I drew a card and rune reading a few weeks ago, 10 November, asking in the most general way about forthcoming news or events in December.
Today I tweeted the same reading again but with a different interpretation in light of the news today, of the passing of Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Cards & runes first posted 10/11/21 asking ahead for news in December. Apropos of the passing of #ArchbishopTutu cards show a much loved church man- Hierophant. Runes SOWILO- after solstice, OTHALA Homeland grieves HAGALL blow, natural death, ING, inspiration, fire of creation
Did I see this death coming? No I absolutely did not. I was enquiring into December, looking and thinking in the most general terms, inquiring into the tides and winds, or the zeitgeist of December, simply to see what would come up.
And yet. And yet, it does often seem that the cards act as straws in the wind…it really does seem that there is a supra-personal collective knowingness held in the ether.
Maybe we are more hive-minded; more like bees and ants than we think. I think that we are, and that Tarot is just another of several means that helps us tap into this.
At the time the cards indicated to me in broad terms that the UK government (and very likely therefore, not only the UK government) would be struggling with awkward covid management decisions again in December, coming to a head after the solstice 21 December.
Well, one might reasonably it didn’t need a reading to tell us this given the way things are. But let’s hang fire on that a sec.
Firstly, how exactly did the cards suggest this?
Well, The Lovers card is about lovers, obviously. The card does what it says on the tin. This theme extends to all loved ones, lovers, family and friends. And by implication, socializing. But it also stands for choices and decisions, often very tricky one. And it stands for the zodiac sign of Gemini, and by that seasonal token, everything that is airborne, from the pollen and butterflies of late spring to aircraft to airborne contagions. The Lovers therefore covers travel, air travel in particular, and it describes trade.
The Hierophant or Pope shows a churchman. He could be any religion. But in wider terms it stands for the governance of church and state, governments anywhere, land, money, agriculture, and the status quo. Traditions and the usual order of things. The Hierophant can also be hospitals and universities. It is Taurean.
You can see here the reader has a pretty wide map to navigate in deciding which meaning to go with. One could say, well, anything might mean anything. Well, not quite. Each card in the deck does have its particular list of associated interpretations, not duplicated by any other card and there are 78 cards.
The reader has to consider how the cards fit together when sitting side by side. What seems the most likely synergy between them being presented here?
What does it MEAN for gawd’s sake? Meaning requires a context. But here, the question could not have been looser. ‘What’s the feeling I am getting for December 2021 ?’
We translate information in a given context. This context is likely shaped, if not by someone else’s question, then by our own interest or preoccupations in the moment of reading.
My first thought on 10 November was the government and covid. Meanwhile, the runes showed a blow-HAGALL is the rune that looks like a wonky capital ‘H’. This is the rune of hail. Hagall refers to an event that isn’t personal even if it feels extremely personal.
The interesting thing here, however, is that at the date of drawing these cards, 10 November, indicating a conundrum for the government, Omicron had not yet arrived in the UK.
But sometimes a reading can be very odd in the way keeps on giving. And when this morning I woke to learn of the death of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and felt a small jolt, seeing again in my mind’s eye, The Hierophant, and my mind returning like a homing pigeon to that earlier reading. I’m posting it again, save you scrolling up.
That last rune bottom right is called ING- from which we got the word inglenook for a hearth place. ING is a fire rune. It is masculine in nature and it represents fertility.
I found myself drawn to the following quote rather than to his many, far more momentous sayings:-“When you sit in front of the fire in winter, you are just there in front of the fire. You don’t have to be smart or anything. The fire warms you.”
This Hierophant, the Archbishop of Cape Town, Desmond Tutu, a great teacher, a school teacher once upon a time, and a natural born teacher always, was someone who warmed a lot of people.
Tarot cards: The Hierophant- Tradition, Orthodoxy, Received wisdom, Academia, Medicine, a teacher or mentor.
Minor Arcana cards: the Five, Six and Seven of Pentacles/Coins/Disks.
Astronomy
Wiki
Taurus (Latin for Bull) is a large and prominent constellation between Aries to the west and Gemini to the east. It ranks 17th in size of the 48 Greek constellations recorded by Ptolemy in his introduction to the Mathematics of the Heavens, the Almagest, written AD 150.
The stars of Taurus depict the face, horns and forepart of the bull’s body. His face is made up of a triangular cluster of stars called The Hyades. There are no legs, the Bull is imagined half submerged. He is the mythical Bull from the Sea. A second cluster of stars, The Pleiades, also known as The Seven Sisters, swarm like bees above his back.
The best time to see Taurus is during December and January. By March and April, you might see it in the west in the twilight.
To find Taurus first you need to find the three stars of Orion’s belt, happily, one of the easiest things to see on a clear winter’s night.
Now look up to the right, looking north-east, See a bright orange-red star? That’s Aldebaran, ‘The Follower,’ a red giant, the biggest, brightest star in the constellation, the Eye of the Bull, glaring in the direction of Orion.
Should the Bull escape his heavenly pen, said an ancient Arabic legend, he would stampede the universe to pieces, and it would be the end of things for all time. We had better hope hope nothing upsets him up there in the celestial meadows. Let’s hope he’s got plenty of buttercups and clover up there to keep him happy, and he doesn’t get bitten by horseflies.
A truly freaky factoid ….” in about two million years, the NASA space probe Pioneer 10, now heading out into deep space, will pass Aldebaran.” SOURCE
If that isn’t enough to make one need a quiet lie-down with a cold flannel on one’s head, I don’t know what is.
Wiki Commons: the horns, face and the giant red star, Aldebaran, the Eye of the Bull, glaring menacingly in the direction of Orion the Hunter
Ancient History
Carving of a Bison, France, thought to be 15000-20000 years old
I am suspicious of that bison. It looks as though it has a ring in its nose.
Taurus has been recognized as a sky bull since at least the Early Bronze Age. Historians think the figure of a bull was first discerned in the stars by the Sumerians around 3000 BC, and was recorded in cuneiform by the Babylonians.
In modern Western (Tropical) astrology Aries The Ram is counted the first sign of the western zodiac, ushering in the spring (vernal) equinox along with the first lambs.
But 4000 years ago it was Taurus, not Aries that coincided with the vernal equinox. The reason this is no longer the case is due to the wobble of the Earth and an effect called the precession of the equinoxes.
Taurus overhead marked the start of the calving season. and for Babylonian astronomers Taurus was the first sign of the Zodiac, ‘the Bull in front,’- leading from the front. The Bull was also the first sign for the early Hebrews, who called it Aleph, as in A, the first letter of the alphabet.
The bull, like its ancestor, the wild auroch, is a potent symbol of strength and fertility, especially masculine virility, but where Leo the lion, represents wild strength, Taurus the bull is domesticated, controlled strength, as harnessed in oxen or a bull with a ring through his nose.
The dairy bulls, breeds such as the Charolais for instance, are famously aggressive where the black bulls used in bull-fighting are by comparison, more easygoing.
Before agriculture, we hunted beef in the shape of the auroch. Aurochs, the fiercer, wild ancestors of the modern bull, were painted in the Lascaux caves in France, in paintings thought to date from 15000 BC.
The most famous section of the Lascaux caves in the Dordogne in France is the Hall of the Bulls, featuring four black bulls, or aurochs. One of the bulls is 5.2 metres (17 ft) long, the largest animal discovered so far in cave art.
This was the time of year of the great migrations of the aurochs; a dangerous but potentially highly rewarding hunting opportunity. Not only did the aurochs provide the luxury of meat, but the horns and hide had many uses.
Lascaux
In the UK it is thought that Salisbury plain was a Lek -a mating ground of the auroch, and this is part of the story behind the building of Stonehenge on this site. They massed here, protected from the ambush of the sabre- toothed tiger by its huge wide open views.
Then hunting gave way to farming of animals, guaranteeing supplies with less risk attached. The first ever cattle, goats, sheep, and pig- farming began in the so-called ‘Fertile Crescent;’ a region covering eastern Turkey, Iraq, and south-western Iran about 12000 years ago.
Taurus glares at Orion The Hunter, but then we stopped being hunters and became farmers, and no-one works harder than a farmer, and many care deeply for their animals too, but where is his legend in the skies?
These farming practices spread westwards, and in time had a genetic effect on the human population, with the sudden appearance of a gene mutation that enabled humans to digest raw cow’s milk. It’s not known when this first occurred, but it probably first happened in colder Northern Europe, and today 35 % of the global human population can digest the milk sugar, lactose, as adults.
The bull was considered a divine animal throughout antiquity and was a symbol of the moon, fertility, rebirth, and royal power, while today, the Lithuanian word ‘taurus’ means ‘noble.’
There is evidence of bull cults throughout the Mediterranean starting in Anatolia, dating from at least 70000 BC. From the worship of the Apis bull in Egypt, to bull-leaping in Knossos and the sacrificial portrayal in Roman Mithraism, the bull has been an integral part of many diverse and important religious traditions.
The Egyptian goddess Hathor goddess of mothers, was the equivalent of the Greek Aphrodite (not Demeter) and had the ears and horns of a cow, the original Holy or Sacred Cow.
Demeter Vindemiatrix is Virgo, but Aphrodite Venus is Taurus.
Greek legend associated Taurus with the legend of Zeus and Europa, in which the god Zeus, up to his sneaky tricks yet again, disguised himself as a beautiful, gentle white bull, coaxed the princess Europa into climbing on his back, then abducted her, swam away with her to Crete, and made her one of his mistresses. The many gifts Zeus gave Europa included a pet dog that later became the constellation Canis Major. Their children supposedly included Minos, King of Crete, the builder of the Labyrinth and the famous palace at Knossos where the bull games were held.
Bull worship, or rather, the concept of the bull as divine gradually migrated ever westwards and northwards. The Celtic druids held Tauric festivals at least 2000 years ago, and there is archaeological evidence of bull worship near Newcastle and York in the UK.
The Buddha was born when the Full Moon was in Taurus (Vesak) and his birthday is celebrated at the Vesak Festival which occurs on the first Full Moon in Taurus.
Like the Bull himself, the classic Taurus subject, male or female, is generally peaceable, pleasant, even placid. But Taurus will not be disrespected, pushed or driven. Other people can get a shock when Taurus suddenly sees red …they seemed so laid back before ….and they don’t give a lot of warning. The mistake of the other person was in underestimating them, mistaking their good nature for weakness or stupidity once too often.
Bulls cannot physically see red. It is the movement of the toreador’s cape that provokes them, and not the colour. But when the human bull ‘sees’ red, they will either dig in hard, or may charge head on. Taurus in a full-on rage is a ‘bull in a china shop’ – the one Earth sign that will withstand or demolish the opposition of the other more famous ‘fighting’ signs, Aries, Leo, and even Scorpio, its opposite number in the zodiac.
Taurus really, really doesn’t like to fight but won’t be pushed, and doesn’t lose in a fair fight. The bull ring is not a fair fight; nor is the abattoir, that’s the tragedy of the Bull, to be brought low by his physical inferiors.
But if a Taurus is being a naughty bull; unreasonable, misbehaving, or being a ‘bully’ then quietly stand your ground. It should pass. Taurus may sulk but as a rule is not vindictive.
But why upset the Bull? Look at him, quietly grazing. He’s really not looking for trouble.
Uranus in Taurus, March 2019-July 2025
The futurist planet Uranus‘The Great Awakener’- is currently in Taurus and has been there since March 2019 .
And there it will stay, sometimes direct, sometimes retrograde until April 2026.
2021 is less tough than 2021 in some ways, and Jupiter is going to lighten and ease things here and there. But it’s still tough. On a global scale this pandemic seems likely to continue into the early months of 2022 but with more, longer easing off periods in-between.
The last time Uranus was in Taurus was 1934 to 1941. Uranus was in Aries when the stock market crashed in 1929, but the aftermath of this event was felt for years after, first the Great Depression then WW2 broke out in 1939. The UK government introduced food rationing January 1940 – remembering here that Taurus rules agriculture and food production.
This transit saw a rise in women joining the workforce- a necessity with the men away at war—Taurus ruled by Venus is a feminine sign. My grandmother left her job in schools, where she taught biology, and worked in a factory by day and with the ambulance service by night. My mother, born in 1939, was largely cared for by her grandmother while her mother was out working. She barely saw her mother, and far less of her father until she was six and he returned home from naval service at the end of the war, to his civilian job as a museum curator. He was a naturalist, an ornithologist, and a Taurus subject, though not what you’d call a people person. Still, he knew a lot, did a lot, created new exhibitions and new educational opportunities for school children, and this was The Taurean Hierophant at work, sure enough.
A story of the war/post-war generation, but why mention it? Uranus in Taurus is the reason why, a transit in common. This was a point in history with profoundly far reaching consequences. Such patterns of history do not necessarily repeat, or not in the same ways. Uranus in Taurus is not sinister. None of this is to suggest there will be another world war, unless it’s a trade war.
We are not seeing food shortages. But we are being asked to ‘ration’ or do without many things we are used to, or have come to expect as our natural rights. For some this might mean things like overseas holidays, but right now all the signs are– no need for any psychic to say this- that stay-cations are still the safest booking options this summer.
Uranus in Taurus, as we have seen historically, may bring big social changes between now and April 2026, and these may include changes for the better; more sustainable practices in economics, trade and agriculture. The fast food industry, for instance, is relatively new and recent but has with remarkable speed become an everyday way of eating for many people, especially young people who don’t remember a time when it wasn’t there. But Uranus in Taurus suggests the enormous fast food industry is likely to prove non-sustainable maintained on anything like its current scale. The Hierophant = Taurus =Bull = money + meat (think beef-burger)
There is no cause for alarm based on Uranus in Taurus, but there are collective changes, challenges, discomfort and upheaval because Taurus (The Hierophant) is about material basics and creature comforts while Uranus (planet of rebellion) upsets apple carts.
My cards suggest we will somehow avoid a second Great Depression, post-pandemic. But it’s a futurist symbol, Uranus, and signifies new technology as a means of solving problems, and this may bring added social unrest, as with the Luddites, textile workers, followers of a mysterious character called Ned Ludd during the English Industrial revolution.
These men risked, and indeed some suffered, hanging or transportation, smashing the machines that threatened to take away not only their jobs, but actually, their whole way of life. New ways that forced them and their children into a harsh new environment outside the home. That put them on a clock, that cared nothing for their humanity, for their pride, skill, and need to see, or at least share in the story of a job seen through from start to finish. That cared nothing at the start, for their comfort or well-being, or even for their safety. The ‘dark satanic mills’. There are graves of the orphans who worked in them, in towns in West Yorkshire. People laugh at them nowadays, the Luddites, ha ha ha, wretched technophobes, but is it wise to laugh?
Taurus is an artisan.
Facing tempests of dust
I’ll fight on till the end
Creatures of my dreams, raise up and dance with me
A Bull dreams of a meadow. Such is the nature of a bull. No heaven more perfect.
Pandemics run their course, adding their coda to the make-up of the human immune system. ‘Hope springs eternal’, and for many, the Tarot sees new opportunities and good times in the high spring of May. But nature will have its way, in its cruelty and its kindness.
Other months are as beautiful, but what month is more beautiful than May?
True Tarot Tales 