January 27-29, 2012: 8 of Cups
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INDOLENCE
(Previously called, “Abandoned Success.”)
Eight of CupsMeditation Pattern: Place Atu XXI, The Universe, and Atu XVIII, The Moon, side-by-side, with the 8 of Cups above them.
Traditional Description: A group of stems of lotuses or water lilies. Only two are flowers shown, which bend over the two central cups, pouring into them a white water that fills them and runs over into the three lowest, which latter are not yet filled.
O O O
O O
O O O
The three uppermost are quite empty. At the top and bottom of the card are symbols Saturn and Pisces.Hod of Water: Success abandoned; decline of interest. Ascetic renunciation and discipline have become excessive, suppressive, self-denying, sacrificing. What should be fluid and mobile is locked up in rigid form and outworn patterns, strangling it. [NOTE: This older title of this card, “Abandoned Success,” has virtues that definitely recommend it, as the interpretations provided here will indicate. There is also a renunciatory aspect to Hod of Water.]
Saturn/Pisces: Exhaustion, loss of heart, stagnation, soullessness, depression. Temporary success, but without further results. Thing thrown aside as soon as gained. Not lasting, even in the matter in hand. Indolence in success. Misery without visible cause. Seeking after riches. Instability. Time and sorrow impede pleasure, and there is no strength to compensate. Suppression of will, joy, and enthusiasm by internal or external stresses. Reserve, modesty, loneliness. But may indicate renunciation of material success, or of things hitherto gained, for a higher ideal.
Hod/Mercury + Saturn: Heaviness. Mental inhibition, distrust, shyness; shortsighted, stubborn, withdrawn. If well-dignified: industrious thought; thorough, serious, philosophical, methodical.
http://pturing.firehead.org/occult/thelema/libri/The Book of Thoth/thoth/cups08.jpg
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[attachment=0:3ncawpes]<!-- ia0 -->Cups 8.jpg<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:3ncawpes]
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Adding a bit further from the book, here is the paragraph on 8s in general. (As a footnote says, this doesn't entirely apply to the 8 of Wands, which, nonetheless, still has the "definition, form, directed channels" elements.)
"Hod (“Glory,” Mercury) corresponds to THE FOUR EIGHTS. These are characteristically passive or constrained,1 due to the attribution of Hod to Water and Form. The main useful consideration is that, in the Eights, definition and form either give discipline and direction to the element’s principle, or overweigh, burden, and constrict it."
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What immediately comes to mind the Piscean tendancy to seek withdrawal clashing with the Saturnian tendency to impose stabiltiy and structure. It's not the best workable arrangement but it has it's benefits.
At best, there's an element of stabilized flexbility. Having a plan but allowing room for a diversion of the plan if need be...and then making up a new one on the fly.
At worst, sticking with a plan and abruptly abandoning it due to the demands of what it takes to get it done.
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Or, in simpler terms: Saturn + Neptune (Pisces) is generally depression, distraction, depletion; and, in Hod, this is especially a mental matter, a state of mind, the intellect festering and feeding the depression.