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The Path of Aquarius connecting The Moon and Venus
TREE OF LIFE DIVINATIONS: PERSONAL AND TRANSPERSONAL ASSOCIATION CHAINS
Experiences with Universal Consciousness are rarely if ever predictable. During your spiritual practices, you might expect to experience a sense of divine union but instead experience a brilliant white light that penetrates the core of your being, or you might instead be healed of some disease, or you might instead understand the negative systems of belief associated with racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia, or you might instead experience the inspiration to write the opening paragraph of an essay. An experience with the Tarot is also unpredictable, but mainly because the archetypal energies represented by the symbolism affect us on both a personal and a transpersonal level. All dealings with the Tarot are inevitably multidimensional, and examining the relationships of the Tarot and the Tree of Life is essential for a full understanding of the meaning of the cards.
The landscape of the Tarot features a pictorial language of symbols, much like the imagery in a dream. Whenever you are dealing with an array of Tarot cards for any reason, you encounter a symbolic association chain, which is partly transpersonal and partly personal. The transpersonal aspects are classified clearly in astrological and elemental terms, but most of the personal aspects remain classifiable purely in psychological terms because they relate to the particular history and character of the individual. Since we can identify the type of cosmic energy at play, the transpersonal aspect is essentially objective, but the personal remains primarily subjective. A symbol dreamt by one person might have a different meaning in the context of someone else’s dreamscape even though it still retains some of the basic meanings. A bear in a dream, for instance, might be threatening to one person and attractive to another. That is why a divination might stray from the transpersonal classifications to shed light on the personal level: The Tarot reader often intuitively focuses on how the archetypal energies are uniquely affecting the individual.
Dreams often work in symbolic association chains, which only the individual can truly interpret based on his or her own history. Since the Tarot cards are like symbols in a dream, you can create your own association chain of Tarot symbolism for the purposes of ritual, always recognizing the dual nature of the cards: personal and transpersonal. Any layout that you devise will have an objective, transpersonal aspect and meanings that remain uniquely your own. Anyone else reading the spread will inevitably have some of their own personal interpretations and insights about transpersonal symbolism. You must give yourself the freedom to allow uniquely personal meanings while respecting the transpersonal meanings, which include the astrological and elemental correspondences.
For example, my zodiac sign is Aquarius. On the Tree of Life, the Tarot card associated with Aquarius, known as The Star, connects the ninth Emanation associated with the Moon, known as The Foundation (Yesod), with the seventh Emanation associated with Venus, known as Victory (Netzach). Venus has always been a powerful influence in my life, especially in terms of my love for the arts and nature. As you can see in the example above, the ninth and seventh Emanations, associated respectively with the Tarot cards The High Priestess (The Moon) and The Empress (Venus), as well as with the connecting path representing Aquarius (The Star), all brim with feminine energy. The mythological principles of the three paths emphasize the openness and receptivity associated with the divine feminine. The mythological principle associated with The Moon is "The Descent of the Divine," which suggests that the influence of The Moon within the imagination creates an openness to the divine energies of Universal Consciousness. The mythological principle of Aquarius is "The Opening of the Heart," which suggests that the openness to divinity can lead to greater compassion and understanding of all life. The mythological principle of Venus is "The Marriage of Heaven and Earth," which suggests that feminine openness and receptivity leads to an understanding that all energy is holy as it manifests in all dimensions of the cosmos, including the physical world.
Twenty years ago, after I mentally purified my chakras during meditation, I repeatedly experienced a vision of a golden, equal-armed cross, also known as a "solar cross," which in my vision featured an indistinct angel at each end. This vision eventually made me aware of two powerful rituals that include the Archangels of the Elements: the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP) and the Supreme Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram (SIRP). Since then, I have practiced both rituals at least once a day (often more than once). So I suppose that it is only natural that I occasionally begin a Tree of Life divination featuring a solar cross with the Archangels represented by Tarot cards: Raphael in The Lovers, representing Air; Michael in Temperance, representing Fire; Gabriel in Judgement, representing Water; and Auriel in The World, representing Earth.
A quick note: Gabriel, I have discovered, is associated with different ways that energy manifests within the dimensions of Universal Consciousness. Gabriel is positioned in the LBRP and the SIRP in the quadrant of the element of Water, which is appropriate since Gabriel is traditionally associated with Water and the Moon. However, the Tarot card Judgement, which features the Archangel Gabriel, represents the element of Fire, as well as the mythological principle of "Rebirth through Fire." In the Tarot card Judgement, the ghost-like figures of the dead are rising from the astral waters to experience the purification of Aether, spiritual Fire, which is different from the element of Fire represented by the Ace of Wands. Judgement reveals spiritual fire, Fire on a higher arc associated with spiritual purification of the astral body.
The Solar Cross with Venus as the Central Force
Recognizing the influence of Venus as my life has unfolded, I positioned The Empress in the center of the solar cross and created a living image of her, and then I performed a divination using the Tree of Life as my multidimensional symbolic map. I asked the Angel of the Tarot to reveal the influence of Venus in my life, and then, after thoroughly shuffling the deck, I dealt out ten cards, as follows:
The Tree of Life Spread Associated with Venus
The first card I dealt, The Emperor, who represents Aries, is the male counterpart of The Empress, who represents Venus. The decan of the Four of Wands, Lord of Perfected Work, is "Venus in Aries." The Tree of Life Association of the Four of Wands is Jupiter, which is represented by the seventh card in the spread: The Wheel of Fortune. With these four cards, I can build an elemental triangle representing the Four of Wands, which reveals that Venus is a powerful inspiration behind my life's work as well as my attempts to perfect it. (See below.)
Elemental Triangle for the Four of Wands
Due, I believe, to my unconscious need to provide sacred reciprocity, I have devoted much of my personal life to the protection of the natural world, often at great personal cost. This is represented by two cards that suggest self-sacrifice: The Hanged Man and the Ten of Swords. Unfortunately, the "feminine" energies associated with Venus, which I have manifested in my music, writing, artwork and political activism, tend to threaten people, especially men. For instance, when I was a junior in high school, I took a poetry-writing class. A huge jock, who was taking the same poetry-writing class, also happened to be in my PE class. One day during PE we were playing water polo, and I and two other guys were struggling to pull the ball away from the jock. He punched me hard in the face and claimed that I was grabbing him between the legs. (He called me a "faggot" and actually used the word beginning with the letter "b" in reference to his crotch.) The PE teachers did absolutely nothing about his savage assault or his obscene lie. This experience, which I'm pretty sure occurred because in class I was enthusiastic about poetry, happened a week or so after my father died of a heart attack, which made it more difficult for me from that point on to survive the rest of high school. Many others have attempted to discourage or undermine me because of my art, writing, music and political activism, often the people closest to me. Based on appearances, I am an average, heterosexual male, but in this society, any male who actively manifests the feminine energies of The Moon, Aquarius, and Venus, which includes the mythological principles of "The Descent of the Divine" and "The Opening of the Heart" and "The Marriage of Heaven and Earth," is often viewed as unacceptably effeminate, a menacing outlier--to a surprising number of people. Unfortunately I have gotten to the point that I am afraid to reveal those aspects of myself to others.
Cards representing Sacrifice
In a capitalistic, patriarchal society, men are supposed to be strong and competitive and dominating and pragmatic, not open and creative and understanding and compassionate, which is unfortunate because the path of Venus, the seventh Emanation of Victory, can lead to the Christ-center, the Emanation of Beauty, which features spiritual experiences known as "The Vision of Harmony" and "The Mysteries of Sacrifice." You might remember that the powerful feminine energies of The Empress are paired with the dynamic masculine energies of The Emperor, and both of the connecting paths associated with these two cards literally and figuratively lead to "Wisdom" ("Chokmah" in Hebrew) on the Tree of Life. On the physical plane, each of us is dual in nature, both feminine and masculine. If the feminine or masculine side of a person is nipped in the bud, the other side tends to wither away, leaving the person without Glory or Power or Beauty on the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual levels.
On the Tree of Life, the planets each represent an Emanation and a connecting path. To that point, it is interesting to note that The Sun symbolically represents both the sixth Emanation, the Christ-center known as Beauty, and a path that connects the ninth Emanation of The Moon with the eighth Emanation of Mercury. The mythological principle associated with The Sun is "The Awakening of the Mind," which for Mercury, who represents the eighth Emanation, suggests the awakening of reason. For the sixth Emanation, the mythological principle might more precisely be stated as the awakening of divinity within the mind, for the God name of the Emanation of The Sun, the mystical state where all ten Emanations are united as one, is YHVH Eloah Va Daath, which can be interpreted as "the awakening of the knowledge of God and Goddess in the mind."
The Ten of Swords and the Eight of Pentacles on the Tree
Two cards that I dealt myself bear this out. The decan of the Ten of Swords is The Sun in Gemini. The Sun, as I mentioned, on the Tree of life is the state of the awakened higher self, which knows the harmony of the fields upon fields of divine energy within the cosmos and understands the need for personal sacrifice to neutralize unbalanced forces and bring them into harmony. The figure in the Ten of Swords has experienced both, which is why his fingers are curled into a sign of blessing--even after ten swords have been thrust into his back. The decan of the Eight of Pentacles is The Sun in Virgo. The artisan is creating pentacles, which represent the harmony of the elements and the triplicities of the zodiac and the ruling planets. Work is almost always a kind of sacrifice. The figure in the Eight of Pentacles is, in other words, through his creative acts, which involve sacrifice, helping to establish and maintain harmony for himself and his community.
Eight and Nine of Pentacles (both associated with Virgo)
Both the Eight and Nine of Pentacles are associated with Virgo. The decan for the Nine of Pentacles is Venus in Virgo, and the Tree of Life Association is The Moon in Yesod (The Foundation), which suggests to me that the creative use of the imagination is a feminine power that can create and maintain a world of beauty instead of the kind of horrors that we witness on a daily basis due to the extremes of masculinity and patriarchy.
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