Rose Lalonde Posted January 22 Posted January 22 (edited) The first decan of Aquarius, a decan ruled by Venus. Part 1 at TabulaMundi DECAN WALK – AQUARIUS 1, FIVE OF SWORDS – Part I – Tabula Mundi Tarot Excerpt: "Many don't like this card, for who wants to see a card titled "Defeat?" Decan ruler Venus just isn't very comfortable in the cool and impartial, unemotional, Saturn-ruled sign Aquarius. It doesn't help that it is a Five card, so the Mars-ruled realm of Geburah lends a destructive element. Venus is a pacifist for the most part, and seeks connection rather than solitude. But here..." Continue reading Part 2 DECAN WALK – AQUARIUS 1, FIVE OF SWORDS – Part II – Tabula Mundi Tarot RWS - Thoth - Tabula Mundi Telos Tarot of 777 Related Cards for this Decan The Star for Aquarius The Empress for Venus Prince/Knight of Swords (last decan of Capricorn and first two decans of Aquarius) Edited 17 hours ago by Rose Lalonde
Nemia Posted January 23 Posted January 23 Isn't it strange? We're in the sign of Aquarius, the long-term planner, lucid, objective and driven by the purest motifs, associated with the Star, this card of hope. And yet, here we are in the first decan, looking at Defeat. Well, without defeat, without acknowledging the possibility of defeat, there is no victory and no successful planning. It's easier said than done: learn from your defeats and mistakes. Who likes that feeling? We try to push it back into the darkest corners of our minds. I have had some spectacular defeats in my life, and since they were all self-caused, yes actually self-defeat, I don't like thinking about them. At all. But this decan forces me to do so, and I admit, my defeat experiences have shaped me. Sometimes, they have pushed me on a different and happier path (I wouldn't be where I am now without the most humiliating defeat in my life). Sometimes, they just make me feel ashamed and angry at myself. Admitting defeat and dealing with it honestly and fairly is a high art. It's easier to look away, to forget or "forget" it. Swords is an uncomfortable suit, and that's how it should be. Maybe it's one of the problems I have with so many oracle decks. There are no cards for these bleak moments when you look at yourself and say: I messed up, I should have asserted myself, I should have done everything differently. But in the tarot, there are these cards. Mars and Venus cancel each other out in this card. Gvurah is a tough sephirah. The root GVR, which is the root for Gvurah, has an interesting word family. The simplest word, gever, means both man and rooster. Man not in the general sense - for that we have ben adam (son of Adam) or ben enosh (human). Gever is a manly man, in slang Hebrew we call a super macho gever-gever. As a verb, ligvor means to overcome, to win a victory. As a reflective verb, lehitgaber (when you double the v, you get a b in Hebrew, they're the same letter) means to overcome. Gavriut is masculinity, and gibbor a hero. Gibbora is a heroine, gveret a mistress. A shopkeeper or busdriver who doesn't know my name will call me "gveret". And gvurah is heroism, toughness, courage. Hebrew is SO binary. There is no non-binary way of expressing things, every single verb, noun or adjective form is gendered. There are no generic words - even for babies, we have tinok for a boy and tinoket for a girl. It's an ancient language, and the link between masculinity, heroism and overcoming adversity or pain is written into the language itself. Anyway. The link between Mars and Gvurah is twofold - when you climb up from Malkuth and use the planets as your rungs, you'll reach Gvurah with Mars. But also the concept of being a fighter, a hero is strongly connected to Mars (who is quite an ambivalent deity as Ares in Greek mythology, meeting defeat many times, but much more positive as Roman Mars). Even the ruling court card, the Prince of Swords, fits into this decan of struggle. Venus, the planetary ruler, doesn't fit, and the discomfort results in Defeat, the Five of Swords. Even when you are defeated, you can find comfort in the knowledge that you did fight, you did try, and that you can try again.
Rose Lalonde Posted January 23 Author Posted January 23 I got a lot out of your post, @Nemia. Thank you for adding that. Especially about the language.
Rose Lalonde Posted 17 hours ago Author Posted 17 hours ago Part 2 is up with personal observations for this decan. DECAN WALK – AQUARIUS 1, FIVE OF SWORDS – Part II – Tabula Mundi Tarot
JoyousGirl Posted 15 hours ago Posted 15 hours ago This morning I've come in and looked at this, and I'm querying "defeat over what or who?" in a fixed mind-sign. There's 3 people and 5 Swords. What happened to the other 2 people? Are they aspects of the person holding the swords? Is this a defeat of others or aspects of the self? With Venus there, I'm thinking of an integration and balancing out. One guy in the background is grieving - but standing still. The other guy in the background is moving away. The Knight (in RWS) charges as he does battle moving to the left of the image (past). Our experiences may not accord with the Decan elements like some astrological convergence, but I feel a sense of ridding parts of my self that those 2 guys in the background represent. And there's other elements of self that I overcame years ago. Just some ideas.
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