Songs of Shame and Failure

Songs of Shame and Failure

This morning, when I was setting out to finish this whatever it is, I had the idea to do a tarot reading for the World. Ordinarily I don’t do predictive readings, Tarot being the most ancient book of wisdom. While I do have a special living-book in my “spirit bag”, since we are being playful, I’ll use a more recent version of the symbolic art. My personal one is based on the work and images in the book: “Practical Astrology” by St. Germain (still in print, hard to find the cards/leaves of the book inside the book though).

I’ll shuffle the leaves, and draw seven – representative of the coming seven days of the passion of Christ. Between each draw, the leaves will be shuffled again – with the book completely present each time. The so-called indicator is not being left out of the ongoing seeking wisdom in chaos. The draw will involve a left handed division of the book, with the indicator being the top leaf.

Moon-day: The Two of Swords, water-feeling element. Mars-day: The Eight of Cups, fire-will element. Mercury-day: The Nine of Cups, air-intellect element. Jupiter-day: The Four of Cups, earth-consciousness element. Venus-day: The Eight of Cups, water-feeling element. Saturn-day: The Six of Cups, earth-consciousness element. Sun-day: The Queen of Pentacles, fire-will element.

As to the four natures, Swords is Fire, Staffs is Intellect, Cups is Feeling, and the Coins is Earth. If there is a pattern that touched me, as a helpful hint to pondering … The first three days of the week, according to ancient lore, are fire/water/fire the earth then only once, and the last three are earth/water/earth. This daily back ground then receives Swords, Cups, Cups, Cups, Cups, Cups and then Pentacles … or, will, feeling, feeling, feeling, feeling, feeling, and last, consciousness.

It can be asked … of what value is Egyptian cosmology in the age of Steiner’s Spiritual Science? What does a thoughtful phenomenology experience?

Meanwhile – this Easter – the world shakes …

Most sane Americans knew this day was coming. After 2008, Congress and presidents fell back in line with the desires of “bankers”, the high priests of the religion of free market capitalism.

One way to see this failure is to attend to the spiritual social phenomena … our time has been called the age of the consciousness soul: aka the third shaking … where individual biographies must have crisis in order to create the good and the true. … out of themselves. Our minds look at the awful in and of the human dominated world, and find evidence of vast conspiracies as a cause of most suffering. There has to be a better Way to live.

Not surprisingly, the Son’s admonition to Judge Not is the key to understanding. Easy to say, takes Courage and art to do. Another way is that Love reveals that all the bad and evil remains mysteries until we have the Courage to ask: What does the Mystery see in this individual person, that I have yet to comprehend?

In our world today, Everyone has to make choices. The difficult part is finding the Courage to act out of the own insight. From one point of view, the banksters effect on this collective moment is an indirect effect of higher impulses, as She, who has the whole world in His Hands, is also the “composer-conductor” of a living symphony of modern social and political experience, in which we are adored individual and unique variations on a theme.

The basic instruments of the soul are the four temperaments, which have some interesting characteristics. To the ancient Egyptian priests their symbology of the elements was a scientific observation. Choleric = Fire = Will; Sanguine = Air = Intellect; Phlegmatic = Water = Feeling; and Melancholic = Earth = Consciousness, aka: the spirit world, the soul world, and the physical world, the first three being a single corporate expression. Consciousness (Earth) is made of the union of Fire (Will), Air (Intellect), of Water (Feeling)

Fire and Air, in combination = the spirit world; Air and Water in combination generate the soul world; and Water and Earth generate the physical material world. RS submits that there are four bodies: physical, life body, astral body, and spirit, or warmth, body. I’ve read in RS that the physical body is not the matter – the “stuff”, but the laws that govern materialization.

Let us not forget the ancient powers, that the Greeks called the Titans. Their hearts and hands are all over earthquakes, plagues, conquests, famine, and death. Who rules them? She, the Mother does, … with love. Even titans of industry have karma.

The ill-managed world economy is just one engine of chaos. In addition the cultural life of the world, in the sense of the influence of Ideas, such as the Dying and Becoming of “Western” Civilization, is another such engine of division as to who is right about most everything. The realm of the heart – the political-legal sphere of our social lives – is also undergoing metamorphosis, through disorder given that the law is presently most everywhere a factor of excessive order.

A bass tone – in the whole – is each one’s need to individualize themselves. As a consequence, She weaves the personal biographies into a whole tapestry of meaning. She – Fire – is the weaver; the father – Intellect – the loom, and the son – Feeling – is the infinite threads of many colors. Together They are Earth = Consciousness. At the sword point of the shuttle lie our choices. We act. The Mystery reacts.

String instruments come to mind. In Hermetic Science She is Fortune, and He is Fate. As to the Emerald Tablet, we are the microcosm. The News – as much as it gets the facts straight – is about others, whose fate is to become “teaching stories”, if we wish it so.

Should we be depressed about weather, and economic circuses? With some certainty – in America – an economic leveling has to occur. Scarcity is on the rise.

Those who like to create “markets”, need customers, and other wealth, that are not theirs to take. Ownership instead of Stewardship is the false god of the religion of free market capitalism. To create the bought and sold object crafts, we need workers. We are also consumers of what is made. To control resources we need wars, and cannon fodder to fight them.

There is no saving anything. Unless it is ourselves. The falling apart can be ridden, like a wild winged horse in a stampede of hungry lions. Not easy, yet one act can manage the core trials: surrender. Not just to the world, but also to our own nature

This is a forked-lightening path … a cascading stew of choices many, … daily. Often there are immediate consequences. Keep in mind that there is no future or past, only Now.

These meanings are from St. Germain’s book: “Practical Astrology” (still in print). {I have woven in the Seven Stages of the Passion of Christ.}

The Two Swords … foretells a duel, yet the results will not be fatal. Your partnerships will not go smoothly; and in general many obstacles will be thrown in your way. [washing the feet]

The Eight of Cups … scandals due to love affairs, or unfortunate choice of husband or wife. [the scourging]

The Nine of Cups … there will be a marriage with an elderly person, but it advises you to keep away from marriage altogether. [the crowning with thorns]

The Four of Cups … a great joy is in store for you. You will meet with strong friendships and enduring love. There will soon be an increase in your family.

[the carrying of the cross]

The Eight of Cups … scandals due to love affairs, or unfortunate choice of husband or wife. [the crucifixion]

The Six of Cups … means that there will be much indecision in your love affairs and that you will probably make a poor choice by not listening to the voice of your heart or to that of your conscience; there are also probabilities of divorce or of intrigues outside of wedlock. [the death]

In the ancient Egyptian Way, the symbol of The Mistress of the Pentacle, suggests a coming brilliant marriage or, in general the influence of one in high position willing to help you. [the resurrection]

As I was writing this, a curious thought passed by. What if the reading is about the individual, and their relationship with the Mystery? That is the love affair problematic, that weaves through all the readings.

“Don’t think I came to cause peace across the land. I didn’t come to cause peace, I came to wield a sword, because I came to divide a man against his father and a daughter against her mother and a bride against her mother-in-law, and to make a man’s servants his enemies. Whoever prefers father or mother over me is not worthy of me; and whoever prefers son or daughter over me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever found his life will lose it, and the one who lost his life because of me will find it. Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me, receives my Sender.” {Mathew 10: 34-40.}

When I quoted this in my book: The Way of the Fool, I explained its meaning this way: “Here Christ is telling us that individuality, the freedom and development of the human i-AM, is so important to the Creation, that the overcoming of the ties of blood (family values) is of greater significance, than the preservation of any tradition.”