Category: IFLA

I ain’t gonna lie:  these next two columns might not be the best divinations I’ve ever generated.  Insomnia has been kicking my ass, then between this one and the next I’ll be dealing with the horrors of air travel.  On the plus side, I’ll get to spend time with family, friends, lovers (one of whom just got dumped by her boyfriend this week!) and their respective dogs, so that’s pretty awesome.

Also, let me apologize for never actually including the music for Pisces. There you go.

Lots of alignments this week.  Terra-Luna-Jupiter = A change in home rulership/ownership.  Maybe political, maybe personal, as there is also Saturn-Venus-Luna = “ending of a relationship.”  There will be a woman involved.  And with Mercury-Saturn-Sol = “news of an ending,” if this DOES portend your relationship splitting up and someone moving out, then rest assured, EVERYONE is going to know about it.  Immediately.  The last alignment is good luck for fighting folk as Jupiter is aligned with the Sun and Mars.  Yes, “Jupiter aligned with Mars” is most assuredly NOT sign of peace, love, and hippiness.

This is a pretty cisgendernormative week.  Mars is in Taurus, so we have masculine-masculine and on the other side, we have the moon and Venus in Aquarius, so triple feminine.    In addition, we have Saturn in Capricorn which is literally “bad luck to sea-goats” which naturally extends to any sort of Tiresias-esque hybrid thingies.  This is further solidified by Sagittarius in Jupiter benefitting those people who are doing what they are “supposed” to do.  So get with those society-mandated gender roles, people!  NOTE:  This is an excellent week to verify how good I am.  If the ratings drop for drag shows with these celestial arrangements, it will be proof positive that astrology is a SCIENCE! The only really new thing is Mercury joining the Sun in Pisces, so extra good luck for Pisces, and for the rest of us, your luck will be extremely unstable, don’t count on it.

Now the cards:

Pisces:  Queen of Swords, reversed – Malice, bigotry, prudery, deceit.

Aries:  The Star – Loss, theft, Privation, hope for the future

Taurus:  9 of Cups – Concord, satisfaction with your surroundings

Gemini:  King of Swords – Power, authority

Cancer:  10 of Cups – Contentment, perfection, loyal subordinate

Leo:  6 of Coins, reversed – Desire, envy, jealousy, illusion

Virgo:  The Chariot – Succor, providence, war, triumph, trouble

Libra:  The Empress, reversed – Light, truth, unraveling of complexity

Scorpio:  King of Cups – Fair man, professional, professor, someone in your debt

Sagittarius:  2 of Wands – “No marriage possible,”  ambivalence, success not bringing fulfillment, ambition

Capricorn:  Ace of Wands, reversed – Fall, decadence, ruin.  You also get this one next week. Sorry.

Aquarius:  Death – Usually readers will tell you “death” means “change.”  Which is kind of does since death is a change from being alive.  But yeah, it means Death, ruin, destruction.  I mean look at it!  It’s a goddamned black-armored skull-headed knight riding a pale horse!  But sure it can also just mean “ending.”  It also means “politicians are evil,” as the figure is prominently displaying a Tudor rose.

When this goes live, I should be in Austin, or Houston, or maybe somewhere between them.  Since I’m not flying Delta, it is unlikely I will be stuck in Atlanta.  However, I might be because…

It’s that time again boys and girls:

MERCURY RETROGRADE

So batten down the hatches, check your supplies of food, water, gold, silver ammunition, yarn, knitting needles and crochet hooks, etc.

For this week, there are only two alignments, one good and one bad.  On the good side, we have Jupiter and Venus aligned with the Sun, bringing peace, love, justice, health and all sorts of good stuff woo.  On the bad side, we have the death of a woman foretold by Saturn doing what Saturn does in conjunction with the moon and Venus.

I feel sorry for Pisces.  You only get one month out of the year for really good luck and this year you are spending part of it hosting MERCURY RETROOGRADE.  Sucks to be you. For everyone else, do not go fishing; It will not turn out well.  Last weeks intensely polarized state has backed down quite a bit with the moon moving from Aquarius into Aries.  However, Aries isn’t exactly the sign of stability, tossing the entropy-bringing moon in there when we’re already in a state of MERCURY RETROGRADE… yikes!  If I don’t make it back, It was nice knowing everyone and I left the combination under the base of my 1983 ICO World Championship trophy.

Pisces:  The Devil, reversed – Violence, force, extraordinary efforts, predestination

Aries:  Page of Wands – Dark young man, faithful lover, postman, envoy

Taurus:  8 of Coins – Work, skill, craftsmanship

Gemini:  3 of Cups – Successful completion, celebration, happiness

Cancer:  6 of cups, reversed – Renewal, the future

Leo: 6 of Swords – journey by water

Virgo:  Strength – Strength

Libra:  The World – Assured success, flight, emigration

Scorpio:  Page of Cups, reversed – Inclination, taste, attachment, seduction, deception

Sagittarius:  8 of Cups – desertion, abandonment

Capricorn:  Ace of Wands, reversed – Fall, decadence, ruin

Aquarius:  2 of Wands, reversed – Surprise, wonder, enchantment, fear

I am a liar.

My relationship with the Truth has waxed and waned.  I was a liar from a very young age, particularly after I learned that lying could help me get away with things and contra to what my parents told me, telling the truth didn’t make things better (nor was I believed when I told the truth.)  At some point, my moral development kicked in, and I began valuing Truth for its own sake, culminating in college, where I joined a fraternity that had “Truth” as one of its cardinal principles, got a degree in the hard sciences, and began work in an analytical chemistry law-enforcement lab.  Then I became involved with a beautiful woman who believed that the value of Truth was in its utility, and had extremely persuasive arguments for that point of view (and by very persuasive arguments I mean “but dat ass doe.”)

Anyway, this puts me in good company, since lying is not only a tradition or social norm among arcanists, but is part of the very education process.  Sometimes, (such as now) people are quite overt about it.  For example, when you are building up your Thelemic library you will encounter The Book of Lies.  Which was titled as such because ol’ A.C. was becoming more arrogant and thought that his students/useful idiots needed to be explicitly told that all of his works were full of lies.  The ones that refused to have their faith in him shaken were then excellent sources of funds and substitute/short term Scarlet Women.

All occult texts suffer from internal contradictions of purpose.  They need to record the author’s discoveries, but prevent them from being stolen.  They must educate the worthy apprentice, but confound the doofus.  Sometimes key words were omitted (a practice the remains today in writings of Masonic and Masonic-derived rituals,) sometimes parts of the text are encoded, and sometimes lies are inserted, or truths misstated.  The idea being, those who had wisdom would be able to tell which parts were traps (and through their discernment of the truth would prove their worthiness to receive the secrets) while those unready would gain a flawed, useless, and harmless understanding.  Then when these false initiates would spread their error, true practitioners would be able to recognize the impostors.  This still happens today.  In my fraternity, there were bogus rituals and signs that were used specifically for situations such as your girlfriend demanding that you tell her secrets to prove you trusted her or whatever and a few times in college I had someone purporting to be a member of a different chapter slip me that faux handshake.  It was always very amusing to see the lengths people go to in order to cadge a free beer.

I mention this because I will be discussing the role of Tarot occasionally, and I want you to know why there is so much contradictory information out there.  For example, I refer to the suit of “coins,” not “pentacles.”  If you read the literature contemporary with the creation of the Waite deck, the official name is “pentacles.”  That’s one of those lies.  People who call it pentacles are either dilettantes who don’t really know what they are doing, or people who don’t respect their clients to speak to them directly.  Either way, kick them to the curb and find a different reader.  another fun fact about the Waite deck, Artie Waite switched the order of two of the cards.  This is a classic bit of misdirection.  Now the debate is, was A.E.W. correcting an earlier trap, or adding one of his own?  The consensus answer is yes, though there are multiple arguments, fat too tedious and really not worth your while to go into here.  Instead, let’s see what the heavens have in store:

This week, there is only one alignment:  Jupiter-Sol-Mercury-Mars.  This is indicative of discordant entities coming together but in a way that results in a positive outcome.  It’s good news for chefs and chemists, but bad news for sculptors and welders.

This is the first week with the sun in Pisces, so let’s get them some theme music.  Also joining the party is Mercury, so it should be a great week for all the little fishies out there.  A waning gibbous moon in Scorpio is not such good news, indicating bad moods and crankiness, particularly to the detriment of your love life.  This might be related to Saturn and Venus being in Capricorn, which predicts that you’re going to say something rather stupid to a romantic partner.  Jupiter in Sagittarius is typically a good sign as we’ve mentioned before, but it is an aggressive pairing, which is important since Mars in Taurus is also such.  So we’ve got two indications of aggression, one of crankiness, and one warning about shooting your mouth off.  Probably a good week to practice whatever relaxation techniques work well for you.

That’s what’s in the stars; here’s what’s in the cards:

Pisces:  5 of Coins, reversed – Disorder, chaos, ruin, profligacy

Aries:  8 of Cups, reversed – Great joy, feasting

Taurus:  7 of Cups, reversed – Desire, will, determination

Gemini:  6 of Wands – Victory, great news

Cancer:  King of Swords – Skill, courage, destruction, wrath, ruin

Leo:  King of Wands, reversed – Division, interruption, discord

Virgo:  2 of Coins – Parties, recreation, news in writing, agitation

Libra:  2 of Wands, reversed – Surprise, wonder, trouble, fear

Scorpio:  Ace of Wands, reversed – Fall, decadence, perdition

Sagittarius:  The Hermit, reversed – Concealment, disguise, fear

Capricorn:  3 of Coins – skilled labor, artistry, glory, renown

Aquarius:  Temperance – Economy, moderation, frugality, wise management

This week’s skies are dominated by Jupiter, which is kind of apropos since it is the Planet of Dominion.  It links two alignments: Jupiter-Venus-Terra and Jupiter-Sol-Mars.  Jupiter-Venus is a particularly felicitous conjunction, and although (with all due respect to 5th Dimension) Jupiter-Mars is not, the inclusion of the big fireball in the sky with them does leaven it significantly.  So we’ve got good luck, happiness, home, security, stability, defense — basically everything that is good about having a home life is here.  Also, with both male (Mars) and female (Venus) aspects being represented here we have good news/good luck/success in parenting.

Aquarius continues to have excellent luck from hosting the Sun and Mercury.  There is also a warning about flooding for the rest of us.  Aries luck isn’t so good this week — the moon is poking Mars with a pointy stick which frankly isn’t smart.  Speaking of not smart, Capricorn (wisdom) is getting thumped with the idiot stick (Saturn) resulting in romantic troubles (Venus).  Sagittarius continues to be the boss (Jupiter).  I will be paying particular attention to my results at the range this week to see if the archer-aspect of Sagittarius is delivering.

Now onto the cards, there are quite a few powerful ones this week:

Aquarius: 9 of Cups, reversed – This is the libertarian sign.  Liberty, loyalty, truth, imperfections, mistakes.

Pisces:  Page of Swords, reversed – Sickness. The Page of Swords typically represents a sneaky weasely little bastard who is on your side.  Reversed, he’s working against you.

Aries:  3 of Cups, reversed – An expedition.  Also an achievement or an ending.

Taurus: Ace of Cups – this was Leo’s card last week, so this week, you get you will experience nourishment and joy.

Gemini:  Queen of Cups – This represents a good woman.  Alternatively, it indicates unusual insight or vision this week.

Cancer :  King of Wands – A friendly dark man.  Also a consultant.

Leo:  Knight of Cups, reversed – Trickery, fraud, artifice.  Someone who is falsely claiming to work for your benefit.

Virgo: The Hanged Man, reversed – You will be mistaken for a Scorpio.  Selfishness, crowds, and selfish crowds.  The politically pandered-to.

Libra:  The Hermit – Possibly prudence, but more typically treason and corruption.  Sorry about that.

Scorpio:  The Chariot – This one always means something interesting is going to happen.  Succor, providence, triumph, trouble, vengeance.

Sagittarius:  King of Swords – This card represents the positive aspects of hard power.  It’s being better than others, having authority, passing judgment.

Capricorn:  4 of Wands – Prosperity, repose, “country life.”