May 18-20, 2014: Eight of Cups

Al-Shariyf

INDOLENCE
(Previously called, “Abandoned Success.”)
Eight of Cups

Meditation 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.

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.

Mercury + Saturn: Heaviness. Mental inhibition, distrust, shyness; shortsighted, stubborn, withdrawn. If well-dignified: industrious thought; thorough, serious, philosophical, methodical.

http://shadesofmidnight.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/8-of-cups-thoth.jpg

Danica

Tav+Quoph: complete manifestation, materialization of Quoph -> illusion crystallized! tangible shadows, solid fears…
Endless mirroring of Time in fluctuations of tides.
Finalization of one phase in a cycle, or of one whole cycle, with the feeling of uneasiness and distress regarding the uncertainty and the Unknown of the future (measuring time: the invention of time-measurement, observing and taking notes of the Luna’s cycle).
Christianity! But also Buddhism (Tau = Cross, Quoph = Suffering/Pathos); it’s shadow-aspect: mind closed to Joy which comes from these very principles of senses, body. NB: the “invention” of Medicine?
Eight of Cups: indolence; neglect; dilapidation, disrepair; rot, decay, infectious diseases.
Austerity of physical condition which opens the way of spiritual inflow; self-discipline in receiving content and the mode of activity of mind. Being focused on the mystical & physical Sun, which is the essence of both Tau and Quoph (the constant in the chain-of-change).
Sideways of divination when done inadequately: self-deceit and deceiving others; dogmatism.

Halt in communication; hallucinations; morass of the mind.
Excessively passive intellect, receiving random chaotic impressions, loosing touch with material plane.On the other side: capacity to concentrate at its best.
Drainage of the mind, purifying it through Devotion; Divination in the highest sense.
Insanity as a break inside the psyche which comes from not accepting/understanding mutually-contradicting phenomena, information, etc.
Perceiving phenomena as ultimate reality (entanglement in this); mind’s attachment to some particular set of phenomena, with repulsion towards those contradictory to it. When well dignified: fertile imagination, able to harness ideas together with emotions, to materialize them in wondrous ways.

Oscillation between extreme flexibility and extreme rigidity of the mind; hard to find the middle way.
2 flowers and 8 cups: connection to Chokmah.
Inertia, sluggishness of mind; dullness (but not superficiality!); difficulty to meet the paradox and the absurd.
Limitation, constraint, restriction for the rational aspect of consciousness (could be either highly beneficial, or highly damaging); focusing (own and others') intellectual attention to only limited set of phenomena; long and deep thinking about a single subject; meditation.
System of channels; network of interconnectedness among phenomena: understanding practically its structure and dynamics -> planning, long-term thinking. Sacrificing a short-term goal for a long-term one which is conceived as Ideal.
Relationship of intellect to Mystery and the Mystical: through practical experience or through empty theorizing.

Al-Shariyf

Day one:
what once seemed fun, exciting and appealing is now dull, boring and appalling, being stoic, having the experience of being "stuck", circumstances occur as insurmountable, resisting the discipline required to stay the course, putting enormous pressure on one's self consequently impeding one's performance, all work and no play, creativity bogged down by over thinking and over analyzing, scope-creep, "it's not worth the effort" kind of mentality.

Day two:
Succumbing to the darkness of the unknown, progress stunted by reasonableness, on the other hand, conforming to the mental discipline needed to move forward, tightening up the reigns, honoring a strict personal code of ethics, rigorous analytical abilities, resignation & cynicism, a magical dry period, getting sober.

According to my diary, I worked on this for 2 days and not 3. I will have to make the third day up. D'oh!