AQUARIUS *MEDITATION: (South/Above)
Esoteric Titles:
The Seven Sisters
Queen of the Earth & Oceans
The Daughters of the Celestial Firmament
In ancient times libation vessels, were used to anoint the head or feet of a sacrificial animal or human being, the Egyptian saviour Osiris was himself a male-vessel carried to his love-death in the form of water who like the Hindu god Shiva was devoured by Kali. The narrow neck of the vessel denoted the decapitated phallus of the god in question, while the vase or pithoi, as it was known in ancient Greece, resembled the female waters or amniotic fluid of the womb, a symbol of rebirth. As already mentioned, in the “Arcanum 14. Temperance”, the two cups symbolised the union or intermingling of freshwater and saltwater. Here the alchemical transmutation features two other elements, that of earth and water and a naked goddess, not a clothed angel. The word “star” emanates from the Phoenician Astarte, or Innana-Ishtar, the goddess ruled by the Pleiades or seven sisters, although the star is known by numerous other appellations. The Pleiades (also known as The Atlanteans) are a seven star cluster set in the last few degrees of the Taurus constellation – its’ name means “to sail” because its helical rising signalled the commencement of Greek maritime navigation and its setting the close in Autumn. However, it is also known as the “seven sisters or virgins” – Alcyone, Maia, Electra, Taygete, Celeano, Sterope and Merope. Merope is known as the “invisible one” because she married a mortal and hid herself in disgrace. They were the daughters of Pleione and Atlas, hence perhaps another derivation of the name of the constellation.
Statues of the sisters were installed as stern, silent judges or caryatids on the Acropolis in ancient Greece, from which is derived the notion of the 7 Pillars of Wisdom. Proverbs 9:1 states, “Wisdom has built her house; / she has set up its seven pillars.” However, its’ astrological effects are said to denote violent death, ruin and disgrace. In India it was known as the 7 Mothers or “krittikas” which means literally razors or cutters. A symbolic reference no doubt to the use of flint knives in the removal of animal pelts and being literally petrified or frozen to the spot at the sight of a vicious attack. Being literally “skinned alive” was practised by the Aztec and Mayan civilisations in honour of the “Flayed Lord” – Xipetotec, a type of fertility god whose main role denotes spiritual sacrifices made for the liberation of the soul, and the Mayan calendar’s counterpart who resembled an Eagle-man Cuauhtli, with outstretched wings. Seven star constellations were considered sacred and meaningful in the culture of numerous high civilisations, the number seven being considered lucky. The Great Bear (Ursa Major) for example also consisted of 7 stars known as the 7 rishis or sages of the world. The significance of seven lies in the fact that the second number of the card is seven and the seventh sphere in Caballism is Netzach (Victory). The Goddess of Victory, known to the ancient Greeks as Nike, also means Justice (see Arcanum VIII, Justice), the card which in the “Naples Arrangement” sits conveniently above The Star. The Jewish menorah (a 7-sticked candelabra) represented this idea of continuous cycles being expressed in almost everything on Earth and in Heaven. In the Jewish calendar the seventh year gained prominence as a year of dispensation, when slaves were freed and criminals pardoned.
One might ask therefore why the star depicted in the Rider Waite pack has 8 points and the constellation surrounding it resembles a horseshoe, with one star slightly displaced? The stelloid arrangement is no doubt conscious and intended as a gestalt image – perhaps of a magnifying glass being lifted towards the heavens. Alice Bailey, the founder of Esoteric Astrology describes seven rays which emanate from Ursa Major but which are linked to the Pleiades and the star Sirius. These 7 rays or septenaries directly influence the 7 spiritual bodies of man and are linked to 8 planets including the Sun. In this system the first ray is governed by Uranus and attributed to the Atman or will of the soul body. Furthermore, the seventh ray type of individual is governed by the planet Uranus which reinforces the symbolism of the numeral 17 (1+7=8). If we examine the design commissioned by Rider Waite more closely we can detect a small bird perched in the boughs of a solitary tree. Another clue perhaps to the astrological connotations of this card, the star Sirius whose helical rising signalled the advent of the agricultural period in ancient Egypt – the flooding of the Nile Delta with fertile black silt. The bird is the Benu – who like the dove released by Noah in the Biblical story of Creation after the flood, finally settled onto a piece of dry land. So we might speculate further that the card also symbolises the first and the last days of Creation (the alpha and the omega).
“The Daughters of Heaven” (Merry Wives of Windsor) Tzaddi
This year in a series of posts I hope to highlight and compare each Tarot key with a Shakespearean play to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare’s Folio. I am also attempting to make reference to the extensive occult material found in Shakespeare which is usually ignored by conventional academics. The 1623 First Folio edition features 36 plays, 14 are listed as “Comedies”, 10 as “Histories” and 11 as “Tragedies”. One particular play, “Pericles, Prince of Tyre” was excluded from the Folio for copyright reasons but no doubt the publishers intended 12 tragedies bringing the entire catalogue to a total of 37 plays. In this sense the publishers failed on several fronts, for example the pagination, the inclusion of dramatis personae in some plays, the omission of some stage directions, and division into acts and scenes. However, the number 37 is a numerical key to the Old and New Testaments, as already mentioned in other posts on the subject and the division of the triple numbers 111 (AAA), 222 (BBB), 333 (CCC), 444 (DDD), 555 (EEE), 666 (FFF), 777 (GGG), 888 (HHH), and 999 (III) by the “key number” 37 gives us the so-called Fibonacci series of numbers eg: 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 etc. Triple letters are also employed in Freemasonry and the Enochian system of invocation which the Elizabethan Magus, Dr. John Dee utilised and espoused as “a divine language” that only angels could readily understand and were compelled to obey as does the angel Ariel for Prospero’s benefit in the “Tempest”. Indeed, some commentators on the “Shakespeare Tarot” genre assume that the Tempest coincides or corresponds to “Arcanum I, The Magician” where I have deduced it more correctly belongs to the miraculous but little known play, “Pericles, Prince of Tyre”, the play omitted from the 1623 Shakespeare Folio for copyright reasons.
Previous posts on this particular subject include: “The Origins & Evolution of Tarot Keys”, “The Secret Alchemy of Shakespeare”, “The Queen’s Sorcerer”, “The Neoplatonic Magic of Shakespeare”, “Shakespeare’s Astrology”, “Shakespeare’s Cosmology”, “Shakespeare’s Codename” and “Masonic Ciphers & Symbolism in Shakespeare”.
Firstly, the “Merry Wives of Windsor” is the only wholly original play that “William Shakespeare” ever produced and that there is no literary source attributed to it’s narrative, characters or dramatic theme. In fact it was supposedly commissioned by Queen Elizabeth 1st who so loved and enjoyed the character of Falstaff in the history plays (Henry IVth Part One and Henry IVth Part Two) that she requested Edward de Vere to write a play in which love and romance (“Falstaff In Love”) featured strongly. But ultimately in this comic farce he remains a rogue and a charlatan and that is precisely what the Elizabethan audience enjoyed about the man based on the real-life character, Sir John Oldcastle, the leader and martyr of the heretical sect, the Lollards (See “The Follies of Stratfordian Presumption” for the full story on the Oldcastle Controversy). Because it features strong women who plot against his voracious sexual and epicurean appetites I have attributed it to the Tarot card “#17 The Star”.
Coincidentally, the coat of arms of Edward de Vere features a five-pointed white star and he was after all said and done the 17th Earl of Oxford. Now I have already ascertained that the star is a coded reference to the constellation Ursa Major (Great Bear) with its 7 Stars, although other commentators suggest the Pleiades (“Seven Sisters”). However, one star in Ursa Major is actually a binary and so 1+7 = 8, that is a coded reference to the ogdoad (#Strength or Fortitude) and of course the 7 Deadly Sins, 7 Virtues & Follies and 7 Ages of Man. Furthermore, the Sonnets dedication previously mentioned in my post “The Tempest” contains seventeen ‘T’s which secretly identifies the 17th Earl of Oxford as the anonymous author of Shakespeare’s plays (See “Shakespeare’s Codename”). The anonymous author of the play, Edward de Vere makes several cryptic allusions to his own marriage to Anne Cecil in the character of Anne ‘Ford’ (alias: ‘Anne Oxenforde’) and mentions her dowry as being seven hundred pounds which was exactly the same as the dowry he recieved when he married Anne Cecil, the daughter of William Cecil. Furthermore, the astrological chart of Queen Elizabeth indicates she had her Moon in Aquarius and no doubt the Earl had this in mind when composing this, his most original play.
Divinatory Meaning of this Card:
The 28th path links the sphere of Yesod (Foundation-Moon) with that of Netzach (Victory-Venus) from the lower central to the right hand side of the Tree of Life. In Tarot the path is known as the “Natural Intelligence”, primarily because it embodies the transmutations and evolutionary conditions found within the whole of nature that have been the subject of study by naturalists and philosophers. Astrologically, it represents the sphere of Venus acting through the zodiacal sign of Aquarius, the Water-bearer upon the Moon.
Furthermore, the path lies within the astral triad and suggests certain traits or aspects of the human personality. It is the human tendency to believe, or to have faith in something or someone and to be led by their own guiding star towards their ultimate destination in life. The path is also strongly connected to the human intuition and to the whole process undertaken by meditative principles, the in-breath and the out-breath (systole & diastole). This is why the naked goddess depicted on the Tarot card 17. The Star also stands with one foot in the water, and another on land whilst dispensing her bounties from land to sea. However, it may also suggest that a grand cycle occurs in nature with water droplets from clouds that make rain, that forms springs, that become streams, that form large rivers that eventually flow into the sea or endless ocean. Moreover, it suggests the metabolic changes that can be produced by meditation, concentration and contemplation alone and in a material sense signifies the “salt of the ocean” that preserves the life of the initiate within the “bloodstream”. The symbolism of the stars above her head denote the seven orbs of auric energy known as the chakras within the subtle body. Arranged with one in the centre to suggest a compass or guiding light to those who sail to distant regions enabling them to navigate through the murky or obscure waters of the personal unconscious. In his own esoteric Tarot deck Aleister Crowley substitutes the card of the Star (28th) for the Emperor (15th) because the hieroglyphs do not correspond – the Hebrew letter Tzaddi, meaning a fish hook is exchanged for Heh (window or sighting of a star).
On land or sea the Heavenly Stars guide those who voyage where none have gone before. For countless generations evolved civilisations have revered the seasonal constellations such as the Great Bear, sacred to Artemis, the Pleaides sacred to Athene and Sirius, sacred to Egyptian Isis. Hebrew Double Letter TZADDI a fish hook, to cast or ensnare, hunt, capture, buzzing of a cricket’s wings, to bend, kneel, gaze upon, lie in wait, ambush, precious stone, fix eyes on third eye in meditation, side of a mountain, to turn to the left, pour out, excrement.
Positive: Insight, hope and inspiration, new horizons and vital fulfilment. Felicity, civil, racial, sexual equality. Tenderness, grace light-heartedness.
Negative: Stubborn, inflexible, or rigid outlook, self-doubt unorthodox sexuality/insecurity. Disappointments, Nebulous dreams, empty hopes and self-deception.
SPHERE: The Natural Intelligence Tzaddi – A Fish Hook
Astrological: .Venus in Pisces, The 12th House.
Constellation: The Pleaides or The Pole Star – Polaris
Sacred Gemstone: Meteorite or Star-stone
The next Arcanum in this series can be viewed by clicking on the following link:
