All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.
ELEMENTAL TRIANGLES: CHANGE YOUR MIND AND CHANGE YOUR LIFE
Once, during my ritual, I attempted to neutralize a portion of the negative energy in the collective consciousness of humanity, but without much success. I felt stuck in negativity. At the beginning of the ritual, I heard a voice that stated matter-of-factly, "Eliminate negative systems." I wasn't quite sure what that meant, and I tried to find different ways of dealing with the problem but just couldn't manage to find a solution. Later that day, I traveled to the mountains, and as I was hiking next to a creek, ravished by the tiger lilies and columbine and wild roses, I unexpectedly felt completely free of negativity and drenched with peace. The next day, as I was performing my ritual, I envisioned what appeared to be computer systems mired in black energy. I didn't quite understand the vision and consequently again did not feel successful in neutralizing the negativity. After I finished my ritual, I felt an overwhelming urge to return again to the creek. I almost never go out to the mountains two days in a row, especially now that the price of gas is so high, but my pendulum insisted that I go back. After hiking next to the creek for awhile, I suddenly felt completely free once more: I felt peace emanating from the trees and flowers and rocks and water, a peace manifesting in the natural world but also transcending it: a peace from the Source of all Creation. And as I sat by the creek, that peace more and more felt like universal love emanating from the heart of creation, and my heart responded: I felt love for the creek and the trees and the flowers and for Universal Consciousness in all of its diversity and all of its dimensions, and I experienced an epiphany: on the spiritual level, love can heal and cleanse and bless and harmonize negative systems of belief--as well as negativity within the collective consciousness of humanity. I have not experienced any difficulties in my daily ritual since then.
Pink Mariposa Lily
These days, we can feel despair even if we don't have any personal problems. Sometimes problems in the world, like the threat of extinction from climate disruption and the rise of fascism and the risk of nuclear annihilation and the failures of capitalism to address crises such as the pandemic and recurring economic crashes--sometimes it's all too much, and I feel trapped in a system of a down. I worry that my children and grandchildren will end up living hand to mouth in a heartless social system ruled by the rich, a totalitarian system that can't or won't deal in any meaningful way with climate disruption and pandemics and recurring economic crises and the inequality of wealth. The capitalist class, the upper one percent, appears only to be able to concern itself with accumulating more wealth and gaining more power.
I worry that capitalism will mire my children and grandchildren in fear and anxiety and debt their entire lives. Now, at one of the worst moments in this country's history, after a health and economic crisis that has battered people in this country for several years, the ultra-rich continue to rob the middle and lower classes through debt peonage. The average American household mortgage debt is $189,586--with a total of $9.44 trillion owed collectively in the US. The next biggest debt is student loans, with the average amount per American household being $46,822. The average auto loan debt is $27,804 and the average credit card debt per household is $5,135 (1). No other population in any country in the history of the world has ever experienced such a debt burden-- and something has got to give: debt bubbles will keep bursting because wages remain stagnant or chronically low in relation to the cost of living, and prices keep rising, and the difficulty of paying off debts just keeps increasing. Nevertheless, one percent of the people in this country, the employer class that controls prices, keep gouging us with inflation even as we are still dealing with personal debts caused by the pandemic and the economic crisis--on top of the debt we have already accumulated.
Eight of Swords: Jupiter in Gemini
We see and experience the negative impacts of minority rule on so many levels: a handful of people own half the wealth in the world, and the super-rich own the politicians and the judges who are determining the fate of the planet and our ability to survive as individuals with any quality of life or privacy or control over our own bodies. In the US, a tiny minority of wealthy people have turned one of our two parties into a neo-fascist gang of liars and clowns that strives mightily to benefit the rich and cut the social safety net. Our so-called political representatives over the years have allowed the military to waste many trillions of dollars on unwinnable and unjustifiable wars and on weapons of mass annihilation, more than the other top ten industrialized nations combined, but our representatives don't do anything to create an effective universal health-care system that would enable people to receive necessary care without bankrupting their families. Imagine for a moment that the representatives of the richest country in the world might change priorities and provide universal healthcare--as a right, not a privilege--like all other industrialized nations in the world. Imagine how much more effectively we as a country could deal with pandemics through immediate testing and quarantining and care, with a data system that could track the spread of the disease. This country has lost over 1,127,000 people to Covid (2). In contrast, US military deaths since WW1 have totaled over 600,000 (3). CNN reports that the US has 4% of the world's population but 25% of the world's Covid cases (4). Imagine not having to deal with the horror of losing well over a million of our family members and friends and neighbors again.
Nine of Swords: Mars in Gemini
This rant unfortunately makes me feel more hopeless, and the more I dwell on this system of a down, the more I want to lash out in anger. I could do a few things on the political level in an effort to transform the negative systems that are harming our country and our world, but my question is, how can I make the negative systems of belief within myself disappear so that I can create greater harmony in myself and the world? Immersing myself in the tranquility of the natural world is one way, but I cannot do that every day, or even twice a month. I can, however, through meditation and ritual, experience a mental and emotional state even more profound than what I experience in nature, and through love for myself and my family and humanity, I can eliminate negativity in myself and others. From this point on, for awhile at least, I am going to reveal the basics of several Tarot Rituals, which, if you practice them, can result in inner peace and harmony and a greater sense of the sacredness of all life.
Elemental Triangle for Nine of Swords: Mars in Gemini, Moon in Yesod
The Nine of Swords reveals how despair can lead to cruelty. The swords pierce the spiritual energy centers of the heart, the throat, the third-eye, and the crown, and black out spiritual awareness. At first glance, our ally appears to be suffering from the effects of cruelty, which is a vice of Mars stemming from unbalanced force in the fifth Emanation, or she might be suffering from grief, which is a common result of the constant change associated with the Moon. However, on the level associated with the element of Air in the ninth Emanation, the influences of Mars and Gemini can also be felt on a deeper level. The scene suggests that a blockage of the life-force between the higher and lower energy centers in the aura causes the despair. Stress and trauma from dysfunction and cruelty can close or block the chakras. Gemini symbolizes the dual nature of the self, the physical and spiritual aspects of the human being. Our ally is covering her eyes, blinding herself to the spiritual dimension. All levels of being are connected, and this is no different in the chakra system of the aura. One of the great powers associated with Mars is the ability to burn away negativity in order to balance the higher chakras with the lower chakras, allowing the life-force to flow harmoniously through the whole energy system, both upward and downward. When a blockage exists between the spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical levels, the life-force on the lower levels, which includes the sex-life (associated with the Moon), is adversely affected, and weakness and psychological suffering and despair can result. It’s no accident that for our ally the spiritual dimension is blacked out and the lower half of the body is covered. There is always hope, however. On the blanket are red roses, red symbolically associated with both Mars and romantic love. Also on the blanket are astrological signs, a reminder that the psyche always has the potential to balance the life-forces and regain the health of spirit, mind and body.
Elemental Triangle for Nine of Swords with the Queen of Swords
Nowadays, most of us must deal to some degree with despair in ourselves and others. A simple way through ritual to deal with this condition is by creating a Tarot Elemental Triangle for the Nine of Swords. As shown above, the decan association is Mars in Gemini, and the Tree of Life Correspondence is The Moon in Yesod (The Foundation). Since the suit of Swords is associated with the element of Air, you would need to create or imagine an upward pointing triangle with The Tower (Mars) across from The Lovers (Gemini) at the bottom, and The High Priestess (The Moon) at the top, and with the Nine of Swords in the middle of the triangle. During the ritual, out loud or in your head, you can mention the difficulties you are experiencing that might make you want to lash out at individuals or groups. Then take a deep breath and imagine releasing your negativity. I recommend that you meditate for awhile at this point, imagining all the negativity draining away from you and burning up in the fires under the surface of the earth. When you feel that the negativity is gone, cover the Nine of Swords with the Queen of Swords, one of the most emotionally balanced and grounded figures in the Tarot deck, then see yourself filled with light, and feel the love of Universal Consciousness within your being.
The Magician
Imagine creating a living image with the Queen of Swords manifesting all the energies present in the elemental triangle. The Queen of Swords is already one of the most balanced figures in the suit of Swords, but The High Priestess takes that awesome sense of balance to a cosmic level: The High Priestess sits on her throne with a deep inner connection to all the dimensions of the Tree of Life and the Universal Mind. The lightning bolt of Mars, as disruptive as it can be sometimes, strikes us once in awhile in order to shake us up and burn away what no longer serves us so that we can manifest greater harmony and balance in our lives--as well as greater personal power, strength, discipline, and courage. The Tarot card The Lovers reveals paradise regained through the integration of the self and alignment with the Healer of God, Archangel Raphael, and with Universal Consciousness, the Source of all Creation. Through the ritual use of the Tarot Elemental Triangle, in other words, we can move from despair and cruelty to a positive and harmonious and even magical state of mind--and feel all the powerful subtle energies of the elemental triangle manifesting within us as well.
The Nine of Swords depicts an extremely dark, adverse circumstance, but like The Magician, through ritual intention you can powerfully transform negativity into harmony. Other cards with adverse circumstances include the Five of Pentacles; the Five, Eight, and Ten of Swords; and the Five of Cups. As with the Nine of Swords, you can transform an adverse circumstance in a Number Card by focusing on the decan association and Tree of Life correspondence. Some cards, however, can reveal circumstances that are neither totally positive nor disagreeably negative. With cards that reveal negative qualities that are necessarily part of a difficult process or situation, for instance, you can focus on the positive qualities of the decan association and Tree of Life correspondence in a transformative way. All of this will be revealed in more detail in upcoming posts as we explore the Number Cards. Right now, we are focusing on the basics, but eventually I will present spiritual practices that can supercharge these Tarot Rituals.
1) https://shiftprocessing.com/american-debt/
2) https://covid19.who.int/region/amro/country/us
3) https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/slideshows/u-s-military-deaths-by-war-since-wwi
4) https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/30/health/us-coronavirus-toll-in-numbers-june-trnd/index.html
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