Good morning and Welcome! to The Fool’s Tarot for 16Jan2016 ; today I am using my 3-card ‘Whatever-It-Is’ spread, a mutation of the Three Principles spread, and the deck I am using is the wonderful & wise *Tarot of the Holy Light* by Christine Payne-Towler & Michael Dowers. This is a deeply esoteric deck in the Continental style. Nothing describes this deck except “superb” & “learned” & deep & wonderful. Better even than that, it works. Get one if you can. Onward & upward! As you know, the 3 cards symbolize Sulfur, Mercury & Salt, in as much that they also signify male/female/androgyne. These are the two archetypes of my day, acted upon by the third card, the Catalyst, to form a new unity. Today the catalyst is the Knight of Cups. These are ALL ENERGIES & CURRENTS in my day; for them to specify actual people, especially the Court card, it has to send that message to me very strongly indeed! For my Sulfur-Male today, I have drawn VII the Chariot. I rarely draw this card, I don’t know why. But he shows up today looking glorious in his fine fettle. He is represented by the Hebrew letter Zayin, equaling Gemini, and his path is #20, between Chokmah and Tiphareth. His “quality” is the House of Attraction (see below) and here is the very best one line description of the Chariot that I have EVER read; “The Chariot represents the principle of perpetual motion, meaning the eternal circulation of Light and sound frequencies that compound invisible energies into tangible matter.” (“Tarot of the Holy Light” by Christine Payne-Towler & Michael Dowers; Noreah/Brownfield Press, 2015.) I find this card to be one of the few cards about which the readers find very little to say. You usually hear “by harnessing the two forces of his nature, the charioteer blahblahblah . . .” and we almost universally let it slide because we don’t have any better explanation. “Triste, non ?”
You’ll notice that here, on this card, the charioteer is female, representing the awakened left half of the brain/mind. This card has everything to do with dualities, and resolving them, if that is what they need. Sometimes a duality is meant to be just that, and turning it into anything else is “to break the mechanism.” If you read this arcanum in her book, Ms. Payne-Towler gives us a thorough (VERY!) rundown on the history of the card, the concept and the various paraphernalia that accumulate around any long-dated esoteric/alchemical precept. For the sake of brevity, I simply can’t cover it all here, so I advise you to obtain & read the book, if this interests you. In short, on the exterior, the Chariot grants me mobility and access across the realms of time & space &o culture. There is a large importance given to antimony in this construct, and there is a long explanation for that, all fascinating. So this being where I am in my active, “sulfuric,” male role going forward, a man’s man turned into a young girl doing manly things in a female manner. LOL. Sounds insane, doesn’t it? Grin. However, slowing down this fougueux charioteer is my Mercurial, passive, feminine XIV Temperance (even though its angel is hermaphroditic!) reversed. Not only is the furiously moving Chariot supposed to resolve dualities and be in perpetual motion but XIV is telling her counterpart “SLOW DOWN!” Moderation in ALL things, honey.” Oddly enough, Temperance is the letter N, equating to Scorpio; I can’t speak for you, but “moderation” is NEVER one of the qualities I would assign to the template “Scorpio.” Temperance’s Path runs between Geburah and Yesod, and it is in the House of Death. (“Why don’t you be temperate and kick the bucket, George? You’ve been a pain in my ass way too long!” GRIN.) XIV and I are OLD friends, we go w-a-a-y back, to whatever my first addiction was when I was a child. I have an addictive personality, as simply as I have brown eyes. The result is that I have fought MANY addictions in this lifetime, eventually winning all but two, which are in hot contest against me even now. They may be “judges’ decision” results,
because I don’t see at least two of us left standing at the end, bravely fighting on even as the flames lick my gorgeous cremation robe. (Yes, it is all planned out, down to the clothes my widow will wear. You don’t really think I’d let someone else make decisions that belong to me, do you? Grin.) I can hear her voice now, “C’mon, Mark, buddy, pal, friend, moderate yourself a BIT, won’t you? For me?” LOL, she never tires, thank Osiris, as I DO constantly need her reminders in order to keep myself in moderate check, it’s true. I am a creature of extremes, so she is a close & lifelong companion. And finally, we have Salt-y Catalyst for my two VERY different lovebirds of the dawn, and that energy is seen in the Knight of Cups. It is odd, Cups showing up; I don’t have a long & tender history with the suit, to say the least, and f one ever feels that one has made a mismatch, I almost always feel that when Cups are said to be entering my life. I was damaged as a child, have since worked through that and gone on, but it leaves certain traces until the day you die. My traces glow in the dark. Love is NOT my favorite playground. On the other claw, my love of the power of Intuition and the cultivation of it is very strong, indeed! So that is where I usually place Cups in my life, in the intuition camp. Here, with the Knight, I have a straight Pisces influence (I’m Aries, so hmmmm . . .)”The Knight of Cups has often been titled Homecoming, suggesting a life time search to find his true heart’s home. This reference stems from the predicament of the noble Cathar families of southern Europe after the Crusade that crushed their homeland (beginning in 1229). . . .” (Ibid) And on & on, again fascinating, but too long for here. The long and short of it is this knight can’t be trusted TOO much, you will not find his shoulder to lean on. Why? Because, in truth, he isn’t a knight, he’s a shaman. So, then, this card IS very much up my alley after all! He’s not here to play around in a field of Valentine Day Hearts; he’s here to be a shaman and to make magic that will harness these two arcana together just as the horses are yoked on the chariot. THAT will be the energy necessary today – shamanistic – with which I can successfully deal with my male & female currents today. Excellent! I ask the Cosmos to give us ALL a sense of clear perception of hidden things today. Be Well, Blessed Be!