The Universe : ?

Aeon418

ravenest said:
Dear me Aeon and Lillie. Dont you realise that well known and very respected astrologers not only disagree with these kinds of statements, they get down right ornery and flubbistered! Astrology using constellations and even.... dare I say it ... stars!!! Tut tut!
If Lillie wants to call her self an Optician that's her business. Good luck to her I say. :D
 

Lillie

ravenest said:
I bet if you saw a hornets nest Lillie, you would poke it with a stick :laugh:

Ummmm.
Maybe, if I thought it would be fun.

Nothing like a good poke with a stick.

But I have just found out that I'm actually a scorp.
That's where the sun was when I was born.

I'll have to have a look about what you say about the Universe card.
I have never really tried to check out the constellations on it.

I ought to, really.

I reckon the stars are the big shiney things in the sky.
That's what I think.
 

ravenest

Aeon, What sections of the heavens is Opticus in?

Lillie, How do you know where the Sun was when you were born?
 

Lillie

ravenest said:
Aeon, What sections of the heavens is Opticus in?

Opticus is the constellation that need glasses in order to see!

Lillie, How do you know where the Sun was when you were born?

Ummm. Am I wrong?

What I done was I looked at the Ophicus link Aeon give me, and from there I went to another link and it told me a lot about stuff, and it says where the sun actually is when you are born, like what signs?
The real dates. That's what it is, it's an astrology thingy that uses the actual constellations.

As you know, most present day astrology uses the constellations, but it sort of evens them up, giving them all 30 degrees each.
And also, precession has made them all wrong anyway, cos they have slipped.

So your sun sign isn't really where the sun is. Or rather it's not the actual constellation where the sun is.

You know this, I don't know why I'm telling you! (And here is how to suck an egg...)

So this site told me where the sun actually was, and it's a rare and amazing thing to be a true scorpio, cos the sun aint there for long.

I'll get the link in a mo. You might find it interesting.
 

ravenest

Lillie said:
Opticus is the constellation that need glasses in order to see!
ah yes, silly me, and here I was using a telescope.

Lillie said:
Ummm. Am I wrong?
You dont appear to be.
Lillie said:
What I done was I looked at the Ophicus link Aeon give me, and from there I went to another link and it told me a lot about stuff, and it says where the sun actually is when you are born, like what signs?
if it tells you where the sun ACTUALLY was it is probably using constellations and not signs. Although the suns position CAN be calculated from a sign degree as it will give you degree difference from the equinoctal point and you can plot that on an astronomic chart ... alot simpler to just enter info into an astronomical program (if you have one and know how to use it).
Lillie said:
The real dates. That's what it is, it's an astrology thingy that uses the actual constellations.
So its either a sidereal system of astrology or a wierd ravenest system that uses astronomical plotting with astrological implications.
Lillie said:
As you know, most present day astrology uses the constellations, but it sort of evens them up, giving them all 30 degrees each.
And also, precession has made them all wrong anyway, cos they have slipped.
No I didnt know that. In my experience most present day astrology (in white western culture) DOES NOT use the constellations but signs, as do sidereal systems (which try to account for the precessional shift), in fact I find most astologers ornery, impatient, confused, illogical and even aggresive if one questions the use of signs instead of constellations.
Unless you are refering to the OBVIOUS point that signs are actually constellations, or evolved from them, but astrologers wont agree with that either, in my expereince.
Lillie said:
So your sun sign isn't really where the sun is. Or rather it's not the actual constellation where the sun is.

You know this, I don't know why I'm telling you! (And here is how to suck an egg...)
Uh huh. I was just wondering what system you used to find out the REAL space time position of your natal sun.

All this leads to interesting (for me anyway) implications, but now we have got on to astrology ... not the Universe Trump. .... I'll send you some info.
 

Lillie

Lordy lordy!
That was convoluted!

The short answer was, I went to the site and looked it up on their little table.
It told me which STAR CONSTELLATION the sun was in on the day I was born.
(IN meaning the sun was set against the background of that constellation, from the view point of earth.)

And yes, I use star sign and constellation interchangably.
Don't pick nits with me about it.

Because obviously they are the same thing.

The scorpio, saggitarrius, capricorn, aquarius, pisces.....etc. that appear in the sky is clearly the model for the scorpio, saggitarrius, capricorn, aquarius, pisces.....etc. that appear on a birth chart.
It would be nonsense to say otherwise.

Of course I am not an astrologer. I have used tables to knock together the odd birh chart, but I wouldn't call myself an astrologer.
Never the less, the connection between the signs and constellations seems self evident.

Also a number of astrology books I have read make direct reference to astronomical stuff, like the ecliptic and such.

This stuff is common knowledge. Duh!

Anyhow.
Back to the card.

The stars on it. has anyone ever tried to match them to the real thing?
 

ravenest

Lillie said:
Never the less, the connection between the signs and constellations seems self evident.
This stuff is common knowledge. Duh!
I agree, although many astrologers get in a fluffel about it and try to pick apart ones unprecise statements (which is why I was trying to be so precise previously - I have no desire to pick your nits :) )
Lillie said:
The stars on it. has anyone ever tried to match them to the real thing?
No, not seriously. What I meant previously, is if you consider that each astrological Trump represents a constellation on the ecliptic, the 'snake handler' or holder, or dancer or wrestler even - depending on the mythology of Opheichus- is represented by the main symbology at the centre of the Universe card.
 

Beira

JOURNALING THE THOTH - XXI THE UNIVERSE - Foreground

At first sight this card gives me a very dreamy atmosphere. Things looks to me slowly moving counterclockwise, with the head of the goddess as the weight that determines al the movement. The center around which everything revolves is in her groin area, where she joins 4he center.
Actually, it's her and the serpent rotating while the rest of the environment does not.
More movement is the flowing of water from the four Cherubims in the corners, but that being directed towards the outside of the card, it doesn't really catch the eye unless you look at it. And the rotating movement is really mesmerizing and takes the attention from anywhere else.
It is an exercise just to remain consciously present and keep journaling cause one would be induced to just close the eyes and meditate...
But its not the moment, i am not alone, and actually my dog is getting sick.. WHAT?!?!

OH My poor baby Tizer maybe eat too much and...
No worries he is better now, he trow up his last meal still just chewed.. he freed himself tho..
He is sitting on the couch besides me now, getting asleep on my lap and i am actually writing with my tab on his neck..
By the way he was at my back while getting that strange sensation of movement.. i feel guilty I might have shared that sensation to him, it was so real...

Lets get back to this card. After a quick nap Tizer wanted to go for a walk, had his stuff done and now is again his usual happy self!

The main characters are a nacked woman and a huge serpent. Leaving alone what AC and the GD people meant her to be, here I want to express who she is for me.
I consider myself a pagan: I believe that there is a superior Will/Intelligence that has created us and partakes of our experiences, and I envision her as an Earthy Mother goddess.
I visualize her as the planet as a living organism, and I see her in every new sprout of a plant, every pup, every baby..
Then also the sea, forests, etc are deities that work on more specific fields, but this is not the place to mention all of them.
So this woman for me is my goddess, Gaea, fertile, primeval, ancient. Powerful.
She is slow because her time is the time of the galaxies and the stars.. she might be going counterclockwise to indicate that she is about the beginning of time and she wants to bring me back with her to the beginning.
.
The headdress of the woman actually looks to me as an oyster, which is something AC wrote about, so I need to check this . As for personal impressions, it doesn't speak much to me, except maybe for this sense of weight that gives rythm and momentum to the rotating movement.
I read the light quadrangle surrounding her head is significative too, but honestly i didn't even seen it before reading about it.

The Serpent is the second main character. The card is actually about the interaction of the Serpent with Gaea, more than about the two of them taken singularly.
This to me resonates with the duplex meaning of the card.
Being the last of the Majors, her full accomplishment is actually (re)becoming the Fool, ready to start it all over again, at a different level. This "trick" is very much a quabalistic criterium, where once one reaches the lowest of the low, finds that divine spark that makes him one with the Highest: and life starts again and again ( the circular, spiraling movement that i sense in the card)
The serpent in itself has a very sleepy look, and doesnt look upset at having the foot of the goddess on his head .

This is another symbology I have read about: in judaic/christian view (which remains the cultural background of this deck, despite my trying to "personalize it" where I can fit my own view) the serpent is considered as an emissary of the evil forces. He makes his first appearence right at the beginning of the Bible.
He is said to have talked Eve into eating off the forbidden Tree (by the way, were the trees actually two, or was that just another trick, and the tree has been one and only one all along? Any insight is welcome.), eventually leading to the Fall of Man (nothing less) and the curse over mankind and women in particular.

Then, when Christianity and New Testament sealed the reconciliation between the Jews' G-d and mankind, Mary is depicted in tryumph as walking on the serpent's head, as a sign of full defeat of the forces of Evil. The symbology is often found in imagery related not only to the Holy Virgin Mary, but to Archangels and many Saints as well. (Just on top of my head, St Patrick that banished snakes from Ireland: they actually don't survive there, i didn't believe it but it is true!!!)
The things that makes me think is that in this christian imagery the serpent is seen as trying to fight back, the image wants to show the very moment a single second before the serpent perishes. I have never seen the serpent already dead, and in that case i think it might have a spear cast through him, or something that clearly refers to a hard struggle, just won by Good thanks to the last of your little prayers' energy.

The passive air of the Serpent doesn't click at all with this meaning. And then certainly AC wasn' t a great fan of the Virgin Mary. At the opposite.
So i think this attitude could be related to some message about the barrenness of the Archetype of the Virgin Mary, since the reference is there. But the serpent seems quite content with what happens; so all the grandeur in the Christian icon of the Virgin Mary struggling to overcome the Serpent, gets definitely deflated, like "he never bothered to fight in the first place, so no wander you have him underneet your feet, it's him allowing you to do so".

At least this is what i get.

Even because, thinking of it, the Fall is not that bad a thing, cause it gives mankind humanity and free will. Before that, what were we? Just ignorant, sheepishly content puppets with no room for growth and improvement. It was quite a sad condition.
I dont believe we ever have been in any Eden (but I do get that we must have been just the spark of an idea in the Goddess' mind at some point), but if we were, than we only have to thank the serpent to have freed us!

So, putting these ideas in order for now, I get that to me the serpent, through dancing with the Goddess, and allowing her to even step on his head (to symbolize their ultimate intimacy, yes!), brings the spark of Her idea of us one step further through the process of manifestation.

The serpent sees to be coming off the Eye.
The Eye has got its own symbology on which I ll go later.

For now I would go with my feeling that the Serpent is just coming off it. To do what?
I mean: how is it that we get shown that he is coming off the Eye. It suggest to me that it is important to work out what the Serpent is coming off to do. Doesn't look that the only reason is to dance with Gaia.. because he is also coiling around two egg shaped forms.
And here I find it bizzarre that we dont get to see the end of its tail... but maybe that the ray just happen to pass "over" the tail, and we can't see through it.
So let's assume for now that the tail is at the back of the big, yellow ray issuing from the Eye that meet the first coil of the serpent: it rubs (in its slow movement) around an egg of the same color of the ray. The egg bears a lemniscate (I think is called), the sign for infinity.
Oh.. WOW, just noticed this: the second egg is actually touched by a second, dark ray, and the egg getting rubbed inside the coil is dark too. And there are signs on the serpent of the same hue, (that aren't anywhere else o its body), five of them, to form a five pointed star that resembles the rays of a dark sun too.. and reminds me of a starfish as well. check this as well.

These eggs, with the dark ray confirming this, are another connection to duality (the other being the couple Goddess/Serpent): here is even more clear the opposition of light and dark, while Gaea and the Serpent are more about male and female. Yep, I am happy with this!

This is to me a neat representation of how life is cyclical: every end (dark) must exist because it is functional to some further beginning (light). Every dancer (feminine principle) needs its serpent (male principle) and so on. So I see this very much resonating with Atu XXI being the last and thus connected to the very first: Atu 0.

I believe in the connection of the 3 mother letters to the horizontal paths of the Tree of Life, the 7 doubles on the vertical paths and the 12 zodiacal on the diagonal ones.
For the rest i still dont know.

But what i see here is the Fish Hook, loud and clear: that to me refers to tzaddi.
Does it means the card is to be attributed to tzaddi? How would that fit with the famous "Tzaddi is not the Star"? I don't know and look to dig more, but what i am positive about is that the draw does depict a fish hook, and that given this thing of having to find the right attribution, it is not here by chance. It must be important.
I checked this out and unfortunately tzaddi is not one of the seven double letters, so it does not fit on the path 21 from Malkut to Yesod (since this is one of the seven vertical path on the three. Being Tzaddi one of the 12 simple letters, it should go on one of the 12 diagonal paths.
I hope to be able to develop this further.
I am sure I have read about that here as well.. This is something else to look up too.

The Eye itself makes me think of the source. That would be appropriate, as the card is all about how completition just brings inside herself new beginnings: the two are impossible to split neatly; they imply each other.
Also, with the Eye we have completed the representation of the three Supernal Sephirot: Kether, the Crown, would be the Eye. Chokmah, the Father, would be the Serpent. Binah, the Mother, would be the Goddess.
The Eye gets repeated if you turn the card horizontally: the vescica piscis created by the four Cherubs at the corners becomes the lids and the "zodiac circle" becomes the iris. This way the Goddess and serpent create the symbol for infinite, that gets almost repeated between the rays and the hook... (but not quite, this one... uhm.. it tricks the eye tho... interesting..)

From the eye issue ten rays, to confirm... uhm.. yes the ten sephirot..
But if the Eye itself is the Source (Kether), then the rays should be 9 unless.. the dark one is Da'ath...
But i dont know much about Daath.. more study I guess..
Any insight would obviously be super welcome.

This card has LITERALLY LOADS to it, so i ll better split this "what do i know till now" section of the journaling
and leave this post at it for the foreground, and come back in the next days for the background...
I have something else to say here, more as a reminder of a challange and to spark the discussion, than as i really had something solid to say about it.. here it goes:

The hook has a very particular meaning to me: I have been studying both the AC's attributions and the GD ones, and i have concluded that despite what proclaimed, the true attributions have never been published yet. I understand it is always been a task for the adepts to work out the attributions. So I think that the one of us that really want to get to the bottom of the meaning of this deck is espected to do the same. This doesn't mean you can't use the official ones for your readings.
What I think has been done is the publication of enough clues to let a strong willed student to do the job.
I intend to try and find my own, and will be mentioning my opinions in these journal posts, but i will study the official ones meanwhile and use them for my reading practices

It is a very interesting and challa ging experience tho... I am glad I am doing it!!!
 

Beira

JOURNALING THE THOTH - XXI THE UNIVERSE - Background

The study of the backround has brought me very far and deep in AC works.. and it is worth it.
But I am no sure I have digested it all, so I dont get tired to say that my posts are but a journaling of my understanding of the cards, and when they go on other works of AC, it is my choice of "tangential issues" that by no means are "the important ones" other than in my view.
The first object attracting my attention is the Moebius strip solid in the center, behind the Goddess.
The Moebius strip is a circular, flat strip, (as a ribbon) that gets twisted once (or as in the card, any odd number of times) before getting united with its start so that it creates a circle.
If you have an ant walking on it the ant will cover both sides of the strip before returning at her starting point without ever actually cross any edge.
There are a lot of images that make this very easy: just search moebius strip images.
In the card the two dimensional strip becomes a three dimensional solid, to highlight the continuoty of this process, that virtually never stops.
The form is said to resemble the glyph of Aries, in connection with its being the "beginning" of the Zodiac, something as cyclical and timeless as what the card expresses. I find it illuminating as looking at some of the moebius solids I found online I had a visual idea of the ciclicity of time expressed by this card, and I was able to see them also in the ring of stars that surrounds the Goddess and Serpent.

By the books it represents the body of the universe, surrounding everything that is (the dance of the Goddess and the Serpent,
It is depicted by three concentric circlesd1ivided in 72 sections to represent the quinaries (segments of 5 degrees each ) of the 360 degrees of the Zodiac belt.
Despite the numbers being correct (as DuQuette swears), the groups of stars in the card don't look like the costellation of the Zodiac.
As far as I have read up to today, I can't make a meaning of why FH or AC would represent the Universe with costellations different from our own. This puzzles me very much, and I will keep an eye open on anything that could she a light on this.
But, since I dont want to be put off by this, let's gather what the drawing, despite the strange distribution of the stars, tells to me.
It still represents to me our Universe, the body of Nuit bended around the Cosmos, her breasts the stars and her body the whole that be.
After reading (not studying) the Cry of the 5th Aethyr (to do which I was prompted by quotations on thelemapedia and Snuffin) I think I can see the rays dividing the circles (the ones going from the center to the border of the card) as the feather of Ma'at, and I do see them quiver.
They quiver, they close (as also the wings of an angel in the vision at some point) at the end of a cycle. And this movement already contains in itself the next one, so quick to look a quiver, when the feather/wings open again to reveal the scene of the Eye and the Goddess and Serpent that, as ending of all, is indeed of all beginning.
Well, here we are a bit beyond what I feel comfortable asserting, so for the moment I'll stop here as for the "universe belt". But this does make sense and I'll try to understand the connections better. Any advice would be welcome.
Ah, something else I don't have an answer for: there are some stars like the ones on the belt on the Serpent's body, but only on its first coil and in the head. It might be that these are the parts of the body that overlap and stand on top of what would be the grid of the belt, so they kind of "shine through the serpent".. strange..

Wow, I was nearly forgetting the Square Nimbus .
I noticed it by reading the thrsads here, and I have found out what it is! Great!
It is the symbol of holyness that (usually in circular form) is used in ancient (and not) paintings to distinguish the figures of saints and angels from humans.
AC says that it is a symbol of the exaltation of matter and someone connects it with Cheshed of the "invisible tree of life" hidden in the card. I take it from that and say that can well be the symbol of the materiality (as opposed to holyness) of Babalon, that distinguish her phisical and sexual divinity as the normal nimbs distinguish the orthodox angels.
I know i need to put this in better english, I'll do it.