Tarot pairs

Something I love to do is to find patterns in the tarot cards. In particular, the Major Arcana are rich in patterns - you can divide them into three rows of 7 with The Fool separate; you can divide them into four rows of 5 with The Fool and The World separate. Or, you can divide them neatly into 2 rows and compare the pairs.

Recently I wanted to see what pairs would result if I "mirrored" the Majors - that is, if I laid out one row of trumps from The Fool to the half way point, The Wheel, and then made the next row turn back on itself, so that the Fool is paired with The World. This is the same technique as the Atbash cipher, once beloved of cabalists in the Renaissance and later periods.

What I found was the pairings that result are very rich in meaning and symbolism - especially using the Rider-Waite-Smith cards of the Universal Waite Tarot, which were designed to reflect each other and be interlinked in their symbolism.

I want to do a series of blog posts about these wonderful pairings, starting with The Wheel of Fortune/Justice. More on that very soon, so do check back for an exploration of the wonderful world of tarot symbolism!

Blessed be
Anthony

The Sun rings "like a bell"

Recently I read the following article that talks about the strange lack of sunspots coming from the Sun lately:

Mystery of missing sunspots solved

19 June 2009

by Tony Phillips

The Sun is in the pits of a century-class solar minimum, and sunspots have been puzzlingly scarce for several years. Now, solar physicists think they understand why.

A JET STREAM DEEP inside the Sun may be migrating slower than usual through the star's interior, giving rise to the current lack of sunspots.

A team at the U.S. National Solar Observatory in Tucson, Arizona, used a technique called helioseismology to detect and track the jet stream down to depths of 7,000 km below the surface of the star.

The physicists, Rachel Howe and Frank Hill, announced the results this week at an American Astronomical Society press conference in Boulder, Colorado.

The Sun generates new jet streams near its poles every 11 years. The streams migrate slowly from the poles to the equator and when a jet stream reaches the critical latitude of 22º, new-cycle sunspots begin to appear.

Howe and Hill found that the stream associated with the next solar cycle has moved sluggishly, taking three years to cover a 10º range in latitude compared to only two years for the previous solar cycle.

The jet stream is now, finally, reaching the critical latitude, heralding a return of solar activity in the months and years ahead.

"It is exciting to see", says Hill, "that just as this sluggish stream reaches the usual active latitude of 22º, a year late, we finally begin to see new groups of sunspots emerging."

THE CURRENT SOLAR MINIMUM has been so long and deep, it prompted some scientists to speculate that the Sun might enter a long period with no sunspot activity at all, akin to the Maunder Minimum of the 17th century.

This new result dispels those concerns. The sun's internal magnetic dynamo is still operating, and the sunspot cycle is not broken.

Because it flows beneath the surface of the Sun, the jet stream is not directly visible. Hill and Howe tracked its hidden motions via helioseismology - the study of pressure waves within the Sun. Shifting masses inside the sun send these waves rippling through the stellar interior.

So-called 'p modes' (p for pressure) bounce around the interior and cause the Sun to ring like an enormous bell. By studying the vibrations of the Sun's surface, it is possible to figure out what is happening inside. Similar techniques are used by geologists to map the interior of our planet.

Excerpt from www.cosmosmagazine.com.

I find this so fascinating! I had no idea that sunspots were caused by huge currents of sun material, travelling in a "jet stream" beneath the surface of the sun. Also note the intruiging number symbolism ~ the Sun produces new jet streams every 11 years, and to create sunspots, the jet stream must reach the critical latitude of 22 degrees. The numbers 11 and 22 are very important in numerology ~ they are non-reducible and represent constants: they are numbers of great tests and mastery (for example there are 22 cards in the Major Arcana of the tarot.)

But it's the notion of the Sun's echoing vibrations causing it to "ring like a giant bell" that I found the most fascinating. In esoteric philosophy, the Sun God was said to have "sung creation into being" with his glorious and triumphant song. Perhaps the Sun is still keeping this process going today ~ every so often it makes "music" that causes sunspots, which affect our Earth and the entire solar system.

Symbolism in the new Star Trek movie

Well I had a day off work yesterday, so I went and caught the new Star Trek movie. It was certainly entertaining, a little violent at some points but otherwise enjoyable.

Watch out ~ spoiler alert!

I noticed some interesting symbolism right from the get-go. The movie takes place in a slightly altered timeline from the original series, due to the arrival of a huge spacecraft from the future. George Kirk, father of James T. Kirk, is forced to assume command of a starship. His pregnant wife is on board, and she goes into labour as George, alone on the ship with everyone else evacuated, attacks the enemy vessel. He dies heroically, and his wife escapes - giving birth to the future James T. in the escape pod.

This reminded me of the many Sun King legends from pagan and Egyptian traditions. George can be seen as Osiris - the father who dies, and is reborn again in his son Horus, who goes on to be the new King (James Kirk of course going on to become the legendary captain of the Enterprise). George's wife is like the Mother Goddess, or Isis, who gives birth to the new Sun God ~ just as in pagan tradition, the summer Sun dies in winter and is reborn again from the earth in spring.

As the movie went on I realised another connection to occult symbolism, one which I explored in my last full-length post: that of the number 7. Kirk and his core crew, the main cast of the original series, are seven in number: Kirk the Sun King, Spock, Uhura (Venus), McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, and Chekhov. Its amazing how often groups of 7 turn up - as above so below, I guess. Also, its said that soul groups travel in groups of 7 throughout various incarnations.

Til next time

Justice League - Gods of the Solar System?

One of the more fascinating connections I have found in popular culture of late concerns comic book superheroes. Virtually everyone in the Western world is familiar with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc. But does anyone realise that these superheroes represent modern mythmaking - and that the core 7 heroes are but the latest embodiment of the 7 planetary gods?

In one of my favourite books, The Secret History of the World, the author points out that all through history there has been a perennial philosophy - a vision of the spirit worlds and the creator gods based not on dogma but ancient tradition, connecting the creation of the world with the spirits of the Sun, Moon, and five classical planets (Mercury through Saturn). Recently I realised that you can quite easily see how these gods - the same gods of the Olympian era - have been reincarnated in comic book form in the twentieth century.

Let's start with Superman. He draws his power from the Sun, and has a big golden "S" on his chest - which stands for the Sun, Sol, or Sol Invictus. He flies across the blue sky - blue being the main colour of his costume. His birth name, Kal El, comes from the character's creators Jewish heritage and means "voice of God"; in esoteric philosophy the Sun God is equivalent to the Logos or the Word - the spoken Word that in the beginning manifested all of creation. Superman is therfore clearly a solar hero; strong, noble, doing all his work in the bright light of day and working to bring all criminals to justice.

Batman meanwhile is his cosmic counterpart. He is an Earthling, cannot fly under his own power, and does all his best work at night. His animal totem - the bat - is a night creature. Batman uses fear and illusion to snare his foes. All this is highly suggestive of the Moon. Batman is therefore an incarnation of the Moon powers.

The Flash? That's simple- the golden wings on his helmet give the game away immediately. He is an avatar of Mercury, the winged messenger of the gods, fleet of foot, fast as quicksilver.

Wonder Woman is clearly Venus; not only is she female, and is a warrior princess (as were some early versions of Venus, or Astarte), but she bears the pentagram of Venus on her tiara.

Mars, again a no brainer: the Martian Manhunter!

Jupiter is a little trickier to spot in this bunch, but for me Aquaman takes the title. In Jupiter or Zeus' earliest forms he was a fish god - and otherwise known as Poseidon, god of the seas.

Now - Saturn had me bamboozled for quite some time. The hero Green Lantern suggested himself, but I thought how is he connected? I couldn't see it for the life of me. Then I read that at one point in the DC comics' history, they killed him off and replaced him with a demonic entity called the Parallax. This entity travelled from world to world feeding on people's fear, destroying whole civilisations. This is surely a primordial representation of the ancient god of death, Saturn.

And there you have it! The Greek gods are alive and well, folks, and we are re-telling their myths every day, in comics and in movies.