, science, and commercial activities for all of humanity to enjoy.

UPDATE

Eight countries had signed up at the time of posting this blog last January 2021: The United Kingdom, Italy, Australia, Canada, Japan, Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates and the US . Other countries had not done so as yet for a variety of reasons, these including Russia, Germany, France and India.

Israel is apparently set to sign the Artemis Accords next week, 23 January 2022, and if they do so they will become the fifteenth signatory.

“Mexico was the previous most recent signatory to the pact in December. Thirteen other countries that have embraced the Artemis Accords are Australia, Brazil, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Poland, the Republic of Korea, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.”

READ HERE

The Moon Agreement of 1979 was an attempt to to prevent commercial exploitation of outer-space resources, but only a few states have ratified it – these have not included the US, China and Russia.

Astrology; the Aquarius Personality/ Archetype

Aquarius is a Fixed, Masculine Air Sign. The Tarot court card to watch for here is The King of Swords though the Queen may also represent an Aquarius born subject.

Of course there is no such thing in reality as THE Aquarius personality, and the same goes for all the zodiac sun signs. Your sun sign is an archetype, a keynote, but of course it is not and never could be the whole story.

The archetypal persona, male or female, is keenly observant, very sharp, clever, firm, fair, analytical logical, legalistic, brave, amusing and charming. They are often musically gifted, numerate, and very often work in teaching, or in Law, or music, medicine or dentistry in technical, forensic or surgical consultant roles. This is someone who uses logic and reason to cut through confusion. But they need plenty of personal space and fresh air, and if emotionally challenged, they are more likely to administer advice or medicine than take it themselves. They can be quietly ruthless.

Aquarius is ruled by two planets, Saturn, known to the ancients, planet of duty and conformity, but also Uranus, ‘discovered’ 1781, designated the planet of upheaval and rebellion, and therefore, as you might imagine, this is a sign potentially containing acute paradoxes.

There is on the one hand the authoritarian Aquarian, prone to dogma, and the freewheeling Aquarian archetype. Either way, Aquarius is radically independent in their thinking, often for good, but not always. Even a rebellion may become just another kind of dogma.

Aquarius is generally kindly, humane, refined, civilized and honourable in dealings. They set great store on friendship and loyalty, and need to belong and be of service, just as their symbol is the water-bearer or cup-bearer, a person pouring water for another.

This symbol can be interpreted to imply a destiny to serve others, but by the same token Aquarius may carry water to ‘cleanse’ the world of ‘errant’ thinking. Taken to extremes, Aquarius therefore represents a communal potential for fundamentalism.

Aquarius excels at cerebral thinking, dealing in abstracts, but does not necessarily see the the individual in front of them. Where they make a false step it may be because they trust to their cerebral processes at the expense of their instinct.

Aquarius may be moody, prone to bouts of depression, or they may sparkle with the brilliance of diamonds, when their chart is warmed by the courage warmth, honour and charisma of their opposite sign, their alter ego, or possibly their nemesis…the zodiac counterpart contained within Aquarius – Leo.

Famous Aquarius subjects

Galileo Galilei

Abraham Lincoln, Ferdinand Magellan. Galileo Galilei, Thomas Edison. Charles Darwin. Frederick Douglass, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Virginia Woolf, John Travolta, Oprah Winfrey, Shakira

Till next time 🙂

When The Devil Meets The Star on the Capitol…

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

It is 20 January, and in the US, once every four years, this means Presidential Inauguration Day. The Devil in the title is the zodiac sign of Capricorn and The Star is Aquarius.

The Inauguration date represents the astrological cusp between Capricorn, the third decanate, and Aquarius, the first decanate. Every zodiac sign is divided into thirds: 3 ‘decanates’, 10 days, representing 10 degrees of the 360 degree Wheel of the Zodiac. Each Zodiac sign represents roughly 1/12 of that Wheel,as determined by the astronomer, astrologer and mathematician Ptolemy in the second century AD.

The Presidential Inauguration bridges The Four of Pentacles, nicknamed by some ‘The Miser card. ‘What I have I keep.’and the minor arcana card correlating with the first decanate of Aquarius, the emotionally and sometimes physically violent Five of Swords, a card that says, ‘I’ll get you back for this.’

Tweeted 12 January

11-19 January. Decan 3 Capricorn, THE worker of the zodiac, ruled by Saturn, Great Teacher. Sub-ruled by Mercury. Capricorn with Virgo attention to detail but agility of Gemini. #Tarot Four Pentacles ‘I store’. Miser? Unjust nickname. You can’t share what’s not there in storage.

But, just running with that traditional Tarot nickname, the Miser, who do we see has been trying to hang on when all the signs have said, it is time to let go?

The first decanate of Aquarius correlates with the Tarot’s Five of Swords.

One look says, dear me, this is an angry card, The Five of Swords, chagrin, mortification, loss of face, pyrrhic victories.

“A Pyrrhic victory is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Winning a Pyrrhic victory takes a heavy toll that negates any true sense of achievement or damages long-term progress.”

See the winner, sword aloft. The loser wanders off, beaten, broken. But, if the loss of face is too unsupportable, he will return. Just as Hitler rose in the ignominious aftermath (for Germany) of the Treaty of Versailles.

An adversary may still be dangerous in defeat is the obvious message, borne out in real life, and no psychic interpretation required whatsoever for that.

How many people tragically died as a direct result of the incursion on Capitol Hill.

The Five of Swords. Five people. That card kicked in early.

Purely in terms of symbolic association, any astrologer or Tarot reader might wish that the US had its very own Dr John Dee, the famous astrologer who advised Elizabeth 1 and helped her choose the date for her coronation.

But maybe the US DOES have a Dr John Dee quietly on hand somewhere, just as Nancy Reagan had Joan Quigley. And, not to get carried away here, clearly there have been many, many Presidential inaugurations, held on this same traditional date without undue incident.

But maybe no Dr John Dee is needed at all next week. They have the FBI.

Forewarned is forearmed, says that Five of Swords. This trouble has been brewing in plain sight ever since the Election. The miracle is, that the Capitol could have been caught so apparently unprotected and unprepared on 6 January for an attack that went beyond the murderously self-serving criminal, as in St Louis, June 2020, to the murderously revolutionary.

Psychic practitioners and practitioners of divination in general are keeping fairly quiet about all this on social media right now. And they are right, on the principle that one must say what one sees, framed within a given context, but like Hippocrates, a reader must first do no harm. Stoke no flames. There are plenty of others doing that.

People who dismiss all such practitioners as hoaxes or simply deluded may say, well, let those crackpots spout whatever nonsense they like. They are an irrelevance and have no influence. This is fair enough, but is to underestimate people’s curiosity in the sayings of the Cassandras- however guarded the curiosity.

The tragedy of Cassandra of Troy is a not only a cracking story and a terrible tragedy in its own right, but also a cautionary tale for all prognosticators.

Cassandra, the beautiful daughter of Hecuba and Priam had the gift of prophecy but was considered insane. She saw danger when others did not, but her warnings went unheeded. She was not believed, and was not listened to when she warned Paris against going to Sparta where he met Helen, or when she warned against bringing in the Wooden Horse.

Troy fell and she was captured by Ajax, given to Agamemnon as a concubine and taken away into captivity. Agamemnon was murdered in Mycenae on his return home, by Clytemnestra his wife, and it served him right, for murdering their daughter Iphigenia, but the innocent Cassandra was murdered too, collateral damage of his baggage train.

Based on the myth of Cassandra there is a modern syndrome and metaphor recognized by experts; the Cassandra complex, a term coined in 1949 by the French Philosopher Gaston Bachelard in 1949. It describes the tragedy of someone who raises a valid concern or outright warning, – maybe we would call them whistleblowers now -but is not believed, or maybe they are silenced as being too problematic, and often this refers to the fields of psychology and politics or science.

Social media is something of a snake-pit at the moment, hissing with venom, when we all know that saying, pardon my English…”Opinions are like -” well, never mind what they are like. But everyone’s got one.

My main work is doing readings for people who have requested a reading, investigating their questions, trying to see the best strategy going forward. I have their permission to look at them, and tell them what I see, like it or not – and they do not always like it, but please don’t shoot the messenger, you did ask, and this is the risk in consulting with oracles.

Just as, on a far grander scale, Democracy relies on the principle of loser’s consent. 2016 Hillary Clinton conceded early, though she won the popular vote. Democrat Al Gore contested the election for weeks in 2000 but conceded after he lost a legal challenge in respect of a Florida recount.

He won the popular vote by 500 000 votes. And lost the Electoral College by one state, Florida. by a count of 271-267, and this was considered suspect for a number of reasons. Al Gore didn’t agree, was furious, and he still believed he was in the right, yet conceded, saying love of country must come first.

But, after 62 court rulings, President Trump won’t concede because he believes he is in the right. Let’s draw a few cards around the Inauguration.

The First card out is The High Priestess: Major Arcana Two. A sanctum, a shrine, an enclosed space.

From The Gilded Tarot Royale, Ciro Marchetti

Now this is mighty odd. Notice the letters J and B. These initials actually stand for the words Jachin (beginnings) and Boaz (Negation) and they represent two pillars in The Temple of Solomon.

Beginnings and negations. How very peculiar for the first card out, that these same letters just happen on this uniquely particular question, to be the initials of Joe Biden.

But then again, that kind of synchronicity is just typical of the Tarot.

Perhaps the High Priestess herself represents Kamala Harris, operating ‘front of house; and for some, ‘walking on water’ a refined, remote presence, observant, somewhat dispassionate. The picture seems to show her performing ‘front of house’ going forward as Vice President, supported by those ‘pillars’ of Joe Biden.

Beginnings and Negations. The ‘negations’ is a little worrying.

Let’s pull a few more cards.

The Page of Swords Reversed. Trouble is to be expected. The question is how widespread and to what degree. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. The Page of this suit, though ominous is nonetheless usually describing short lived events, local in scale. It also suggests covert intelligence, FBI, trouble that is acute but localised, sporadic or short-lived. Hopefully therefore, no further fatalities, though with the Page of Swords this can never be ruled out. President Trump is losing more support or is about to, from the Republican party. More will cut loose before the Inauguration of the new President.

The Ten of Cups. Inauguration will be completed and Joe Biden installed in the White House (Ten of Cups = home and I drew this same card for Mr B back in September)

The Five of Swords Reversed. President Trump will probably never concede The Four of Wands. The White House. How to manage his departure with safety for all.

The Star. By night? Will it be by road or by air,quietly a helicopter at the back of the White House, or by car out front, in a full glare of publicity. Will a further Impeachment attempt succeed, or only trigger further unrest.

President Trump’s loss of face some may feel is absolutely a case of justice served, and why should they care. Yes, but handled badly, it risks avoidable provocation of further trouble (because of that Five of Swords we talked about at the start, and because of those five people who are now dead.)

The Star card is very welcome, turning up anywhere in this reading as it just did. BUT there is a caveat with this card, potentially a major one, given the circumstances.

The Star card, the overall card of Aquarius (21 January-19 February) is ruled on the one hand by Saturn-tradition, government, authority AND on the other by Uranus- planet of innovation, but also revolt and rebellion.

The figure in The Star card is naked because there is nothing to hide. In respect of the allegations of electoral fraud, the consensus seems to be that there will definitely have been irregularities, but that these will always occur. There has been no appearance from the Seven of Swords today, and no Devil card, and also no Justice card reversed (denied) any of which might be the Tarot’s way of alerting me to a rigged election.

The US Electoral college system has been a point of contention for a long time now. This via Wikipedia:-

On March 22, 1977, President Jimmy Carter wrote a letter of reform to Congress that also included his expression of essentially abolishing the Electoral College. The letter read in part:

My fourth recommendation is that the Congress adopt a Constitutional amendment to provide for direct popular election of the President. Such an amendment, which would abolish the Electoral College, will ensure that the candidate chosen by the voters actually becomes President. Under the Electoral College, it is always possible that the winner of the popular vote will not be elected. This has already happened in three elections, 1824, 1876, and 1888. In the last election, the result could have been changed by a small shift of votes in Ohio and Hawaii, despite a popular vote difference of 1.7 million. I do not recommend a Constitutional amendment lightly. I think the amendment process must be reserved for an issue of overriding governmental significance. But the method by which we elect our President is such an issue. I will not be proposing a specific direct election amendment. I prefer to allow the Congress to proceed with its work without the interruption of a new proposal

The Star, drawn upright as here, suggests the situation may ease after 21 January, and more so by the time we reach the second decanate of Aquarius, 30 January-8 February. Perhaps The Star also denotes in this context, the vision of US electoral reform, such that voters can more readily trust to its transparency, in an effort to ensure this situation cannot happen again.

The Tarot card corresponding with the second decanate of Aquarius is the solemn card of loss, mourning, recovery and progress, the Six of Swords.

I have grown to feel quite deeply about this card for one reason and another. There is sorrow in here, loss and mourning, but just as The Star says the world is full of wonders, while not denying the evils, the Six of Swords says, set a new course, and don’t look back. Where there is greatness in the world, that is where we can set our sights and how we can measure ourselves, setting our faces towards the future, ready to seek out new learning, new understanding and discovery.

She is heading east, alone but not lonely, sustained by new bright hopes of herself and her fellow man, and by the beauty of the natural world, setting her face to greet the rising sun.

In summary

Let’s look back once again at that High Priestess card. The shrine. The sanctum of the Capitol. An enclosed space. A private space? Perhaps this Inauguration will need to be conducted very differently, in the interests of national security.

The Covid situation is sufficient reason already.

Take care till next time 🙂

When The High Priestess was a fishy little murder suspect…

One Sunday afternoon in 2010, playing with my new tarot deck at the dining table, I asked Il Matrimonio what he was doing with the fish tanks. He kept two tanks of tropical fish at that time, with guppies in one tank, and neon tetras in the other.

Guppies and neon tetras are small fish. Male guppies are often brightly colourful for mating and fighting display, each with their own unique colouring. The females are larger, but more low key in their colouring, no need to impress in order to attract a mate.

By Per Harald Olsen – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9997976

Guppies produce live babies, but the babies need plenty of cover and they need it immediately upon birth. The adults, particularly the male adults, tend to eat the fry if they don’t make for the weeds as soon as they emerge, and hide there until they’re too big to be eaten.

Home sweet home.

Neon tetras are small and slim, blue, red and white, with a zingy neon strip along their sides, as the name suggests. Both species originate from S America. The Neon Tetras come from the Amazon Basin.

Il Matrimonio explained that he was introducing a young male guppy into the tetra tank for his own safety. Whereupon, using my old Universal Waite deck that day, I drew The High Priestess. (US Games)

This Major Arcana card classically signifies a woman, an advisor, enthroned in her ‘shrine’. This card referred to me myself, with my cards. The High Priestess, for reasons best known to herself, was not keen on this idea.

However, I work with reversed cards, and here, The High Priestess had been drawn reversed, or upside-down, or as some readers term it, ill-dignified.

A reversed card is not necessarily negative in connotation. It may simply flag up an issue requiring special attention. But I felt this was a warning to be read in a literal sense.

‘I don’t think you should do that,’ I said. ‘I’m seeing danger here, from a ‘lady’ who is blue, white and red. I think the tetras will have him if you put him in there, and he won’t last two weeks. Or two days, more like.’

(Tarot can work like this with timing. The High Priestess is Major Trump 2.)

Il Matrimonio was having none of it. The tetras were no risk to the guppy, he explained. They were too small. What did I know about keeping tropical fish, etc etc?

Not much, it was true. Please, any tropical a-fish-ionados reading this, do not troll me on this score. But be aware,this is a story about cartomanct, not fish-keeping. A tarot reader does not have to factually know about something to take soundings on it. All the reader needs is a question or a framed context. Indeed, sometimes this is the entire point, and the value of oracular divination.

‘OK,’ I said, ‘in which case it is a warning against the tetra tank. Something about the tank doesn’t agree with him. I really wouldn’t put him in there if I were you.’

‘Well, I need to move him. He won’t make it if I leave him where he is.’

A few days later, the little guppy was gone.

RIP. We scoured the gravel for any sign of him, but could not find so much as a fin left.

Poor Il Matrimonio very sad to think the baby guppy had leapt from the frying pan into the fire.

Now, I am not saying the tetras did the baby guppy any harm. It might have been something about the tank that did not agree with the guppy, or maybe it was sick.

I am simply saying The High Priestess advised against the move, and specifically mistrusted the tetra, and, put it this way, the move did nothing to safeguard his future, for whatever reason, and if the tetras did not kill him outright, they certainly helped tidy him away.

Read more about guppies and neon tetras here

All we had left were the neon tetras, swimming innocently about, piscine little High Priest/esses in their grotto.

Innocent until proven guilty, and there were no witnesses. A cold case. But still, we have our suspicions.

Till next time 🙂

Season of Sagittarius, celestial archer of the sinking sun

Why is this time of year associated with Sagittarius the Archer? Two thousand years ago and more, the ancients looked up at this time of year and studied a constellation overhead that they decided represented the image of a man with a bow and arrow.

But the zodiac signs were cast in stone by Ptolemy in the 2 century AD and these dates remain unchanged, based on his arithmetic model of the zodiac. The astrology has parted company with the astronomy which inspired it, due to the wobble of the earth,and the effect known as the precession of the equinoxes.

The constellation of Sagittarius is now visible in the northern hemisphere in summer until September, and is visible in the winter in the southern hemisphere.

To find out where and how to see the constellation VIEW HERE.

But the zodiac dates endure, and the story and the meaning endure.

This was the time of year when the men of the family group went a hunting, to to catch, to kill, to cure and to store meat for the coming winter.

Common associations

Symbol:

Date of Birth: Nov 22 to Dec 21

Ruling planet: Jupiter

Element: Fire

Key phrase: I seek

Body: Thighs

Birth Stone: Topaz, Citrine, Turquoise

Colour: Light Blue

Tarot card: Temperance: Timing, Moderation, Education, Solstice, Healing of Chiron

More about the Astronomy

Sagittarius, the zodiac sign inspired by the constellation of Sagittarius, from the Latin meaning Archer, was recorded in the 2nd century by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy.

The constellation of Sagittarius is near the centre of our galaxy, the spiral Milky Way, mainly visible in the southern hemisphere June-November. In the Northern hemisphere the constellation is low on the horizon from August to October.

Sagittarius has a nickname, ‘The Teapot’ on account of its vaguely teapot-shaped star pattern, or asterism.

To find The Teapot

The best time to look is in August or September, somewhere really dark. Locate the hazy band of The Milky Way stretching right across the sky. Looking in the northern hemisphere, the Milk Way seems to bulge as it descends to the southern horizon. This ‘bulge’ is roughly about the middle of the Milky Way and is contained within the boundaries of the constellation Sagittarius.

Photo by u200bu0468u0477u047bu048f u046au0454u0459u0469u04e1u04c4u047bu0487u0477 on Pexels.com

Sagittarius contains a massive star-forming region, the Omega Nebula, home to the bright blue hyper-giant Pistol Star, one of the brightest stars in the Milky Way. The Pistol Star was discovered with the Hubble Space telescope in 1930, and is largely hidden in the dust of its own nebula.

It is 100 times as massive as our Sun, and 10,000,000 times as bright.

Mythology

Sagittarius is the ninth sign in the Zodiac, not to be confused with the constellation itself, and represents those born between Nov. 22 and the advent of winter solstice, Dec. 21.

Sagittarius is nowadays generally associated with the ancient Greek story of Chiron. But the story is far, far older, and goes back to a Babylonian god, Pabilsag, and even further back than that.

Pabilsag and the Solstice

Pabilsag was the ancient Babylonian name for what we now call Sagittarius, handed down to the Greeks through the Sumerians and Kassites.

The Sumerian word ‘Pabil’ means ‘ancestor or relative’. Combined with the final element sag, meaning ‘chief, head, tip or foremost,’ his name can be translated as the ‘Chief Ancestor’ or ‘Forefather’.

Just as we were hunters at the dawn of human civilization.

Here, 3 millennia BC, we we have a winged centaur type figure, and yes, he is an archer too, and his arrow points at the heart of Scorpio, the red star Antares, but he also has a scorpion’s tail as the wheel of the Zodiac turns, and as Sagittarius gallops in, we leave Scorpio behind.

The distinction of Sagittarius, though, is that he is a solitary hunter. He does not work as one of a team to being down the really big prey. He is an individualist, working alone, just as many a hunter or trapper still hunts alone in winter.

Sagittarius – Psychopomp

The constellation of Sagittarius-Pabilsag is within the Milky Way, rising from the southern regions close to the horizon into the higher reaches of the skies.

This section of the Milky Way represents a symbolic bridge or a rainbow for the souls of the dead on their way to the afterlife, as the arrival of Capricorn draws near, marking the advent of the winter solstice. so that Sagittarius, or Pabilsag, is a psychopomp; a guardian and a guide to the dying year, and also to the souls of the dying as the sun sinks ever lower.

Chiron the wounded Centaur

Most modern versions of the story refer back to much later, classical variants of the old Babylonian myths, and say that Sagittarius represents the gentle, cultured centaur, Chiron, who was accidentally shot by Herakles with a poison arrow.

The centaurs in general were a rough lot, hard drinking, hard fighting, not remotely glamorous. It has been suggested that the legend of the centaurs rose from perfectly mortal, mounted ancient Greek cowboys.

But whatever the centaurs were, Chiron ‘the wisest and justest of the centaurs’ was something very different, representing a hope for the centaurs, and for Humanity itself, as collectively it strives to rise above the ever present tyranny of the Id and its own worst nature.

Here he is, trying to teach Achilles to control his temper, learning to play the lyre. Chiron had many other pupils, as well, including Asclepius, Ajax, Achilles, Theseus, Jason, Peleus, Perseus, and Phoenix. And Herakles, who brought about his death, when he was sent there to be schooled with Chiron.

Herakles had previously lost his temper with Linus, his music tutor back home. Linus, criticised his playing, and Herakles responded by smashing his lyre over the teachers head, killing him. Though in some accounts it was a stool.

Now Chiron, wounded by the poison arrow, was left in terrible pain. He was wise in the ways of medicine, none wiser, but he could not heal himself, and none could help him. Nor could he die, being Immortal.

Still, he carried on until he could bear it no more, and he asked Zeus to release him from Immortality so that he could die and be free of pain.

Zeus placed him in the heavens and the story goes, placed him there as Sagittarius.

However, Chiron already has another constellation, Centaurus, and in addition, there is another classical version of the story of Sagittarius, referring instead to Krotos, a satyr who lived on Mount Helicon with the Muses.

Krotos the Cultivated Satyr

Krotos was the son of Pan and Eupheme, and his mother had nursed the Muses. He was a renowned archer, hunter, horse rider – hence a possible source of confusion with the centaur, and besides all this, a devotee of his childhood companions, The Muses and their arts.

*By Aratus – Leiden University Library Catalogue, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7660666*

Krotos means ‘One who Claps his hands.’ He was credited by the Greeks with not only having invented archery, but introducing the convention of applause at artistic performances.

In this version of the story it was the Muses who, when Krotos died, asked Zeus to place him among the stars, which he did, transforming him into the constellation Sagittarius, says this variant of the zodiac story.

So Sagittarius is either the cultured wounded healer, Chiron, already represented in the constellation Centaurus, or he is the cultured satyr, Krotos; goaty, horse-riding archer, culture vulture and hunter extraordinaire.

There is a secondary link here, Krotos the Satyr linking Sagittarius with Capricorn, the next sign coming up, sun sinking to the winter solstice.

Chiron or Krotos?

Take your pick.

Or you can go Babylonian with Pabilsag.

The Muses

Sagittarius is keenly intuitive, and usually has a marked talent, a gift, in the field of the Arts. Winston Churchill for example, was a Sagittarius subject and probably psychic. He was certainly subject to visions and feelings of premonition, and he also painted.

Delphi said there were three Muses. But c 600 BC Hesiod wrote in his Theogony that there were Nine Muses, the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (Memory personified) and this is the version that has generally stuck.

The Muses were not necessarily benign. They were touchy, sensitive to human hubris, and liable to exact vengeance of anyone they decided was getting too far above themselves.

Kalliope ‘She of the Lovely Voice’ was the muse of epic poetry. Also of Diplomacy.
Klio ‘She Who Proclaims’ was the muse of history.
Erato ‘The Lovely One’ was the muse of love poetry.
Euterpe ‘She Who Pleases’ was the muse of music.
Melpomene ‘She Who Sings’ was the muse of tragedy.
Polyhymnia ‘She of the Many Hymns’ was the muse of sacred poetry.
Terpsichore ‘She Who Delights to Dance’ was the muse of dance.
Thalia ‘The Cheerful One’ was the muse of comedy
Urania ‘The Heavenly One’ was the goddess of astronomy, astrology, and later, Christian poetry.

Sagittarius: The Astrological Personality

Of course there is no such thing as THE Sagittarius personality. Everyone is unique. We are speaking here of an archetype.

Sagittarius is ruled overall by the planet Jupiter, and rules the Ninth House of philosophy, law, travel, higher study, and the second life partner when we have one. The seventh house rules the choice of a first life partner. In any second choice we are looking to learn more, and to expand our inner horizons from meeting with a mind that is very different to our own. A third choice of life partner is said to be ruled by the eleventh house of group identity.

Sagittarius zodiac sign subjects need constant adventures to stay interested. Freedom is of the utmost importance to them. Movement. Travel. Space and room for manoeuver. Likewise they allow space and freedom to their partners.

The archetype of Sagittarius is brave, lively, warm, optimistic, curious, adventurous, rational, but also insightful, even visionary.

These are generally astute, clever and capable people. But they need career flexibility, and they may refuse to fail to apply themselves if bored. Like Gemini, they are prone to restlessness. They may fail to stick at a job or a succession of jobs, and may struggle financially long term in consequence.

Hence their challenge, but also their guiding light is the idea of Temperance,personified in the Tarot and symbolising patience, prudence, and the art of good timing.

They can do ‘domestic’. It’s not that. But you wouldn’t really call it how they roll.

And they do tend to roll, place to place, job to job, and a rolling stone gathers no moss. The problem being, other things it doesn’t gather either, like a steady home life, or steady income, or savings or other means of security in old age, if Sagittarius does not balance the need for freedom , space and independence with prudence and good timing.

Sagittarius tends to have lots of friends. More than almost anyone else, so much so, family and friends can feel neglected at times, forgotten, when Sagittarius goes off yet again, devil may care, to share experiences with new best friends.

Sagittarius must have inspiration, and the freedom to follow it, and to roam. But this humanitarian, kindly, if restless rolling stone sooner or later almost always comes rolling home again, expecting to find their loved ones exactly where they left them. And usually, they are. Though others do not enjoy being taken for granted, and this may need care.

Sagittarius will be the star of this show. But what they really need for domestic happiness, is a quietly confident, self-reliant partner who has plenty of interests themselves; and much life experience.

Who will be their rock but who will not roll.

Who will be above all, their best friend.

Till next time 🙂

November Moon-raking, cartomancy…(and no, I didn’t say muck-raking)

19: 15PM GMT

I understand Mr Biden has now called it, and declared an Election victory for the Democrats 7 November 2020.

Mr Biden 290 Votes: Mr Trump 214 votes

Mr Biden is now the US President Elect.

What is astrology and why do astrologers study the Moon?

‘Astrology’ comes from Greek and means ‘the study of the stars.’

Humans have been studying and recording the phases of the Moon for at least 25, 000 years. The Moon is the closest celestial body to Earth, an average of 238,855 miles (384,400 km) away depending on its orbit.

The Moon provides not only a guide to the seasons, and a measure of predictability as to when certain things will happen, such as the migration of animals for hunting, but exerts visible effects on the tides and a lot more besides, for example, the spawning of corals, animal mating seasons, crop growth, hormonal cycles and quite possibly human behaviour.

November Headlines

You might get to wish upon a star this November…a shooting star, and heaven knows a lot of people will be wishing very hard right now, one way and another.

Look out for Taurid meteor showers on the 11-12 November looking to the right of Orion just after midnight and again on the 17-18 November.

The Taurids, Joshua Tree, California, Channone Arif via Wikimedia Commons

Key Dates

Nov 08 Last Quarter Moon in Leo (waning)

Nov 15 New Moon in Scorpio and this will be a super new moon

Nov 22 First Quarter Moon in Pisces (waxing)

Nov 30 Full Moon in Gemini and this will be a penumbral lunar eclipse.

A penumbral lunar eclipsehappens when the Earth comes between the Sun and the Moon and blocks some or all of the Sun’s light from reaching the Moon. In a penumbral lunar eclipse the Sun, Earth, and the Moon are imperfectly aligned. The Earth blocks some of the Sun’s light from directly reaching the Moon’s surface and covers all or part of the Moon with the outer part of its shadow, a penumbra. But the shadow is only faint, and a penumbral eclipse is often difficult to tell apart from a normal Full Moon.

What do the moon phases mean symbolically?

A waxing Moon as we approach Full Moon is the optimum time to grow, build, add to, make or get something. It is about bringing something new in, or bringing something to completion or fruition.

A Full Moon is the optimum time to take stock and evaluate, or to gather, collect, harvest or cash in on something.

A waning Moon after the Full Moon is the optimum time for ending something, clearing out what’s no longer wanted or needed, including unhelpful or unhealthy habits. It may mean releasing something, or even getting rid of something (someone.)

A New Moon is the optimum time to launch something, to make a new plan and to start from scratch.

15 November 2020: New Moon in Scorpio

The major arcana Tarot card associated with the water sign Scorpio is Death.

Traditional meanings: Death, endings, transformations, resurrections.

This coming New Moon does not indicate a slackening of the current post Election Day roller-coaster, even if the winner is announced.

I have looked at this more than once since June 2020, and though it seemed to be clear it would be Mr B…my cards just would not send me that clear signal of confirmation.

But it’s one or the other, right? Simple, yes?

Well, I get a lot of good psychic ‘hits’. That’s how I came to learn Tarot in the first place, but I am not a soothsayer. I do it in a spirit of experiment, sounding myself out.

Plenty of others do public predictions, and are very often right, as well as brave, because who needs the trolls, and they get stick whether they get it right (cheating) or wrong (ya, boo, jeer)

I expect to deliver reliable soundings and directions for strategy, but am not a sayer of sooth as such. Though if I was, and I was on the payroll of the Emperor Tiberius he would probably have me thrown off the cliffs on Capri. That’s what he used to do to his psychic advisors if dissatisfied, and if they survived the fall, his soldiers would finish them.

But then, it wasn’t so much a correct prediction that saved his famous astrologer, Thrasyllus, but a joke.

‘What’s YOUR future, do you think,Thrasyllus?’ said Tiberius quietly, as they took a walk out along the cliff-tops at Capri, and Thrasyllus read the signs and said, knees knocking, ‘Oh Caesar, I fear my life is in the most terrible danger RIGHT NOW!’

So it was, except Tiberius was amused and changed his mind.

Good decision on Tiberius’s part. Thrasyllus got it right far more often than he got it wrong, and that meant, far better than a toss of the coin and 50:50

Sometimes the future exists, sometimes it doesn’t.

That is not a gnostic pronouncement. Nor is it a cop-out. It is common sense. Death is certain but not the day or the mode. When it does ‘exist,’ such that is it available to forecasting, there is a change in the wind, we feel it, we smell it, or the windsock points, and then there is consensus.

When I know what I think, my cards line up consistently. When I do not know what I think, something is niggling at me. Maybe only time will tell me what it is.

The current pandemic and other events and winds of 202/2021 was forecast in 2011 by a French astrologer Andre Barbault, using his knowledge of history and his charts as his tools of navigation in practicing mundane astrology (real world events rather than personal horoscopes/astrology).

“It may well be that we are seriously threatened by a new pandemic in 2020-2021.”-Translated in The Astrological Journa, May-June Issue 2020

Not a peep about this US election though. Except in terms of social unrest. Does that make his contribution any the less relevant, extraordinary or striking?

Anything else is divination for analysis….reflecting events in real time or just a little ahead of the curve.

Astrology is like mapping. Tarot is more like this. One is trying to hover above an ant-heap, getting a drone’s eye view as it were, while also being an ant inside the ant-heap, and also looking at a handful of the heap itself under a microscope.

Everything points to Mr B, but the cards are still not being consistent, and there will be a profound reason for this, which perhaps only time can tell, unless, which is entirely possible, I am simply being stupid.

The resistance in my cards is not due to wishful thinking. I am a little ambivalent about Mr B, but have always felt he may represent the best chance for a vital re-calibration, if he has the nerve, strategy and stamina to also restore peace in those places that have lost control of law and order.

My cards showed surprises weeks ago, in a blog post here, and there have been several subsequent appearances of The Joker, logged on Twitter, drawn against Mr T’s election prospects.

The Joker is the planet Uranus, rebellion and revolt. His element is Air and at this time he is retrograde in Taurus, and stays retrograde until January 2021.

Mr T does not need this job. His election in 2016 represented a protest. This this after two terms of a Democrat president, the most affable, sophisticated, urbane President imaginable…and yet…

There seems a widening existential schism between Rural, Small Town and City America.

The Joker

Mr T came in and played The Joker card….and the Joker as we know, is often perfectly serious and not at all funny.

Uranus which rules the concept of the archetype of The Joker is not all bad news. Its nickname is The Great Awakener, and it betokens invention, innovation, electricity, and technology.

The Joker is a force of change whether for good, ill or both. He is Loki, crafty, and maker of mischief. An instigator, a subversive, the rebel of the planet Uranus. He can be downright scary as an agent of revolution or chaos.

The cat among the pigeons, and the old Chinese curse, ‘may you live in interesting times’.

Many will be mightily relieved to see the Joker depart. But for now, the door is still ajar.

But assuming Mr B is declared the winner…a logical assumption, and this has been the ‘safer’ bet all along….Mr T’s got plenty else to do….over there in the ‘money meadow’ unless he can be bothered with opposition politics.

I did look at Ms Harris too, some weeks ago – also here in the archives – and for many she represents the darling hope, but I was not shown that she has the wherewithal, not for the job that’s needed right now, which is no disparagement, but what I was shown were superb executive skills.

It has been messy, and it might not be over.

Only last night the Supreme Court ordered a halting of counting of late Pennsylvania ballots.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

November 6, 2020 Updated: November 7, 2020 EST

“U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito late Friday ordered Pennsylvania election officials to segregate ballots that arrived after Election Day.

Alito granted a request by the state’s Republican Party to separate mail-in ballots received between 8 p.m. on Nov. 3 and 5 p.m. on Nov. 6 from those that arrived by 8 p.m. on Nov. 3, in accordance with state guidance.

He ordered (pdf) that those segregated ballots must be kept “in a secure, safe, and sealed container separate from other voted ballots.”

The justice, however, did not order the counties to stop counting but instead ordered that “all such ballots, if counted, be counted separately.”

Alito also directed any responses to the application by 2 p.m. on Nov. 7.

The Republican Party of Pennsylvania (RPP) filed a request (pdf) earlier on Friday asking the court for an order to log, segregate, and not take any actions over mail-in ballots received after Election Day.“

I understand it may have inferred or directed a process of dating and proving provenance for these segregated ballots, and indeed, even as I am typing this, Il Matrimonio has shouted through from the other room that Mr Has won Pennsylvania.

Mr Biden is a deep Scorpio subject, a King of Cups in Tarot symbolism, with friendly fiery mutable Sagittarius as his rising sign or outward persona.

Mr Trump is an airy, volatile Gemini subject, a King of Swords, with drama-king fiery fixed Leo as his rising sign.

How odd, then, what a small curiosity is this, that the New Moon this month is in Scorpio and The Full Moon is in Gemini.

A New Moon will Wax (Biden) and a Full Moon (Trump) will wane.

30 November 2020: Full Moon in Gemini

The major arcana Tarot card associated with the lively air sign Gemini is The Lovers.

Traditional meanings: Lovers, love, romance, making commitments, weighing up choices and decisions.

This November, the full Moon is about messages, sudden developments, new ideas, speed of communications, new contacts, highly likely to do with job hunting, and possibly having to make a few snap decisions.

Some of these decisions could be tough, but important decisions need to be made with the head, not the heart.

A Gemini Full Moon lunar eclipse such as this one on 30 November is traditionally considered an unfavourable choice of date for surgery, including dental surgery, on similar principles as gardening by the moon…translating here as ease of extraction and issues of blood loss, and risk of infection afterwards. Ideally, one would avoid the next three days, and if concerned, one might consider re-scheduling if practical.

In Summary

There may be further secrets and surprises and upsets this month, as already happening vis-a-vis the US Election counting

I see now why in a card reading done some weeks ago, Sounding The Last Trump) I drew The Ace of Swords for Mr T (Law/court) and why other things did not seem to stack up.

On a personal or family level, old history may haunt us, though this could be an opportunity to resolve them. Some things though are best left, no poking the ant’s nest.

The lunar eclipse 30 November is a reminder to take extra care with important communications, not to believe everything you are told (huh) and to be extra careful with paperwork. Double-check everything.

A bit of peace and quiet would do us all a power of good….and all the sniping and screaming on the media and social media… well, that’s the Tower of Babel.

Love them and leave them. Block, Mute, Avoid, Let Be, Switch Off.

Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof (and that is the perennial problem with prediction, unless you can see avoiding action and the other person decided to use the warning)

It’s a wonderful world.

Till next time 🙂

Samhain…Halloween…It started in the stars

Like everything, it started in the stars, and then we started telling stories, mapping the movements of the skies on the walls of the caves, planning our own movements, ensuring provision for our survival, tracking the tilting of the seasons as the Earth went round the sun, and the seas warmed and cooled.

The modern festival of Halloween began as a marker of the darkest of the four so-called cross-quarter days in the Northern Hemisphere. A cross-quarter day marks the half-way point between an equinox and a solstice and in the case of Halloween, obviously this is between the autumn equinox and winter solstice, reversing these if you are in the Southern Hemisphere.

Click Here to read more

Halloween began as a Bronze Age festival, Samhain (pronounced Sow-in) Though it may well be far older. The name meant ‘summer’s end’ and its signal was the sighting of The Pleiades seen overhead at midnight.

This midnight zenith of The Pleiades now occurs 21 November owing to the Earth’s tilt and the wobble on its axis, an effect called precession, and in addition, the Julian calendar was replaced by the Gregorian calendar and further added to the discrepancy in dates.

But this astronomical event did apparently once coincide with the days around 31 October as recorded during the 11th and 12th centuries.

Samhain was a period rather than a single day and marked the start of the winter for Celtic societies, ending one planting cycle and beginning another. Seeds for the next year were often planted at this time.

It began about a week after the modern Halloween or All Hallows Eve, and it was believed that all those who had departed this life the previous year were finally freed from all their earthly ties.

The Pleiades

The Pleiades or The Seven Sisters is a star cluster in the north-west region of the constellation of Taurus the Bull. Classicists debate the origin of the name which may derives from πλεῖν (plein -“to sail”) because of the cluster’s importance for the sailing season in the Mediterranean: “the season of navigation began with their heliacal rising” (Wiki)

Here is how to locate them:

The Pleiades feature as prominent stars of winter in the ancient agricultural calendar of the northern hemisphere, and the Greek poet Hesiod wrote:-

And if longing seizes you for sailing the stormy seas,
when the Pleiades flee mighty Orion
and plunge into the misty deep
and all the gusty winds are raging,
then do not keep your ship on the wine-dark sea
but, as I bid you, remember to work the land.— Works and Days 618–623

Celtic mythology

A bronze disk, 1600 BC, from Nebra, Germany, is one of the oldest known representations of the cosmos. You can see the seven dots of The Pleiades top right.

By Dbachmann, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1500795

For the Bronze Age Celts, and probably going back far earlier the Pleiades were associated with mourning and with funerals. At that time in history, on the cross-quarter day the cluster rose in the eastern sky as the sun’s light faded in the evening and this association has persisted even though The Pleiades no longer mark the festival.

Traces

All is lost, in death, they say.

Not all, nor straightaway.

Records of state and memory last a while.

For some, memorials, for others work in word or form,

Sustain their name.

For many, genes still stalk the pool,

Promises of progeny,

If not the immortality

Of Gargantua’s heartfelt plea.

And for all, there’s particle subsistence,

As material laws require.

But if that wasn’t all?

If walls have ears, have they memory too?

If the pendulum distinguishes one

hurled in anger, in a heap of stones,²

And if creatures all had souls, as Pythagoras claimed,

If all we did, or felt, or thought, lived on,

In cyberspace or noo-sphere

Oblivion would not hold true.

Or is the good all lost

And all the evil too?

PJW

Till next time 🙂 Meanwhile I’ll leave you with this from Enya: numinous and timeless; The Humming.

The Six of Swords, Ships of souls: Maritime Vision of The Post Brexit Voyage

Science, Ships and The Six of Swords

I follow Scientists for Britain on Twitter.

Back in April 2020 they tweeted:

“We are urging NHS Supply Chain to ignore the EU Public Procurement Directive during the current crisis ——— This EU rule applies in the UK until Dec 2020 ——— It is designed to create an EU-supervised supplies market but is an unnecessary bureaucratic obstacle ——— Please retweet.“

This tweet, as with anything else said, whispered or timidly squeaked in or about public life at present, drew some sharply critical comments asserting UK incompetence as the true root of the problem, plus a jot of jingoism.

Later 20 October, Scientists for Britain tweeted

“Retained EU law could cost our shipbuilding industry billions even after transition and MPs have NO plans to fix it.”

They better had.

Back to the Tarot. I drew a card in immediate response to this tweet and funnily enough, drew The Six of Swords though it is a mighty tiny maritime vessel, I grant you. It does two jobs here though. Of all the 78 cards in the Tarot deck, this is THE card capable of painting a future in respect of both the coronavirus problem and British maritime simultaneously.

It’s got a frog though, a lovely little frog…quite a big one actually. One wonders what it might possibly signify in this context (says this channel-going Francophile, though not all that struck with M Macron. )

‘M Macron is a sheeeet,’ said a beautiful young lady to me in 2017, working zero hours in a shoe shop in a tourist hot-spot…Rocamadour. ‘It is very bad here for young people. But the others, they were double sheeets.’

She was referring here to the two other chief contenders for the job.

Though M. Macron is entirely right to object as he is doing, and to take action to prevent more teachers being beheaded on the streets of Paris by murderous religious lunatics who don’t approve of the laws of the land or the state educational curriculum. Rip le pauvre M Samuel Paty.

France did not become a secular Republic overnight or for no reason. France has seen it all.

I remember objecting to certain things the C of E promoted in primary schools when my children attended those schools…not because we attended church ourselves, but because those were the only local state schools.

But a word or a note sufficed to voice my displeasure or concerns, and these were met with civility. A somewhat frosty civility, perhaps, but civility nonetheless, no reason to go home and get the chopper out.

Likewise, the school took no offence at child 1 when she said Jesus was Odd. He was Odd, the Son of God (don’t ask why, I don’t know how she arrived at that conclusion) Likewise they were only amused when Child 2 asserted that Jesus was a tortoise, and why? Because the Head, Mr R had told them so in Assembly.

He told them ‘Jesus taught us how to live in ‘harmileeeee’….which clearly demonstrated that he was a tortoise. ‘But they were mean to him,’ she said mournfully, ‘and put him on a log’.

I recounted this to the Head, Mr R, who laughed till he had a coughing fit and staggered off to the office to share it, then came back and said, ‘oh well, it’s good to know at least someone was listening.’

Nope, not a chopper in sight. Let’s see if the Archbishop of Canterbury comes after me for this…but I trust he won’t, or any of his congregation either. I really do. Though maybe once upon a time in these islands, such levity might have got me in a huge lot of trouble…four hundred years ago…

Good luck, all power to you, there, M. Macron, and all reasonable, civilized people in La Belle France and the whole world over.

LIBERTÉ.

I have made a bit of a detour here, but not entirely. We were talking about Ships and Science.

Looking just now I see the iconic Yard in Appledore in North Devon reopened in August after it closed in 2019. It has been bought by Harland and Wolff owner Infrastrata for £7 million with 350 jobs, and its special angle will be ‘Green’ shipping. Read more Here

Elements and Timing

The Six of Swords correlates with the element of Fixed Air- Intellect -and the Second Decan of Aquarius, dates 30 January- 8 February.

If during a personal reading someone asks me when? this should prove to be the window.

Maritime Britain has a lot of lost ground (water) to make up. It is by no stretch any longer one of the big boys, but slowly, surely we are and WILL be building more again, and hopefully this will mean more new fantastic STEM apprenticeship schemes for young people, while according to this article about Merseyside the lesson and the plan seems to be diversification.

Exploration and Recovery

This card of one the one had, exploration, and on the other hand, convalescence and recovery suggests small but clear small signs here and there, in terms of the SARS Covid nightmare penumbra, and concomitant economic recovery, dips and troughs, small signs intermittent at first, more visible after we pass, first Feb then early April, then the mid-year point.

Science should do well this coming decade. Science, Research and Development.

Maritime will slowly build back with the emphasis on innovation. The innovative specification of the new Sir David Attenborough shows just what amazing things are now being done.

Read here re the discovery of what could just possibly be the oldest boat-building yard in the world…a platform 8,000 years old off the Isle of Wight.

The Six of Swords correlates with the element of Fixed Air- Intellect -and the Second Decan of Aquarius, dates 30 January- 8 February

In general terms it is a solemn but positive card of moving away, moving on, charting a new course, entering uncharted waters.

It has a gravitas, solemnly she takes the helm alone, fixing her gaze ahead. She is the spirit of Britannia, born of many spirits and legends native to not only Britain, but of the Akkadians, Sumerians,Babylonians, Greeks; the Star goddess Astraea, and Dike, the Roman goddess of Justice.

This card may indicate funerals and obsequies in my experience. There may be grief attached. It is a card of loss and readjustment but still, with a gradual recovery of composure and with great Hopes for the Future.

2020 is a year of many losses and the end of the storm is not yet quite in sight. It’s certain to intensify in the next few weeks.

The Six of Swords however, while you can see for yourself this ain’t exactly a fun card, is a card of recovery in every sense of the word. If a loved one is sick, this is a welcome card, but its meaning goes further and wider.

The Major Arcana card for Aquarius is The Star, signifying equilibrium, independence and above all…a new vision. Following that star which shines out biggest and brightest in the firmament, needing no permission to be there and to shine, along with all the other stars, but this is the one we will follow.

The Six of Swords, both Air and Water, is associated with Mercury, governing all communications and trade (Think Hermes)

It is also the minor card par excellence of distance learning

And, visionary Science and R & D. This means UK Space Tech too.

Till next time.

I’ll leave you with this track from incomparable musician, poet and story-teller Mark Knopfler from the Album Get Lucky, video with thanks to Alec Beaton.

‘Bravely she rises to meet with the land’….

An elegy, but the past is never dead and gone for good, and now we are facing forward.

Kickass Candles in the Wind

Yesterday I drew just one card for Mr Trump and one card for Mr Biden, asking re their position come the day of the Inauguration, January 2020.

I have felt consistently drawn to feel the Democrats do not have this in the bag, whatever the polls say, while astrologers vary, but more Vedic astrologers seem to favour Mr T’s chances in November, while it is more variable, it seems to me, there is less consensus among Western astrologers.

It should be a clear line of sight. Why isn’t it, yet? Is my intellect at odds with my intuition? I have felt unsettled of late, and have been having a flare up of RA symptoms. Perhaps I am not on form.

The future both exists and does not exist. This is self-evident when one considers that Death is certain. It exists, guaranteed outcome, but not the how or when. So it can be with psychic prediction. Sometimes the ducks are pretty much lined up, and then it shines out and a forecast may be made, as if from the gut. Other times, it is morphing. Still nascent.

Perhaps it will come down to what is going down in the next two weeks. If there should be unrest on the streets of Portland etc at this critical point, this will be far more likely to increase Trump votes than decrease them, I feel, based on a previous appearance of The Ace of Swords as detailed on this blog in recent weeks, and this was a card which seemed to strengthen the position of Mr T rather than Mr B.

(Victory, Law and Order)

But yesterday I asked what was going to be the picture come Inauguration Day and I drew The Five of Cups for Mr T (disappointment) and for Mr B, I got the same card I drew before, the 10 of Cups.

The Legacy of the Divine Tarot, Ciro Marchetti

See her drowning her sorrows in the 5 Cups. Though in fact, it would probably actually feel like something of a personal liberation for Mr T. to return to business.

Maybe Mr T will not prevail with the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court? Will hit some snag there. Or he will face a Dem opposition so numerically strong, his leeway will be further limited if he wins a second term

The puzzle is, the Ten of Cups is such a cozy card. Leadership? Not there. Not enough energy to heal and unite the nation, if less to divide, but inaction can also divide. It is a card of arrival at a cherished destination -yes- . Contentment. Home Sweet Home. It is a card of family life. It is not a card associated with public life.

In terms of particular dates, this card correlates with Pisces, and since it has turned up more than once in Mr Biden’s cards, it may be sensing some significant personal or family event for him in March 2021, and possibly there may be political effects.

Unless it is the Dems sticking together with the means to block the Amy Coney Barrett appointment? No. Says the 5 of Cups. Mr T won’t like that.

UPDATE Yesterday 22 October 2020: Source: Epoch Times

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Oct. 22 to advance Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination to the full Senate floor despite a boycott of the vote by Democrats on the panel.

The Republican-controlled committee voted 12–0 to recommend Barrett; no Democrats were present.

“That was their choice. It will be my choice to vote the nominee out of committee,” the committee chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on Oct. 22. “We are not going to allow them to take over the committee. They made a choice not to participate.”

We’ll be watching that space.

Perhaps, if it turns out to be Mr B as the polls still indicate, however wrong they were in 2016, then the message of this 10 Cups shall be asking to be read as ‘Home and Dry’.

Or, another way of reading the cards might be to say, if Mr T gets a second term, there will be tears…(reach for that gin, Mama) and if Mr B gets in, things may gradually calm down. The Mr T effect, whatever its merits, do not include such imagery associations as peace and quiet, (‘sleepy Joe’) as relaxation and home sweet home (Alabama?)

I can only assume I have not decided what I feel is going to happen, except there are more surprises in store, before and after the election. Once I decide, my cards start to line up one way and stay that way.

This is how I know if I know.

In questions of public life, which are nothing to do with my daily work with the Tarot, one is dealing with mass variables where you must treat it as a murmuration of starlings.

Sometimes I feel I do know. I do with clients. I did with Brexit, and with the UK election of December 2019 fairly well ahead of time. But sometimes I don’t until almost the last minute. And then no gold star for moi. Or only this one….

The Tarot take away here is, it isn’t in the bag or all the cards would point one way, and wouldn’t shift over the course of a few readings, bar a wobble here and there.

Mr T is not going to have it all his own way, that much looks definite here. And he’s got used to that. But he is lucky in general. The Wheel of Fortune came up in the last reading about this, and says he is lucky, whether or not he deserves to be, in whomever’s estimation. Luck and justice…do not always coincide.

I’ll look again before we get to 3 November. But the 2016 vote for Mr T happened for a reason, and if it was a protest vote, it’s no use, it doesn’t help, insulting the voters. Or saying their reasons were less valid than those who voted differently.

Elephant in the room. My bias? Is it getting in the way of my line of sight? Readers must be aware of their own blind spots. Well, I won’t be rejoicing or crying either way, I don’t think, come 4 November, though I may be perturbed. I am not massively emotionally invested but I have been alarmed and grieved at events in the US and also their effects in the UK. I’m a Brit, and I find Mr B more easily relatable, but I see where the Rep voters are coming from, and they had their reasons after 2 terms of a Dem President. Mr B is anti-Brexit and as a Brit I am anxious it will go as well as possible, and the Reps seem more helpfully disposed towards the UK at this juncture on the UK’s own journey than are the Dems, though I’m not buying the chicken, sorry, whether it’s the Reps or the Dems.

I’m buying local.

The breakdown of civility in public discourse as we have been seeing in the US has been a shocker, just as it has been here in the UK since 2016. Manners matter. They matter a lot. Manners Maketh Man. Once manners go, terrible things happen.

RIP Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and Captain David Dorn.

I have a daughter Breonna’s age.

Photo by Kristina Paukshtite on Pexels.com

The election is happening in Scorpio season; Death, Transformation and Resurrection. This is Mr B’s own major card. I understand Mr B is a shadow dwelling, long game Scorpio subject with fiery Sagittarius rising… and Mr T is a communications, volatile Gemini with even more fiery Leo rising.

The Major cards are Death (Scorpio) versus The Lovers (Gemini)

The minor cards of fixed negative sign Scorpio are the 5, 6 and 7 of Cups…interesting. That card of disappointment is a Scorpio card.

Both candidates have their secrets.

The minor cards of mutable Gemini are 8, 9 and 10 Swords.

I will look again, but this was the snapshot draw today.

You can track the polls here, and they are updated every hour or more.

Back soon 🙂