Zayin
7
Path 17, Binah(Understanding) to Tiphareth(Beauty)
Disposing Intelligence
Sword
Gemini
The Lovers
The Seventeenth Path is the Disposing Intelligence, which provides Faith to the Righteous, and they are clothed with the Holy Spirit by it, and it is called the Foundation of Excellence in the state of higher thing.
This is the path where the Rauch(rational soul) and the higher self is joined to Binah. Descending the tree, it's the path of division, ascending it is Union. The letter Yod is a descending Vav, archetypal fire into manifestation.
Zayin means Sword, which implies division, also constant adjustment, preparation, measurement, judgment, and organization of the the individual human soul for the leap over the Abyss. All of BoL Chapter Three come to mind. Looking at it in a nutshell like this is helpful. It is the sword that divides and also work with the sword that unties.
The polarity of division finds a physical expression is sex. On a mental level it separates the self consciousness and subconsciousness. Case mentions smell as a property, involving discernment. The nose brings in air. This brings to mind pranayama. I have been focusing on the tip of my nose during practice.
Mercury, the planet of life and death, rules Gemini, mutable Air, meaning The Twins. The lower rates of Mercury's vibration limit the intellect, causing the faulty idea of mortality. Consciously raising this vibration is the death of the false conception of personality.
Crowley call ATU VI the most fundamental of the tarot. The card of the Twins(brothers) also has a twin in ATU XIV Art. Together these cards compose Solve et coagula, separate and join together. The basis of all alchemical working. Mercury here is represented by the Hermit. Cupid is a suggestion of Eros in relation to Mercury, through Hermes, representing both division and union. His quiver quotes Thelema and he bears the arrow of Sagittarius, Art (Samekh) to indicate that the two cards should be studied together.
I found Chapter Two of Liber LXV serene.
Verse 33, and the process of commentary was helpful in reaffirming mantra rather than silence as a focus.
33. Ah! messenger of the beloved One, let Thy shadow be over me!
The Adept invokes the Word of his Angel to silence all personal thoughts.
Not so: to harmonize them, that is, to organize his human life from the point of view of Spirit.
This is where I will try to keep my attention on for the rest of the day.
7. Moreover I beheld a vision of a river. There was a little boat thereon; and in it under purple sails was a golden woman, an image of Asi wrought in finest gold. Also the river was of blood, and the boat of shining steel. Then I loved her; and, loosing my girdle, cast myself into the stream.
The river is the stream of thought. The boat is the consciousness. The purple sails are the passions that direct its course, and the woman is the pure Ideal which one seeks to make the constant occupant and the guiding principle of one’s conscious life. Thus “woman”, though of gold, is only a lifeless image. The river is of blood; that is, the current of thought must be identified with the object of one’s like, not a mere medium for reflecting every casual impression.
The boat is of steel; that is, the consciousness must be able to resist the intrusion of all undesired thoughts. Loving this ideal, the Aspirant frees himself from all that binds him (shame, selfishness, etc. — “loosing my girdle”) and loses his ego in Thought itself (cast myself into the stream).
8. I gathered myself into the little boat, and for many days and nights did I love her, burning beautiful incense before her.
He identifies himself with pure consciousness, immune from, yet floating upon, the course of Thought, and devotes himself to this Ideal, with poetical and religious fervour.
9. Yea! I gave her of the flower of my youth.
He consecrates his creative energy to the Ideal.
10. But she stirred not; only by my kisses I defiled her so that she turned to blackness before me.
This process destroys the superficial beauty of the Ideal. Its purity is corrupted by the contact of mortality.
11. Yet I worshipped her, and gave her of the flower of my youth.
Despite the disappointment, the Aspirant persists in “love under will”. He gives himself up utterly to Truth, even now when it seems so dark and dreadful.
Value of 7
7 traditional planets
7 days in the week
7 vertebrae in the human neck
7 spinal chakras
7 strands on ATU IX The Hermits head
7 rays of light on ATU XVII The Star
7 branches of good on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
7 branches of evil on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
AW