The Movement from the Experience into the Significator

[JustLikeYou]

Emperor looks at the state of the landscape (Card 3 Empress) and the characteristics thrown out of card 10 (wheel) and begins to perceive a pattern; that there is purpose expressed there.

I actually mean more than this when I say responsibility. The Emperor is sovereign over his realm. Therefore, if there is conflict or malcontent or any kind of disharmony, it is his business to sort things out by listening and adjudicating. In terms of the human experience, this is analogous to emotional processing and the restructuring of beliefs. In terms of processing mental catalyst (which includes both contradictory beliefs and unbalanced emotions) it is not enough to simply recognize a pattern.

I associate responsibility with the Emperor because it is only through carefully and consciously taking responsibility for all of your thoughts, beliefs, desires and emotions that the emotional knots in the unconscious mind can be loosened and eventually dissolved. This process lies firmly within the mind, for therapists facilitate this process without ever invoking any spiritual experiences.

I put a lot of the work of discovery on the poor Emperor.

And I burden him further with the work of acceptance and forgiveness.

Death is one of those cards to me. The Hierophant is the incarnate soul. It has the sum of past lives (biases, understandings, state of spiritual development, etc.) It's a pretty big deal with the concept reincarnation and soul progression over many lifetimes.

I think you've nailed the Hierophant.

But the Hanged Man is (IMO) a juxtaposition to de-emphasize the Body. We humans associate too much with our bodies and can be very limiting. The "lesson" of this card is to free ourself from the body as an end in and of itself. We are not down here for our body. We are in a body to work on spiritual development. It's a relatively simple, albeit life changing kind of concept.

You're right that the body needs some de-emphasis in our society, but at the same time it also needs lots of appreciation and acceptance. The body is inborn with as many biases as the mind. We call them "genes". I'm not sure that we are in agreement that humans need to be "freed" from the body as an end in and of itself. The body is to be experienced--as are all things. The purpose of life is not to evolve; the purpose of life is to experience. Evolution is merely the method by which experience occurs. We evolve because we are tired of the same old experiences and want something more satisfying. This is the same reason that children move from one interest to another in the course of their development.

So, to me, Sun and Hanged Man are simpler concepts, more like placeholders in the column. That may be my bias. Maybe the concept of reincarnation is the one that hit me hardest. And once I "got" that, the fact that the body is just a temporary vehicle seemed kind of obvious. So Hanged Man has seemed relatively straight forward. The Sun might be very charged for someone who came to tarot from organized religion. The concept that God is okay with what we call "evil" might be a very charged concept The most self-serving dictator is loved too? Really? There is no hell? No eternal punishment for that kind of stuff? So the Sun is a great card to ponder when you read the daily news. These people doing (supposed) bad/evil things are loved as much as the saints!?!

We clearly disagree about the Sun. I do not associate this archetype with the One Infinite Creator. The reason for this is that the OIC is not part of 3rd density experience. All of these archetypes represent something within us, but the OIC as such is not part of that experience--it stands well outside 3rd density as the foundation of all existence. Rather, the divine within is a more resonant interpretation of this card for me.

I agree that these are aspects of the Moon. Confusion is part of the Fool archetype, not the Moon.

How so? I see naiveté, not confusion, in that card. The very first time we come into incarnation on the Earth Life School is going to be quite a ride.

I am using the word "confusion" in the sense of the Law of Confusion. Pardon my failure to mention that. The Fool is a direct consequence of the veiling, the utter absense of knowledge. Hence the Law of Confusion serves to protect the Fool.

That said, you are right: the Fool's "confusion" is more like naiveté.

I put all the "tempering" into card 14 (Temperance). It is the processing of mental, physical and spiritual catalyst for me. I don't see the figure in the Star as being a person at all, just a personification of a concept. Her feet do not sink into the water like a person's would. They float. This, to me, is a critical visual cue that the figure in that card is not supposed to be a person at all. Faith is a passive concept, adopted in the dim starlight to hold onto a belief in God and spirit and purpose. Those of STS use this faith not at all. Their "waters" (left hand pouring) go back to the sea of emotional water/spirit unused. Those of STO (right hand pouring) cultivate growing plants and light as those waters fall upon the land. The card does not evoke characteristics of a person (naked and vulnerable) because it is a drawing of a concept which is naked because it is not a person.

I use words in order to describe, so please be mindful that we may use them in different ways. I grasp what you mean by your association of "termpering" with 14, but I mean the word differently than you do, as I will describe later.

As far as your interpretation of 17, I can only say that we disagree.

I don't see a seeker in the Sun. I see the Seeker in the Fool.

Good point. Perhaps my terms are too loose here. To me, the Sun is the pure, harmonic, sacred experience of the spirit in its fullness. In those moments when we grasp that there is nothing to do and nowhere to go, that we are always and ever embraced by the infinite love of the divine acting through the all-wise, all-loving inner Logos, in those very moments, we are resonating with archetype 19. The Sun is the inner temple where we sometimes find ourselves, but would like to always be.

So the spiritual seeker is seeking to find the temple and to learn to carry it wherever it should find itself. The Fool seems to me to be a seeker in search of an adventure. But the spiritual self, depicted by the Sun, is the part of the self that has a gravity; it pulls us in, whether we are conscious of it or not. In response to this pull, we seek in a spiritual sense. We rarely know what we seek or how close to us it really is, hence "Few there are which are successful in grasping the light of the sun."

Sometimes good things happen (white dog) but they lead to an easy life and the dark pyramid is not explored (or noticed). A person is lead into complacency and does not strive in that lifetime to "see." Sometimes bad things happen (dark dog) and the catalyst of that leads to seeing the white pyramid, and seeing that spirit brought you that unpleasant dog on purpose.

What you are describing here is either bodily or mental catalyst--probably mental, since your associations match the black and white servants of the Hierophant. Bodily catalyst is either comfortable or uncomfortable and mental is either preferred or not. The spirit does not interpret "good" things or "bad" things in these senses. It may be hidden to itself, as in the case of the Matrix, #15, but that which is hidden is only viewed as "bad" by those who are spiritually asleep.

The Lightning experience (#16) usually brings with it catalyst for body and mind (discomfort and "bad" things happening), but these are peripheral. The center of the Lightning's action is to reveal the terrain of the Matrix. The Lightning opens the spiritual eye to greater truths, whether they are truths about the universe or truths about the self. This sudden awakening changes everything. People who have these experiences normally find within themselves a brand new motivation, something deeper, more fulfilling, more spiritual. If you haven't experienced this yourself, then surely you know someone who has. Something happens (perhaps an NDE or and OBE) and a person just can't go on living the standard life. She is compelled to do something meaningful.

To the extent that the Seeker sees all catalyst (both white and dark dogs) as revealing important life lessons, a person can remain balanced and progress quickly between those two towers to the greater truth beyond/between them.

This suggests that there ought to be more archetypes to identify what lies "beyond/between." My interpretation of these Pyramids is that they represent the Great Work, one STO, the other STS.

Nevertheless, while seeing life lessons in the experience is important, it is still only a mental experience. The spiritual experience is a much different animal. Once the mind is sufficiently balanced, then the work of the spirit begins. But this work is predicated on the assumption that you've already cultivated habits of mindfulness, acceptance, forgiveness, a synthetic interpretation of reality, AND the wisdom and temperance necessary for bodily balance.

So what is left? Why the Great Work, of course. What is this? That depends upon the person. The spirit is only comfortable in a spontaneous environment: you must allow the spirit to move through your mind and your body into manifestation. Artists are often able to tap into this experience easily. In the process of releasing the bonds of material attachment, what remains is the undeniable pull of the deep inner drive, which I call the vocation or the calling. It is only in undertaking this work that each of us is capable of serving in our greatest capacity...but it is frightening. It requires complete faith, utter abandon, a willingness to forgo all security and certainty, under the assumption that the spirit is leading us aright. The willingness do engage in this experiment, which most people around you will think is completely absurd, is the catalyst of the spirit.

An example: I was married to a woman for about 8 years. In the course of that 8 years, we together hit rock-bottom (through a kind of co-dependency) and then experienced simultaneous spiritual awakenings. Over the course of the four years that followed, we both learned to become the people we always wanted to be. Our relationship became about as harmonious as you can imagine in a marriage. It was beautiful. We were completely honest with each other, supportive, loving, all that good stuff.

But one day the Lightning struck me. In a flash of sudden awakening I realized that the unsettled feeling that I had always had about our marriage (a feeling that was directly related to our rock-bottom experience) had still not dissipated, despite the incredible harmony between us. In that awakening I discovered that the center of that feeling was the awareness that I was not and never had been comfortable with the idea that she and I would be life-partners. The relationship felt right, all 12 years of it, but the idea that it would be for life did not feel right.

Because our relationship was based on honesty, I told her this. It quickly became clear that we were going to have to separate. No one in the world understood this. They all thought I was either crazy or stupid for letting go of such a beautiful relationship. But it didn't matter. I knew it was right.

And this is the essence of spiritual catalyst: you know it's right, despite all evidence to the contrary. But this is a very dangerous place to be. Why? Because what if your sense of what is right is really coming from a place of imbalance that is disguising itself as the pull of the heart?

The shadow, or the rejected self, tries to stay hidden. But in order to stay hidden, it must be fed in certain ways. In my case, there was no manual that instructed me on how to navigate this experience. My divorce was not like any other divorce I have ever heard of. I had to beat my own path. I had to rely heavily and almost exclusively on my sense of what was right for me. I had to learn how to be loving, understanding, supportive and adaptive while also creating distance between us without building resentment. I didn't always tread that fine balance as well as I'd have liked to. But the reason I was able to prevent resentment is that I was careful to make sure that my actions did not originate in an agenda hidden even from myself--or at least that it did not happen very often.

The Moon is all about becoming aware of the shadow's hidden agenda. You can easily see the consequences of not doing so: every false guru or self-important yoga teacher is an example of a person who attempted to walk in the faith of the spirit, but failed to discern between heart and shadow.

...I did not intend to go on so long. I hope that clarifies what I am attempting to describe here.