World Server's Spread, December 2007

By Christine Payne-Towler
ArkLetter 33, December 9,  2007 
World Server's Spread

For an introduction to the World Servers' Spread see ArkLetter 5 

Our December spread reveals the invisible hand of fate at work behind the curtain of normalcy.  Mysteries abound -- we teeter at the edge of the unseen at all times.  When I drew these cards I had not yet looked at the NewMoon chart, so I didn't know that half the Solar System is stacked up in the 12th house right now (Pacific Standard Time).  The cards apparently saw it coming, though!

Synchronous cross talk between the chart of the moment and the lay of the cards is a phenomenon that I have been observing for decades. It began right away for me, when I first got the book on the Brotherhood of Light Tarot, which became the original system I studied.  Reading Vol. 6 of the BOL encyclopedia, called The Sacred Tarot, showed me that the decans of astrology give meaning to the numbered pips, just like the alphabet does for the Trumps and the Zodiac for the Royals. To this day, when I sit down with a firm issue in mind, my Tarot readings will also include an ephemeris, the relevant astrology chart(s), and a keen awareness of the body of correspondences animating the pack of cards I am shuffling. I don't really care *which* body of correspondences is being used as long as it is complete and I have the key. From there, all kinds of amazing interconnections are invariably derived.

This technique has stood me in good stead over the years, because there are so many Tarot packs, especially the oldest ones, for which the documentation is paltry at best. This is not to complain -- we must be grateful for whatever the process of historical selection retains for us. Enough good work has been done that is possible to learn a lot about the texture of the times, the context of thought, in which our Tarot remnants first appeared whole and full of their vital promise. Those who make a good faith effort to find and resonate with the sympathetic strings within their own make-up can sometimes find access to the worldview still clinging to the evidence.

There are modern packs that are also under-documented, sometimes as a part of their design. My brand-new pack of The Crystal Tarot (from Lo Scarabaeo) is a case in point. All the energy has gone into the gorgeous, beautiful imagery, which is said to be inspired by Klimt. Not a word is mentioned about the fact that the Pips are inspired by the Eudes Picard pack, which was also the template for the Balbi and El Gran Tarot Esoterico pips. Therefore it is nowhere mentioned that this adds another gem to the small but very vital collection of Spanish (-style) Tarots.  I only learned about it by reading around over at Aeclectic Tarot Forum, following threads about the Spanish Tarots.  Thanks, friends!

The reflection of Picard's inspiration is somewhat muted as well, though the switch of Air onto Cups and Water onto Swords is plenty visible for a person who looks into the cards as well as at them. The artist, Elizabetta Trevisan, has made sure the cards fully reward the eye, and the choice of colors is rich and deep.  When laid out into a spread, the images are meditative, evocative and subtly moving. The booklet tries to keep the same tone, but in the process it fails to convey much in the way of hard data about any of the individual cards. Therefore one has to bring one's own internalized understanding to the process, as well as the awakened intuition which is the main resource of the reader.

The Tarot spread that is offered in the LWB [little white book] is actually quite insightful and deep, well worth experimentation. It's entirely focused on the present, being structured as if the querant were gazing into a mirror and getting a response back from the depths. Everything about this pack, from its intricate inlaid textures to the predominance of blues and greens, lends itself to contemplation, inward searching, and quiet reflection.  It would seem to be a fine companion on a journey to the center of the heart.

Because these cards have taken on their Spanish tone with the Picard pips, I will correspond them with one of the packs of that family. Challengingly enough, this forces me to look into several different arrangements of the astrology on the Trumps, of which we have two here. How shall I decide? I'll take up my chart of correspondences and check out my options.

The 9 of coins is not difficult, being a pip and therefore assigned the third decan of the third Earth sign, meaning Virgo. There is nothing in the third decan in the NewMoon chart, but Saturn and the South Node are in Virgo so we'll content ourselves with that for our purpose. The Hanged Man, in the choice between Spanish Variants 1 and 2, could be either Uranus or Pisces. Fascinating! Uranus is in Pisces right now!  Meanwhile, in any of our Spanish choices, the Moon is Cancer, where Mars is currently retrograde.

So, three cards, three points on this month's NewMoon chart. Interestingly enough, Saturn, Uranus and Mars are having a conversation about it right now, as Saturn is widely opposed Uranus, who widely trines Mars. (Mars and Saturn are exactly sextile apart, to complete the figure).  I am being very loose with orbs here because this is a Tarot reading and we are not calculating, just noticing affinities and using the "eyeball" form of estimation our ancestors used.  The Moon card and the dissolving action of the Hanged Man echo the muddy-water theme of these three Planets in conversation.   We can let these themes play in the back of our minds as we interpret the cards.

World Server's Spread -- the Crystal Tarot

World Position -- 9 Coins, Reversed

The Divinatory meaning of the 9 of Coins is often about abundance. If you look this up in Mary K. Greer's Tarot Reversals (which I recommend), you will find many slants and angles on this reversal, including the implication of entrapment via too many possessions, and therefore the burden placed upon one's freedom.  The very sparse text from the LWB says " Investments -- turning down now to have more in the future." Very seldom does a LWB mention frugality and practicality in this card, so I'm taking that as a sign of sorts.

My own idea is to look internally for the significance of reversed cards. Therefore I would consider the idea that 'the World' possesses an inward zone of treasures that have been heaped up and collected for just such a time as this. At least, I hope everybody in The World has been collecting their interior treasures (meaning; of the spiritual, moral and cultural type) and arranging for their preservation through the coming challenges! Because, from the way things look in the external realms, there is a lot of material treasure (read: money and resources) being wasted and forever lost to the future, day in and day out, everywhere we look.

This is not an investment newsletter, nor a site where people come to investigate economics. However, it doesn't take an expert to notice that something very stressful is happening in the world of global finance. Actually it's a convergence of things that are happening, the combination of which can be efficiently summarized in the idea of Saturn in Virgo. Basically, it's belt-tightening time for everybody, from the smallest to the largest. The seemingly infinite supply of affluence and power that the First World has been taking for granted for generations is now reaching its logical limit. In a world that has sacrificed the health of the ecosystem and its inhabitants for internal combustion engines and plastics, we are starting to choke on our choices and wonder where our lack of foresight is going to bite us first. The financial pundits are sweating the details, hoping we will get away with 'only' a recession...

A great example of this problem, the modern world's outsized reach yet puny grasp, is China's Three Gorges Dam http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1671000,00.html This project has been a huge dream for several generations of Chinese politicians, who were more entranced with the fantasy of controlling Nature than they were with the damage it was going to do culturally and ecologically.  The project has been through many incarnations before it was possible to be brought to it's present stage of completion, but now that it has begun functioning as envisioned, the larger, unforeseen and uncalculated costs to the region are beginning to come into focus. Only the Chinese people can decide whether this dam will turn out to be worth the price they have paid for it, but in the meanwhile, there will be no going back to the way things were before.

Let's try to learn from the lilting refrain of Saturn in Virgo; "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone?  They paved paradise, put up a parking lot".  Look around and ask yourself -- where in the world am I passively allowing paradise to be paved?  Each of us must take every measure to ensure that, whatever happens in our outer circumstances, we are:

•     * Giving back at least as much as we are taking,
•     * Preserving resources and modifying those behaviors that stem from first-world entitlement, 
•     * Doing what Spirit sent each of us here to do.

Fool Position -- Hanged Man, Reversed

The LWB for this Tarot is exquisitely clear: "Sacrifice -- He is the suffering which we must accept in order to reach understanding. Enlightenment is achieved through ordeal." 

This is very apt, even for being so sparse. Every spiritual path has an aphorism to this effect.  Humanity does not grow except in the presence of pain, this appears to be the rule.  Comfort breeds laziness, whereas discomfort gets us off the couch and down the block, at least metaphorically speaking, to seek the solution.

In the Fool position, suspended in the gap between the worlds, the Hanged Man dangles and struggles with the unbearable triviality of his being. In a timeless, spaceless place he is alone with himself. Every thought and feeling rings out of him and echoes back endlessly. Nothing interferes to break this trance because this is a zone of No Rescue. Like an alchemical experiment that has been sealed up and buried in the pile of dung for six months to slow-cook in the heat of the compost, one must wait this period out and go through the necessary changes. The situation is one of inversion and emptying-out, surrender and non-resistance. With no hope of discovery and no personal power of agency, the Hanging One must transform from within.  This card in this position calls for the wisdom of a blade of grass, bending in whatever direction the wind is blowing. There is only pain to be gained from fighting the trend.

If we look at this card in the light of Uranus in Pisces, what I get is the feeling of chaos, inundation and over-stimulation. Uranus has recently pulled out of a 5-month retrograde in the middle of the sign, which for we water people has been a bit like living with a finger in the light socket all summer and most of fall. The closest analogue I can find for the resultant situation is that the collective unconscious has been dredged and a huge amount of ancient silt has been stirred up for the first time since the roaring '20's. <<http://www.astrologycom.com/uranuspisces1.html>> We are now struggling with the very same toxins (demons, disorders) that went unexamined and uncorrected during Uranus' last pass through these parts. There's probably a lot that we could learn from comparing that time to this... if only people could slow down from their frenetic survival rush and equally frenetic entertainment rush to think things through. Perhaps now that Uranus is making forward progress again, our minds will focus again and we will see our way clear.

As I often say with the Hanged Man, it doesn't hurt as much if you watch your opportunities and volunteer into this period of enforced dormancy and internal ripening willingly.   Undertaken at the right moment, for the right cause, the Hanged Man's sacrifice can serve as a catalyst for change and a chance to move the group mind across a necessary threshold of consciousness.  Done right, the Hanged Man is enacting a pivotal stage of the Sacred Drama for everybody's benefit. When he is through with his ordeal, he will return to the tribe and give a report of what he experienced.  Anybody who listens carefully will be wiser for the exposure.

Magus Position -- The Moon

Here in the slippery and deceptive landscape of midnight, the eclipsing gaze of Luna transfixes us.  As the maternal presence that collects, digests and distributes the interplanetary energies of the solar system down into the 4-elements, earthly plane, we look to her for guidance when our own perceptions trick us.  Eclipses come at FullMoon or NewMoon, when the tides are highest. We are forced to retreat from our usual haunts to seek high ground, hoping that the water won't eat away the foundations of our homes, floating away our soil, our tools or our loved ones.  Sights that were familiar and understandable in the solar light of day take on new and grotesque shapes, throwing exaggerated shadows and shape shifting before our eyes. 

The Magus position represents the most materialized, literal aspect of this spread. Looking back or 'up' from this card, we are surrounded and permeated by the astral field of the Earth/Moon relationship, basting us in all the conflicting vibrations being distilled through that cycle (Fool). Beyond that, the great Body of the Solar System cradles us in its cosmic embrace, bathing our Moon-modulated sphere in an endless array of changing influences emitted by our local gods, the Planets (World card position).  Outside that scale of reality our ancestors could barely imagine, much less quantify and make rules about. Perhaps that is enough exposure to the ineffable for any mere human to make sense of!

The card in the Magus position, then, concentrates the whole cosmos upon Adam, the human individual, meaning ourselves. Somehow, we must learn to encompass and harmonize the ceaseless internal churning that results from these outer forces impacting upon us.  If each of us, in our own unique flesh envelope, is one drop of condensed soul/Sol, a unique ray of the Sun/Son, a divine child of the cosmos set into matter as a seed, then our mandate is to grow up and out until we have fulfilled our potential, flowered and fruited. To quote an old war cry, 'ours is not to reason why, ours us but to do or die'. 

In response to the amazing gift of a life, it is incumbent upon us to take it in good faith and follow through, just as any tree, any wild animal, any mycelium would do unhesitatingly. The burden of our big brains is that they think, they talk to themselves endlessly and they spin thick webs of conjecture and supposings wherever there isn't enough objective information. Sometimes this is helpful, as our inventions over the millennia -- agriculture, pottery, weaving, steel -- have shown.  Sometimes, however, we get caught up in our meshes and drapes, becoming disoriented and unable to discriminate any more between our hopes and our fears, our path and our temptations.

The Moon card represents the last of the tests given to the Initiate in the sequence of the Trumps. This is the test of abandonment. More feared than death, more agonizing then unconsciousness or even the Hanged Man's shamanic self-mortification  (the Christian myth of which is the Crucifixion), is this the feeling of being utterly alone in the vast universe.  The Moon card faces us with the Void, the withdrawal of the Light, and the seeming disappearance off all external forms of guidance, support, and direction.  Spiritually, this stage has been likened to late adolescence, when we finally get our parents to back up and let us have a life of our own, but then are immediately faced with the reality that we no longer have any safety net to catch us if we fall. There's a creeping dread that comes with this card until we finally turn around, face the fears, and turn on the Lights within ourselves. When we become the Light, we no longer have to look for outside sources, and then we have reached spiritual maturity.

To Summarize

All three of these cards, each in their own way, is communicating the challenge of managing our internal worlds while the outer world goes slightly askew for awhile. The Nine of Coins brings forward the need be mindful of conservation ethics, both personally and collectively, no matter how lush or abundant the moment might feel. The Hanged Man suggests that humanity and the whole Creation is already caught in a cycle of natural consequences and helpless to do much about it, whether we have accepted the situation consciously or not yet. It's time to "stew in our own juices" for a while, meditating through the mutation.

The Moon card confronts us with the question of exactly how we will navigate and center ourselves when our usual landmarks and signposts are obscured. To judge from these cards (and this is written approximately a week and a half before it appears online), we are heading for a bottleneck that has the potential of reigning us in, shortening our leashes and tightening our bindings. There's a dreamlike, trancey quality permeating the atmosphere, as if for a moment God is holding Her breath and making everything freeze in place. You can see the stream of time, like a path in the fog, open for a little way ahead and behind, but quickly fading into the grayness in both directions.

The traditional counsel for times like this is to remember that this eerie landscape is still your own familiar reality, having fallen under the influence of a temporary fluctuation. If you can, find a safe place to tuck in and wait it out. If you must be in transit at a time like this, keep your feet on the road and keep moving, do not stray from the beaten path. Most of the things that appear to be real in this context are chimera; so do not allow yourself to lose energy over the hallucinated presentation going on all around you. Trudge on through this dark night of the soul, and the dawn will catch up with you in due time.

ArkLetter 33
December 9, 2007
copyright christine payne-towler 2005-2007, all rights reserved

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Comments

[Bonnie Cehovet]

Christine:

How aprapos to be talking about managing our internal and external worlds with all of the literal chaos that we have created that ended up with the severe flood damage in the Chehalis area of Washington State. This was a natural consequence of gargantuin proportions. Do we never learn?

Blessings,
Bonnie

[christine]

Hi Bonnie --

Maybe the best we can do as individuals is keep notes on ourselves, the lunar drama playing out in our charts, and the events appearing in the news that seem symbolically and temporally related. Over time we each can put together a body of personal symbolism demonstrating the seasonal changes, weather patterns, lunar stations, and collective dramas that affect us personally, and in which ways.

If the population were more conscious of their own charts and the implications thereof, we would have a saner civilization, hands down. But that kind of attention to natural detail has been diminishing in Western Civ the last few centuries, as we have devalued agriculture for industry. Let's see whether that coin will begin spontaneously flipping in the next few years.

blessings,

Christine