Master craftsman

Today's card from the Sol Invictus Tarot by Kim Huggens and Nic Phillips is 3 of Coins, represented by Wayland the Smith.

You don't need to know anything about Wayland the Smith in order to understand this card. I can't see how any aspect of his back story would have much of a bearing on how it is interpreted in a reading. Clearly from the image, Wayland is a blacksmith and master craftsman who makes everything from the humble horseshoe, to decorative shields, to fine jewelry, and perhaps even coins. (The coins in the curiously skewed perspective of the foreground may be his work, or his payment. It's not clear.) You don't really need to notice that the sun on the shield is the symbol on the backs of the Sol Invictus Tarot cards, or recognise the White Horse of Uffington, or notice that the rock formation seen out his window is Wayland Smithy in Berkshire, although it might make you feel a bit smug that you know all these thing without looking at the companion book. ;) The most important thing is that he is doing the work of master craftsman, and doing it very well. It's hard work, demanding, something he must pour sweat and labour into. But this card isn't just about the work being hard (that would be more the 8 of Coins, which also signifies somewhat boring, repetitive, sometimes 'soul destroying' types of rote work--though sometimes not!). The 3 of Coins also celebrates the skill of an artist who can take one thing and shape it into another. It's the joy of the process of creating, the satisfaction of doing good work, the pride of seeing what you've made and knowing it's the best there is.

One of my favourite cards that captures this feeling really well is the 3 of Coins card from the Vanessa Tarot (Lynyrd Jym Narciso, US Games). Here you have a seamstress in her shop, having just completed a lovely gown, knowing the Vanessa Tarot, it's most likely for some celebrity!  The seamstress looks extremely pleased with herself, and the sun glinting through the window sprays off the gown in rays like the spangles of a star. Why, there's practically choirs singing in the background. Sol Invictus, being the beefy Divine Masculine deck that it is, has chosen a sweaty smith to convey the same idea of hard work done proudly and well.

What this card might have to do with my day today I am not sure, because my main objective is to get 5.00 and be done with it! Alas, I have to work tomorrow as well. Never mind! Whatever I do today, may I do it in the spirit of 3 of Coins, and do my best at it.

Mercury is in retrograde

What will that mean for the rest of this week?

Okay, looks like some disappointment, then, and possibly rainy weather. Well, that's appropriate, as it's been raining and is in the forecast. :)

In this card, Apollo grieves for the loss of his mortal friend, Hyacinth. Apparently, Apollo and Hyacinth enjoyed playing sport together, and Zephyr got jealous, so when Apollo threw a discus, Zephyr blew it off course, striking Hyacinth in the head, killing him. Nice!

The 3 of Swords usually does indicate heartbreak, grieving or disappointment of some kind. I won't be surprised if when I get to work I find that the entire network server is down. Typical mercury retrograde type stuff!

Today's card was drawn from the Sol Invictus Tarot, by Kim Huggens and Nic Phillips. Now watch me get rained on on my walk to work! ;)

How the heck do you say 'Huitzilopochtli'?!

And why would you put him on the Ace of Coins?

Click here to hear it said

That was easy enough, but figuring out why Sol Invictus Tarot creators Kim Huggens and Nic Phillips chose 'Wheat-see-la-poached-lee' as the Ace of Coins is a bit more of a mystery. I must admit to being completely ignorant of Aztec mythology, so the name meant nothing to me when I drew this card this morning. I tried to read the 3 pages of densely packed text in the companion book explaining all about Huitzilopochtli, but I get very frustrated if I can't see an immediate connection between the back story of a card and its traditional meaning. This is why I usually dislike decks that are too heavily themed. I dislike when deck creators seem to have to labour hard to create a tenuous link to the traditional meaning, or worse, give elaborate back stories to the card illustration, then provide the traditional divinatory meaning which seems to have no connection to the illustration whatsoever. That's not to say this is what happens in the Ace of Coins of Sol Invictus, but it's the first truly frustrating card I've encountered so far in the deck. (Admittedly it's early days with it!)

To make a very long story mercifully short, 'Wheat-see-la-poached-lee' seems to have been the primary Aztec god, and was a god of war and the sun. Like many gods of various traditions, he sprang from his mother fighting his siblings, and slew 400 of them to defend her...each night he journeys to the underworld to do battle with darkness and emerges victorious the next morning to provide the day's light. Okay, that's familiar. But what has the sun god got to do with the Ace of Coins? Battle for earthly power, material wealth...possibly...I can sort of see that. But for this card to work for me, I'm going to have to make it work through imagery alone.

So, at the top of the card, the blazing sun, Huitzilpochtli, is actually a giant shining coin, hovering over a temple. In the foreground is a marketplace. There are small figures of people in the background walking, carrying things, greeting each other, trading presumably. On the market stalls we see food, drink, jewelry, weapons--all the things that would have been very important to this war-like Aztec culture, I would think. When you look at the card as a whole, it certainly reminds me of this image:

Eye of Providence

It's the 'Eye of Providence', seen on US currency. To my mind, this card instantly makes me think of money, wealth, commerce, material gain, etc, because it is so similar to an image from the currency I grew up with. So in that way, I can instantly associate it with the Ace of Coins, particularly as I also associate this image with the one dollar bill, the piece of US currency that is most in transaction and that is the basis of accumulated wealth. I mean, you can't have a million dollars before you've got one dollar, right? So...Ace of Coins. Beginning of the material realm.

The market stalls also help me understand the meaning of the card, because Ace of Coins is all about physical health (the food), abundance, competition for material success, pretty much anything to do with inhabiting a body and surviving on the earth.

So, I don't get why 'Wheaties' was chosen for the card, but the picture works for me, anyway. AND it's appropriate for my daily draw, as today is the first weigh-in for a weight loss group I joined online, and I've embarked on a personal challenge to complete 260 workouts over the next 365 days. All earthly concerns!

Shantideva--'Divine peace'

I didn't realise that Shantideva wrote 'Way of the Bodhisattva' until I drew this card and read about it in the Sol Invictus companion book.

The card shows Shantideva resting under a tree. Sanskrit words lead from his head to a floating, shining cup, reminiscent of the Holy Grail. Nearby, three of Shantideva's fellow monks have their tea from the three remaining cups of this Four of Cups card. In the background is the temple/monastery where they live. The traditional Four of Cups card generally shows a solitary person under a tree, surrounded by three cups while being offered a fourth cup by a hand from above. The figure is usually ignoring this cup, and the card is taken to mean boredom, being uninterested or unwilling to partake of what life has to offer, not seeing what is on offer before you... In this card, it is not Shantideva who is ignoring the shining cup in the sky. He is directly connected to it. It's the three bikkhus who seem to be ignorant of what's on offer. Two of the monks are staring at Shantideva, as if in judgement or as if laughing at him, while the third, pointing his finger skyward, seems to have launched himself into some long speech, or perhaps he is merely distracted by the beauty of the day and has lost himself in a revery. I've just noticed that Shantideva seems to be resting beside a pool on which is floating a lotus blossom. Water is a symbol of hidden depths and the subconscious, as well as the emotions, while of course lotus flowers represent enlightenment. Shantideva is hooked in to enlightenment in this card. It's the men in the background of the card who are oblivious to the fourth cup and all it represents. Why? Because they are distracted by their cup of tea, their conversation, their silent (or perhaps not silent!) judgement of Shantideva for sleeping when he should be awake, even perhaps by the beauty of the day. But instead of sermonising to the others or sitting and thinking about things, Shantideva has surrendered himself fully to the experience of the day and the moment, to the extent that he can meet his physical need of sleep in good conscience.

I didn't know that Shantideva was the source of the important Mahayana work, 'Way of the Bodhicitta,' until I read about it in the Sol Invictus companion book. There are several nice retellings of the story of Shantideva online. I enjoyed this one very much:

Shantideva, from the blog 'Bodicharya: Awakening the Heart by Opening the Mind'

To summarize, Shantideva was not thought highly of by his fellow pupils/monks because he never did anything. He was always seen to be lazing about doing nothing, and of course this caused terrible resentment. They wanted to get rid of him, but he had broken no rules, so they decided to try to humiliate him to get him to leave, and pushed him into agreeing to teach a large group of people. They built a throne for him to sit on, to further humiliate him. But on the day, Shantideva surprised them all by delivering extemporaneously the text of 'Way of the Bodhisittva'. And he was then lifted up and disappeared from view.

This is a very rich back story to draw from in order to interpret this card in a reading. You could identify with Shantideva, or the three people in the background. Perhaps the card could be telling you to pay attention to what is obvious before you, take advantage of what is on offer. Perhaps it's saying that the reward that is before you is not something to be worked for but to be surrendered to. Perhaps it's saying to let go of the judgement you are hanging onto and look at things from the point of view of the person you are judging. There may be a great teacher in your midst. In all instances, the original spirit of the Four of Cups is retained--the sense of refusing to see what is before your eyes. That shining cup is pretty darn promiment!

Open the scroll and recite

 

Today's Sol Invictus (by Kim Huggens and Nic Phillips, Schiffer Publishing) draw reflects my start on several new projects all at once. A group of friends and I have decided to band together to support one another over the next 12 months, starting from today, as we each work on our own individual goals. 

The central card, Ace of Swords, clearly represents this new beginning. The Egyptian god, Thoth, the god of writing, knowledge and wisdom, seems entirely appropriate, as the group is an online group and all our shared support will take place in writing. The heiroglyphs on the card read, 'Look, their words are set and writing. Open the scrolls and recite.' You can see a quill writing on a scroll. It has written: 'Lover of wisdom,' 'I think therefore I am,' and 'Dare to know' in Latin. These are all famous phrases. Can you identify the author of each? :)  So here I am on day one, with my written goals preparing to take wing and fly up toward transformation, as represented by the butterflies in the card. Spoken words have always been thought to have the power of creation. So the directive here is not just to open the scroll and have a look, but to open the scroll and recite.

BUT...

Change is not fun for human beings. By our nature, we don't like it. We resist it. Even if we are the ones who intiated it and wanted it, we easily come to resent it. We can easily start to think how 'UNFAIR' it all is, and how 'UNFUN' it all is. Poor us, so put upon. This is what the Five of Coins represents here. It's a card that signifies feeling left out in the cold, shut out from all things good and comfortable and familiar and safe. This particular version of Five of Coins shows Lucifer having landed, charred and despairing, in the snow just after being cast from heaven.  This is one way my new projects could go. I could start to think how HARD it is to eat well, exercise, discipline myself to daily meditation, and all the other goals I've set could quickly come to seem like a big deprivation and self-imposed banishment from all things lovely. 

On the other hand, I can approach my new project with a Four of Wands spirit, as seen in the card to the right. The card depicts the celebration of the harvest in the form of a sacrifice to Agni, the Hindu god of fire and acceptor of sacrifices. The Four of Wands always depicts a celebration of sorts, and the security of firm foundations having been set by positive action and hard work. The people at the celebration are thanking the gods, but that wheat is a creation of man, through many generations of agriculture, and that bread is a result of the hard work of man working in community. The gods didn't just hand it to the celebrants. So, I see this as a celebration of the bounty of nature that has the potential to bring forth bread from the earth, and of the spirit of man who has the drive and ambition, skills and fortitude to make it happen, while retaining the humility to give thanks to the gods for the results of his own stubborn effort. 

Which will I do? I have a choice, each day really. Will I fall into despair and rebellion and cast myself out into failure, or will I put in the work having faith that the result will be something worthy of celebration?

The words of the scroll in the Ace of Swords are pointing toward the 4 of Wands card, the prism of light refracting from the swords hilt leads toward the 4 of Wands, the tip of the quill points toward it, and even the butterflies are fluttering in that direction. Clearly I am steered toward putting in the effort, reaping the reward, and celebrating it with my community.

So, here I go! Where will I be in a year? I've written it down, and today I open the scroll. And recite.