March 30-April 1, 2014: Four of Wands
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Four of Wands
COMPLETION
(Previously called, “Perfected Work.”)Meditation Pattern: Place Atu III, The Empress, and Atu IV, The Emperor, side-by-side, with the 4 of Wands above them.
Traditional Description: Four wands or torches, crossed. Flames issue from the point of junction. Above and below are two small flaming wands, with the symbols Venus and Aries, representing the decanate.
Chesed of Fire: The original current of Will manifested fully (as system, order, law, government). Plateau, settlement, arrangement, completion.
Venus/Aries: Perfection or completion of a thing built up. Subtlety, cleverness, beauty, mirth; success in completion. Unfolding or maturation of creative powers. If ill-dignified: unreadiness; unreliable and unsteady through over-anxiety; hurriedness of action.
Jupiter + Venus: Graceful, but sometimes insincere. Generally beneficial, harmonious, and comfortable circumstances. Rest after labor. Tact, diplomacy, popularity; but given to laziness, negligence, idleness, waste.
http://media.tumblr.com/9031f589f3c5f51a184cc7a9b5146324/tumblr_inline_mu6k0ySOY01qjsprk.jpg
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- Venus + Aries: polarities married; the flow is stable;
although married, they keep their individuality – on the Wands the dove and the ram’s head are polarized, set apart, i.e. there is no Third as a “result” from their relationship, the Third is the relationship itself; this makes me think of closed circuits, energy flows between the two poles, but there is no actual change in/through this motion, it’s self-oriented and self-sufficient; as if: a plateau is reached, and now there’s nothing else to do (except to overcome it or destroy its stability, or both….but it seems hard to de-stabilize, or anyhow alter the closed-inside-itself-process that this Card depicts) - Pleasure; magnetic attraction; what is willed for comes by itself, according to the natural law of attraction, because Will is simultaneously Love.
- Two of Wands through the Three of Wands became this, Four of Wands; thus it is both Male and Female.
- Fertility is there, but as a mere possibility, a potential.
- This mutually-oriented to one another energy of Venus and Aries tends to accumulate, and via this it becomes creative, i.e. it overflows and change its own boundaries when over-accumulated.
- Ceremonies, rituals; Nature celebrates the Creator through the pleasure of the created.
- Spiritually, this Card can signify a dogmatic approach to religion; a closed system.
- A Circle: it marks the Holy Space of the Ritual, creating a distinction between the Sacred and the profane.
- There is no challenge in this Card, no stimulating dynamics.
If understood as a Phase, it signifies an abundant potential (a well of resources, that can not be exhausted); if understood/approached to as a State, it is utterly “negative”, i.e. no growth, no initiative for improvement. - NB: All Fours are symbolically Crosses; the inherent idea is that balance and stability of the Elements has no value in itself, its only value is in being a “basis” for the Fifth – foundation for the Rose.
- The power of Will expressed through Love; pleasure, enjoyment; a King who is amiable, gentle, mild, and hence endlessly loved by his people.
- Fire + Chesed (or Chesed in Atzilut): reign by the pure power of will; natural Royalty; initial impulse toward perfection in all of us; all of one’s Love directed to God and God only – continual Bhakti. (It seems that giving oneself up in adoration corresponds to Four of Cups, and the Exalted State that spontaneously appears through this corresponds to Four of Wands – it is Ecstasy that does not cease to be, unbearable for the mere human mind and body, untrained for such experience; it’s death, and at the same time utter Joy, real Bliss in existence)
- Invention of the wheel – a revolution for human kind – comes essentially from this Card Idea/Principle; here is its root, before it appeared in the mind as a formulated mental-phenomenon.
- There is something homosexual in this Card. The obvious symbolism points to the heterosexual relationship of principles so blatantly; but I feel Homosexuality is here as the “hidden”, inner, underlying interplay of forces: through their specific relationship here, they do not produce a child in the usual sense,a Third, but their creativity bears a different kind of “fruit” - not a change in quantity, but in quality….
- Venus + Aries: polarities married; the flow is stable;
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Day one:
Union of opposites to provide what's missing, providence, luxury, waton, reckless abandon, venturing into the unfamiliar. Yielding to some aspect that borders on the edge of language.Day two:
Inner masculine and feminine aspects of the Self sharing their rulership, inner and outer harmony, checks and balances in place, indulgence in one's self-confidence, the pusher man, hedonistic impulses, love of art & leisure, profound inner peace resulting from a deep connection to one's own sovereignty, integrity as a matter of having all necessary components present and in alignment with each other to provide workability, tendency to be overconfidence if not checked.Day three
Submission to law as a means to integrating it into one's Self, seeing one's Self as a part in a system and exploring the relationship between the two, contribution and being contributed to, the Will established as law and order, inner harmony with one's true self and a strict adherence to it, pleasure in growth and learning, pleasure in giving and receiving.