Overview

10 of Wands Third decan of Sagittarius, a decan ruled by Saturn. Post at TabulaMundi -- DECAN WALK: SAGITTARIUS 3, TEN OF WANDS – Part I – Tabula Mundi Tarot Excerpt: "The juxtaposition of Caldean decan ruler Saturn with triplicity decan ruler the Sun is interesting. Saturn is dark and cold, while the Sun brings heat and light. This is the last decan before the Winter Solstice here in the Northern hemisphere, so we are approaching maximum darkness, the longest night. It feels very Saturnian. Yet at the end, at the Solstice when we enter the next decan, the light begins to increase again. This decan is also the run-up to the Christmas season, which for some, just feels like..." Read More Telos Tarot of 777 and Tabula Mundi Tarot Related Cards for this Decan Art/Temperance for Sagittarius The Universe/The World for Saturn Queen of Disks/Pentacles (last decan of Sagittarius and first two decans of Capricorn)

Part 2 is up at DECAN WALK: SAGITTARIUS 2, NINE OF WANDS – Part II – Tabula Mundi Tarot Plus bonus Krampus art DECAN WALK: SAGITTARIUS 2, NINE OF WANDS – Bonus content – Tabula Mundi Tarot

I hadn't thought of this. That makes a lot of sense.

I'm thinking of the RWS 9 of Wands and I went years with this or that thought about him and yet now I'm all in on the book meaning, i.e. "Strength in reserve". He's still standing after the last battle. And if one of his wands breaks, he's got another, and another.... It could also be someone with many skills and talents that are resources to utilise in hard times. ETA It came to me that he's a bit like the Terminator getting up after all his bits are blown apart. But in a good way. Or maybe not.

9 of Wands The second decan of Sagittarius, a decan ruled by the moon --Sorry for the delay. I forgot to force-refresh the TM page to show me the latest post. Post at TabulaMundi.com - DECAN WALK: SAGITTARIUS 2, NINE OF WANDS – Part I – Tabula Mundi Tarot Excerpt: "The middle decan of Sagittarius is known in the Thoth tarot as "Strength.” The longer Hermetic title in the Golden Dawn tradition is the Lord of Great Strength. Sagittarius is ruled by Jupiter. The decan itself, and the Nines in general, are ruled by the ever- fluctuating Moon. Thus the strength here is that of strength amongst change, and strength with flexibility, such as the archer drawing his bow. Of course the archer here is going to need..." Read More Part 2 is up at DECAN WALK: SAGITTARIUS 2, NINE OF WANDS – Part II – Tabula Mundi Tarot Bonus Krampus art DECAN WALK: SAGITTARIUS 2, NINE OF WANDS – Bonus content – Tabula Mundi Tarot Telos Tarot of 777 Tabula Mundi Tarot Related cards: Art/Temperance for Sagittarius The Priestess for the moon Thoth Knight of Wands/RWS King of Wands (for the last decan of Scorpio and the first two decans of Sagittarius)

Beautiful! Here are mine: As always, fixed to a magnet board - our house is catproof. The Jupiter card is for the day of the week, and the Princess of Cups rules the season, but the rest are Eight of Wands. Decks: Wildwood Tarot Pastoral Tarot Tyldwick Tarot, Tarot of the Secred Forest, Tarot Landscapes Idiosyncradeck, Flow Tarot, Majestic Earth Tarot A very energy-filled, dynamic decan.

Energy Some cards on the table --

8 of Wands The first decan of Sagittarius, a decan ruled by Mercury Post at TabulaMundi.com - DECAN WALK: SAGITTARIUS 1, EIGHT OF WANDS – Part I – Tabula Mundi Tarot Small stuff / big stuff, alchemy, Loimos, slang, radio waves, propaganda and more... A great read. Part 2 DECAN WALK: SAGITTARIUS 1, EIGHT OF WANDS – Part II – Tabula Mundi Tarot As always, Tabula Mundi really illustrates the connection of this minor to the majors with the same astrological correspondences it combines. Tabula Mundi Tarot Related cards: Art/Temperance for Sagittarius The Magus/Magician for Mercury Thoth Knight of Wands/RWS King (for the last decan of Scorpio and the first two decans of Sagittarius)

PART 2 is up at Tabula Mundi. DECAN WALK: SCORPIO 3, SEVEN OF CUPS – Part II – Tabula Mundi Tarot

Crowley saying "Venus is the planet of Copper, 'external splendour and internal corruption'" actually reminds me more of the RWS 7C you're talking about. The cups look inviting. I get this for the 7s too, at least in the RWS. And trying to DIY, for better or worse. -- Adding the cards on my desk for this decan. (The moonshine bottle on the second row is inspired by a quote from Meleen's Book M, about Venus being unhappy in Scorpio, and so she drinks. Also where it points out that Netzach is Victory, but the cards themselves look more like what we have to overcome to achieve victory.)

That's an absolutely fascinating idea - a dark Venus. Venus can retrograde, like Mercury (who is much more famous for it...), i.e., it appears to the observer that she's going backwards. There are also times when you don't see Venus - when she transits from morning to evening or evening to morning. This blog has some fascinating graphics for Venus' cycle. This is so nice and symmetrical, beautiful! So there are 50 Venus-less days in her cycle. Interesting. Another great diagram is here: So the idea of a "dark Venus" makes total sense (btw for all the planets - all of them "disappear" to our eyes when they get so close to the Sun that we can't see them at night). And there is also the fact that Venus goes through phases like the Moon. Interestingly, when Venus is full, her light appears weaker to us because that happens when she's far away from us. In her waning or waxing phases, her light is strong because she's closer to Earth. And this is not true for all the planets - only for those that orbit closer to the Sun than we do (Venus, Mercury, Moon). More about the phases of Venus can be found on Wikipedia. Then there are the different aspects of Venus. There are even two names for Venus: the morning star is Phosphorus, and the evening star Hesperus (interestingly, these are masculine names that are used for male allegorical deities). I have never read this theory anywhere else, but my own idea is that Phosphorus is the Venus we see in Taurus (spring, morning) and Hesperus is the Venus that is associated with Libra (autumn, evening). Phosphorus and Hesperus don't appear in astrological contexts, so that's only my little idea because I love symmetry. However, the simplest explanation for the uncomfortable feeling of this decan may be that Venus is in detriment in Scorpio.

This made me think of moon phases, which are constant change. And I wonder if Venus here is considered to be in one of her invisible 'phases'? I have no idea about these things though.

That's my tarot calendar right now (only the day of the week has moved on - from Wednesday to Friday). To the left: Death cards, to the right: Seven of Cups. Centre bottom: the planetary ruler of this decan, the Empress. We're in Netzach, the sephirah associated with Venus, so it's a double Venus. Since Scorpio is a Water element, it's Netzach in Briah, and all these "feminine" aspects weaken each other. In the RWS Seven of Cups, you're weakened by indecision, illusions and unrealistic expectations. In the Thoth Seven of Cups, it's even worse: nothing healthy can grow and develop right now, you're drowning in a swamp where hope turns to despair and listlessness. Some Venus cards reflect the positive potential of the planet: the loving Two of Cups, the well-balanced Four of Wands. But here, it's a negative side of Venus influence. The middle decans (fixed signs) are an interesting constellation. Gvura/Mars/Five pulls to one side, Netzach/Venus/Seven to the other. Only Tif'eret in the middle (the Sixes) is completely positive and radiates its optimistic light. However, Sevens, like all odd numbers, are dynamic, and the Seven is also associated with the basic rhythm of seven planets, seven weekdays and seven virtues. So whatever is going on right now, it's not going to stay that way. You move through that swamp, and some of your pipe dreams have the potential to turn into real, achievable goals. The Knight of Wands tells us that Sagittarius, the mutable Fire and last sign of Autumn, are knocking on the door already. Another sign that change is imminent and soon, the swamp is behind us, and we see clearer.

I got this card the other day - and my immediate thought was it was very Neptunian. It is all about visions and thinking, and really inspires one to do a lot of thinking/meditating on what it's saying and what we're doing. What we see in the RWS image, is a nebulous cloud of fantasy / thought images. And it's number 7, which is associated with Neptune. So the cups are a watery element - of Neptune - despite Scorpio being attributed to it, and it incorporates the spiritual aspect of 7 - but also 7 as a number of habit and learning the hard way. In the Arcus Arcanum card the person is looking into a Mirror with all the things laid out on the table. The mirror is Venusian, so it's a very interesting card about our desires and what we're doing about them and how they reflect on us.

Horse and wolf are central, but that Telos card is also a real blend of the nauseating green sea similar to Thoth's 'Debauch' and the assorted vessels in the RWS. Items in the vessels are interesting, because there's "an Eros/Thanos theme" to them,, Meleen notes. "A combination of life (Venus, Empress) and Death (Scorpio, Death)" They're listed in the TM post. (Life and death together is often a Three's idea for me, because the moment you have the first concept of a limited form or body, birth, the eventual future dissolution/death of that form or body is assured. -- Hah, I'm a hit at parties with fun zingers like that. 🙃🫠🙄)

7 of Cups The third decan of Scorpio, a decan ruled by the Venus Post at TabulaMundi.com - DECAN WALK: SCORPIO 3, SEVEN OF CUPS – Part I – Tabula Mundi Tarot Horses, wolves and rabbits, unhappy Venus, sexual connotations, Kairos, what's in the vessels below, Fantasy Island, and more at the post above. PART 2 is up. DECAN WALK: SCORPIO 3, SEVEN OF CUPS – Part II – Tabula Mundi Tarot A new moon chart and noticing the decan in day to day life. Telos Tarot of 777 Related cards: Death for Scorpio The Empress for Venus RWS King/Thoth Knight of Wands (for the last decan of Scorpio and the first two decans of Sagittarius)

Oh, of course! That makes perfect sense for the RWS sun. Thanks. Falls into place. @Ferrea I had to repeat that "all art is contemporary" to my partner who paints and sculpts. He was like, "Well, yes, of course," but then he paused and got a thoughtful look on his face, and said, actually that's really good to remember, all art being modern at the time. We think of things as quaint that were once cutting edge or controversial. @JoyousGirl ouch, I get your point. I suppose a person's perspective depends on their childhood. My parents were amazing, and I fondly remember my childhood because of it, while someone close to me had a childhood of neglect and hunger, so their stable adulthood is their happy place. But that historical flower girl makes a lot of sense. As you said, People can be more generous to children. As adults, not so much.

I'm just offering an idea, not from any book. It makes me think of little girls from poor families (or orphans) of history who sold flowers to survive. (I'm also thinking of little matchstick girl.) They were known as "flower girls". Now, where it gets interesting is that "flower girls" became a label associated with prostitution. When you think about it, if a child is poor or orphaned, and selling flowers to survive, it's unlikely she will grow up wealthy. Flowers can be picked, they don't cost anything, and they're a pleasure to see and smell (sometimes they're medicinal). People can be more generous to children. As adults, not so much. So, the innocence of childhood, the leeway given is lost upon getting to a certain age. So how does a female of a class system she cannot escape - that is built into society - fending for herself meet her needs now that society is not so generous because she is an adult (a traumatised one at that)? So nostalgia and pleasure might be better understood here. Nostalgia for when people were kinder, prior to all the diseases she may have incurred as a result of not having any other livelihood to survive on, she now has children to feed with the same coin she survived on, (and increasingly less coins earned once her disease has set in and takes away her appeal). The idea of matchgirl comes to me for this. The reverie is the only place of pleasure. I'm going on another tangent here and that is - these days (but maybe then too, if the boy is doing what I'm suggesting) - others will go and take all the flowers before anyone else can get to them. Then the flower girl has to pay a fee to someone who went out and picked the flowers for nothing - further decreasing her ability to provide for her needs. So she could also be nostalgic about the days she could take pleasure in picking flowers (because there were always some about and it would give pleasure to find them). Ultimately, with this intermediary taking the flowers and not being able to find any out in the fields, the pleasure might be gone from the fight for survival altogether. Then, what's the point?

In their book Secrets of the Waite-Smith Tarot, Katz and Goodwin often underline the fact that Pamela drew much of her inspiration from her experience in the theatre. It seems she used examples that helped her weave in a certain complexity. A couple of years back, there was a neon light installation on the outer walls of the Altes Museum in Berlin by Maurizio Nannucci that read: All Art Has Been Contemporary. The book makes a strong case for recognising this very contemporary aspect of the CSW Tarot. Here is a short passage from the chapter on the 6 of Cups:

There may be a connection to the child on the Sun card - if you have ever watched children enjoying themselves, you know that we adults have lost the ability to give ourselves so completely to the moment. There is an element of naive optimism in children that is comforting to see. I also think that Colman-Smith wanted to include all kinds of emotional states and feelings in the cards, and looking back on old memories has to be there. Where to put it astrologically? Sun in Scorpio seems a surprising choice because if there's a sign that's self-aware, sometimes even tortured by self-awareness, it's Scorpio. The major arcanum of this sign is Death. Childhood is the only time that we have the chance to live unaware of Death (of course, there are children who are confronted with Death). And as you said, the Six of Cups is associated with Tif'eret, the radiant, optimistic sephirah of the Sun. So Waite and Colman-Smith took the daring step to show the innocence of Death in the middle of Death. From the Pictorial Key to the Tarot: A card of the past and of memories, looking back, as - for example - on childhood; happiness, enjoyment, but coming rather from the past: things that have vanished. This reminds me of a saying: Memory is the only paradise from which we can't be expelled. This makes nostalgia such a complex feeling. We look back at a time when we thought our paradise was permanent, but it was not. We long not only for that paradise but also for the feeling that it would last. And in that sense, it suits Scorpio and Death very well to have at its apex a card that keeps memory alive, celebrating the belief in permanence in a world where everything vanishes. For me personally, this card embodies the Inner Child. Finding harmony within myself is only possible when I'm in harmony with the little girl I once was. This is what I see on my tarot calendar in front of my eyes right now: Death on the one side, Pleasure/Nostalgia on the other. And when I zoom in on the Tiny RWS magnets, I see Death riding towards the children. But the children are blissfully unaware of what is coming. Love is as strong as Death, says the Song of Salomo. We all have to yield to Death, but our memories keep love alive.

Anyone know why Waite and/or PCS went with nostalgia for this card? I'm not complaining, just curious. The Golden Dawn Society name was The Lord of Pleasure, and the Thoth stuck close to that with Pleasure. -- There is a pleasure in recalling more carefree or innocent times, but nostalgic joy is a narrow definition of pleasure, so I wasn't sure. Anyway for the combo of Scorpio and the Sun, Crowley says, "The whole image is that of the influence of the Sun on Water." He adds, "Pleasure, in the title of this card, must be understood in its highest sense: it implies well-being, harmony of natural forces without effort or strain, ease, satisfaction." We get double Sun here, since the sun also corresponds to all the sixes, along with a sense of balance and enlightenment.

6 of Cups The second decan of Scorpio, a decan ruled by the Sun Post at TabulaMundi.com - DECAN WALK: SCORPIO 2, SIX OF CUPS – Part I – Tabula Mundi Tarot Excerpt: "Death, the card for Scorpio, and The Sun, card for (obviously) the Sun, ruler of the decan. Together they provide pleasant, sensual, and fertile Sun-warmed waters. The decan usually contains the cross-quarter holiday Samhain, and All Saints or Dia de los Muertos, around November 1st, when the doorways to the underworld open and the veils are thin. Offerings are made to nature spirits and faery beings, as well as the souls of the dead, seeking the grateful blessings of kin beyond." Part 2 DECAN WALK: SCORPIO 2, SIX OF CUPS – Part II – Tabula Mundi Tarot Tabula Mundi Tarot Related cards: Death for Scorpio The Sun for the sun Prince of Cups (for the last decan of Libra and the first two decans of Scorpio)

A lot of the cards for this one still have a couple of upright cups. It makes me think of something I'm stealing from Crowley: When life has been easy, any disturbance of that is going to feel like 5C 'Disappointment'. I could be disappointed a summer vacation is ending and it's back to normal life. Imagine if someone were a billionaire and lost a whopping 80% of their wealth. Then they'd only be a multi-millionaire 🤑, and I'm sure it would feel like a huge disappointment. But to most of us either number is like the Thoth 4 of Cups: 'Luxury'. I don't mean to downplay disappointment. We could be in a bad place already emotionally and then lose what little sense of well-being we felt we had. In which case, it can be lonely and difficult to get through it. And then some. But I like that this art isn't usually 5 Cups overturned -- not because 2 is more positive, but because having some up and some down is more interesting of an idea to me.

5 of Cups The first decan of Scorpio, a decan ruled by Mars Post at TabulaMundi.com - DECAN WALK: SCORPIO 1, FIVE OF CUPS – Part I – Tabula Mundi Tarot Excerpt: "It's Mars all the way down here, plus some Pluto (Hades), if you include the modern ruler of Scorpio. A whole lot of fire and brimstone, and an underworld scene. The man (Mars) holds a lance (Mars) and a head (also Mars, if you consider his other sign, Aries). Here the waters of Scorpio are portrayed as a flaming river of the Underworld, with the man as a Charon figure wearing the robes of Death in a barge with Scorpionic and Martial elements. I've made the head a skull, all the more reminiscent of the Death card." Part 2 DECAN WALK: SCORPIO 1, FIVE OF CUPS – Part II – Tabula Mundi Tarot Telos Tarot of 777 Other related cards: Death for Scorpio The Tower for Mars Prince of Cups (for the last decan of Libra and the first two decans of Scorpio)

I am thinking of 4 as a square foundation - a sort of platform that we move forward from. Interestingly, or not, I pulled the 4 of Swords from my beloved Arcus Arcanum deck today. The card shows a man seated among 4 of his ancestors' suits of armour and he's processing his thoughts. I feel it's like he's going through a movie of his life in his mind, the steps he shoulda-coulda taken, the people he knew etc. This is a really contemplative and calm place and space he's in, but he's here because he had a setback. He's got to sift through the possibilities that remain for him and what to do next. I love the sensibility of the book meaning: He has had a setback. He has come to his senses. He is in a solitary decision making process, a decision that no-one else can help make for him. This marries nicely with Justice as a sort of sifting and balancing (past and future), and the Wheel of Fortune (past and future).