Lapis Philosophorum

Yuletide, Kwanzaa: – Dec 26th This card shows us how to express nurturance, to attend to our families and to express the protective energy within us towards others.

I drew the King of Cups.

This King has his roots in artistic expression – being a barde – and creativity. But as a King his duty is to serve others. He has channelled his creativity into the service of others and thereby has mastered his need for self-expression and his own feelings. He is tolerant, compassionate, sensitive and jovial, and makes an excellent therapist, teacher or doctor.

So to be caring for and protective of others means to be mature enough to know one’s own desires, needs and wishes, but to let this self-knowledge and insight into the human nature be beneficial for those that it is one’s responsibility to care for. That be children, family, spouse, clients, patiens, pupils or disciples – and simply anyone else who happens to be crossing one’s way.

A challenge for him is to maintain and nurture his own creativity and connection with feelings, dreams and the unconscious, symbolised by the water and the animals surrounding him.

Be kind, wise, tolerant, and mature is what he is telling me.

Lately, I called off my search for purity and acknowledged that we can never be completely pure – because of our humanity.

Or should I more modestly say: I can not.

Anyway; No one is flawless, after all we all carry a shadow, and If we are not willing to accept it it will show it self in funny and disturbing ways. So it has to be brought forth consciously:

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you will bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you”  The Gospel of Thomas, v. 70

I guess it would be more modest just to look at this “within” me. The greeks knew that too: “Know thyself” was written over the Oracle of Delphi.

So to know oneself would be wise, I think.

But then again, what is wisdom? And how can I plea for wisdom – Fool as I am? Maybe it is exactly in accepting that fact that I’m a fool? I know these things, but I still I surprise myself – and therein lies my folly – and perhaps also my wisdom?

And how is purity compared to wisdom? I decided to ask the Alchemical Tarot this question:
One card for Purity and One for Wisdom. Purity: The Still and Wisdom: King of Staffs.

I think the Still in this respect is a bit sterile, the process of becoming pure will be looong and it will happen in some sort of closed circuit, isolated from the lived life. Fire is involved, but it is definitively under control. This is a controlled and protected environment, where no failures are permitted; Everything will blow up if the process gets disturbed.

The thing is. Life is not that way. Things get broken.  Things will be disturbed and challenged.

And then Wisdom; A dragon. Who should have thought that, now?

The King of Staffs is a dragon and Dragons usually guard the treasure in the fairy tales. Here the treasure is the Fire of Feeling. Of being alive. Of Consciousness (think Prometheus),  and of Wisdom.

Wisdom lies in knowing that you can’t live life and can’t reach for fire without getting burnt in the process of being a live and in  the process of reaching for fire. You have to meet your own dragons and demons, you have to face the Monster. But if you manage to challenge the Dragon King, you will have earned the fire. It will be yours.

So what will it be? Unlived life in searching for purity or the burn in reaching for wisdom? Actually I”m beginning to think we can’t have both.

Images from The Alchemical Tarot, copyright Robert M. Place, are used with kind permission. Visit the Alchemical Tarot website.

” [T]he Tarot is like a personal sage that one can converse with whenever guidance is needed. As day to day decisions are made from this place of wisdom, using the Tarot becomes a spiritual path”. Robert Place

The Tarot being a sage, what would he tell me today?

Again I use the little cross and I draw:

The Situation Knight of Vessels being crossed by The Challenge Two of Coins.

The Knight is tapping into the unconsciousness, into the sea of creativity and inspiration, and holds water from there in his Vessel. Also a fish is looking up from the water. This Knight is – as most knights of vessels or cups – a Knight of the Heart, as I can tell from the heart on back of his armour.  He has what he needs and what he came for.

Tarot wisdom from the Alchemical Tarot Study Group says:

“The message here speaks to the attainment of emotional satisfaction. But, when questing into emotions and the unconscious, do not go off foolishly into the depths. Also, you may be getting a message “out of the blue,” perhaps in the form of a synchronicity. It is an unexpected emotional satisfaction. Maybe you’ve already gotten it, and like the knight, need to take notice. Open your eyes to what is around you.”

So what I need I al ready have, I just need to open my eyes for it.

The Two of Coins also goes under the name The Fixation of the Volatile. That is the process of stiffening what is in a flux. Something is preventing me from actually get into a flow and understanding or appreeciating or using what I have found in the water. Perhaps.

From the Alchemical Tarot Study Group:

The image shows an alchemical lemniscate surrounding a sun and moon; these are a gold solar coin and a silver lunar coin, representing the masculine and feminine. … The lemniscate is crowned by two animal heads. The lion represents the fixed in alchemy. It swallows the eagle, which is volatile. This is a fitting image for the earth suit, for it shows fixation in the material plane. A certain danger is present because of the polarization of the masculine and feminine. Their dynamic tension and opposition are being held together in the lemniscate, a manifestation of the higher self, which is able to hold these opposites in balance.

Materially speaking the fixation is neccessary – and maybe it is not that bad after all, maybe this is about realising the fluid insights found in the water and making into something more tangible and fixed, something more useful, so to speak.

The problem is that something will be lost in this process, but I guess that is prize of creating – to make your insights real, choices have to be made. We have to get back onto the solid ground and act upon our insights, and take the responsibility of these actions – ethical or psychological or creative.

So – I guess the Sage is simply telling me: “Get Real!”

Images from The Alchemical Tarot, copyright Robert M. Place, are used with kind permission. Visit the Alchemical Tarot website.

The first week of Januar. Went. Not well, but it went. My sinusitis came back. Copenhagen is freesing. I feel like hibernating until February. I’ve written about spiritual practise today, but frankly, I feel blocked and doubtful right now.

So what is it about? Let me do a little reading – The little Cross again; The Situation crossed by the Challenge:

The situation gives me The Empress: Here we have the Alchemical Vessel personified by the Mother Goddess herself.

Again from The Alchemical Tarot Study Group:

Alchemically, the Empress represents the alchemical vessel, which nurtures the creation of the philosopher’s stone. She continues the process of dissolution of the prima materia, begun by the High Priestess.

Tarot wisdom: The Empress signifies the potential to bring forth great abundance, the bounties of life, a spiritual flowering. She is grounded in the earth, and therefore in the material world, which helps us keep our center as we probe the spiritual planes. However, we cannot take this abundance for granted. The alchemical womb must be watched and tended, lest it abort, and we be forced to start anew.

Again, I think this has do with grounding and nurturing. I guess I simply tend to forget this, while (still) feeling self pity about January.

I guess I will meditate on this card for the next week, and try to nurture the aspects of everyday life that has to do with the Goddess. And nurture my children, husband, and myself as mother and wife, and woman of course.

I’m afraid I has been withdrawing into myself  and that is not a way to tend to this alchemical vessel, I think.

Crossed by Two of Swords as the challenge:

I’m being involved in thought processes, that are too airy, too dualistic, too intellectual.  If I let it be, I might find a compromise of wisdom (the owl) in a entirely different place, than where I look for it now. Maybe it is a conflict between emotion on one side (the sword with the red handle) and rationality on the other (the sword with the blue handle). Or maybe it is this dichotomy itself that is the problem.

So here I read the Challenge card as an obstacle, something that prevents me from going to the source of the Goddess, so to speak. I’m simply troubled with thoughts and rationalizations. Maybe the owl is telling me to hover over this and that is in doing that I find wisdom.

By the Empress, and pointing back to my last reading, by Children.  In this particular reading I see the Empress’ child, Eros, symbolising both children, childish things and Love.

And the Two swords also points back to the Three swords from last week; That thoughts and mental processes can sometimes be a problem in it self.  I can actually forget what is most important in the midst of them.

But then I’m gently reminded.

Images from The Alchemical Tarot, copyright Robert M. Place, are used with kind permission. Visit the Alchemical Tarot website.

Feast of Mothers, Christmas Eve: – Dec 24th. This card shows how we can connect with the spirits of our ancestors for communion and to ask for wisdom and guidance. It is also a time for Christians to reflect on the birth of Christ.

Princess of Swords
I guess this is about being calm, distanced and objective, and that that would be the advice of wisdom and guidance I would get from my ancestors, especially here I am thinking about my immidiate ancestors, my mother and my father, who are not with us anymore.

Actually there are som simililarities between this and the prevoius card, the colours of blue, for example, the birds and of course the swords. Both Justice and this Princess belong to the element of Air.

I guess both cards advice me to use reason and rationality more – since I do have a tendency to get carried away by emotions.

This spread is inspired by a post at Mary K. Greer’s blog on variations on the 3-card spread. I commented on this, suggested to let the 3 positions be:

1. White: The Virgin (purity)
2. Red: The Mother (passion, maturity)
3. Black: The Crone (experience, wisdom)

We could also call them the Spread of the three Ps : Purity of Innocence, Passion of Life and Power of Knowledge.

Using the Alchemical Tarot Renewed, I drew:

1. 6 of Coins: Youths;  generosity, sharing, innocence, trust

2. Lady of Staffs: Dance, love of the new

3. 9 of Vessels: The Mountain goat; experience, confidence, perspective

I can’t help getting the feeling that the deck has distanced it self a bit from me this time, and is now showing me what it can.

I’m asking it about innocence, and it is showing me the two nude children, exchanging the coins, (one them has an owl – symbol of wisdom – on it), like saying: This is (one of) my image(s) of innocence.

The Lady of the Staff is an image of the dance of life, love, newness and passion, and the goat with it’s nine vessels barried in the hill side is an image of – well, knowledge, experience and perspective. It is a treasure, waiting to be dug out by living the life itself. 

The Tarot Wisdom for this card, according to the Alchemical Tarot Study Group, is: “Take all your emotions and memories, and let by-gones be by-gones. Be on your way. The emotions and memories associated with the past are your foundation, and can be built upon, but cannot be changed. Don’t try to change the past, but look to the future. Don’t worry; you are sure-footed and will not stumble.”

This remind me of this first step on my journey, that I took today. 

Images from The Alchemical Tarot, copyright Robert M. Place, are used with kind permission. Visit the Alchemical Tarot website.

What can I learn using the Alchemical Tarot as tool for my spiritual journey:

I drew these three cards:

Lady of Coins:  Wealth, patronage, aesthetics, art ;  Ten of Coins: The Materialist: Selfishness, Only seeing the physical, and Queen of Swords: Presenting a choice between the red, mature side and the green, unripe side.

The Lady is symbolizing a love for the aestetichs, and here I interpret her also as a Page, something new, that will be promising. But both she and the Ten of Coins are  essentially about materialism – all though they represent different approaches to materialism .

I guess the Queen is telling me to make a profound choice. She is literally flying above the skies, and being the Queen of the Element of Air, she is telling me to reach higher – for the spiritual and for wisdom.  Thereby she is demanding of me to choose between maturity and immaturity, between spiritualism and materialism and between virtues and vices.  The work with this deck will be learning process and process of choosing, and this deck will encourage me and guide me through  this process.

Or, at least the Queen is telling me about the choice, because elementally she trumphed out by the two Coins that represent Earth, which is an “enemy” of the Airy suit of Swords.

They’re both abot materialism, the Lady enjoying it and what a well founded material life can bring her. But she is turning her  back at the moon, and she is being too superficially and aestechically oriented and way too materialistic  (10oC). This card center card is weighing down towards materialistic matters, and his blinded by all his coins. So I think the process and journey will not be an easy one. But identifying myself a lot with the Queen of Swords, I’m not loosing hope. 

Images from The Alchemical Tarot, copyright Robert M. Place, are used with kind permission. Visit the Alchemical Tarot website.

“This card points to issues of love, luck, artistic and creative expression and female wisdom.”

Whereas the foregoing card seems to be about how I can nurture and take care of my family and friends – this card is more about the conditions for me to take care of my Self . The 6 of swords is a about a journey (of consciousness), about solace and about healing. So I have to take a journey of healing of solace of my body, soul and spirit to be able to  and connect to love, creativity and female wisdom within myself.

And I know exactly what this journey is about.