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Welcome to Alison’s Alembic! You may have arrived here as a stop on the
Tarot Blog Hop from either Morgan Drake Eckstein's Gleamings from the Golden Dawn or Joanne's Cosmic Whispers' blog. Or
you may have found this through TABI’s Facebook page, or though one of the many
wonderful tarot bloggers in the ether... It doesn’t matter – what does matter
is that you’re here!
For those of you unfamiliar with Lammas,
it’s the festival of the harvest. Also
known as Lughnasahd, the cross-quarter fire festival, it’s celebrated on the
evening of the 31 July and on the first three days of August. More
specifically, Lammas is the first harvest (usually of grain and fruit – the
basic food that sustains us through the winter), when farmers begin to reap the
rewards of their hard work. It’s
associated with baking bread from that first harvest of grain, but has also
been called ‘the festival of gratitude and first seeds’ because the grain is
also the seed that becomes next year’s harvest – a reminder of the cycle of
life.
Lammas celebrates the alchemy of Water and
Fire - we’ve just left the water sign of Cancer and are now in the fire sign of
Leo. The sun still carries enough
energy to help the crops to ripen, but we need rain as well. Lugh,
the Celtic god and Sun King, gives up his power at Lammas, just as the sun
starts to wane and lose its power. At
this time then, we honour both the
bounty of the land, which yields the harvest, and Lugh, who ‘dies’ in the
process of making the harvest possible – two ‘opposites’, if you like.
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| Temperance (trimmed): ©Sharman-Caselli Tarot |
Our wrangler for this Lammas Blog
Hop, Aisling
has asked us to write about the “union of opposites”, by finding either a card
that represents, to us, more than one of the four elemental energies
(specifically two which might be thought of as "opposites") or a pair
of cards which work as a unit but represent two opposite views of the same
situation.
As we’re celebrating the alchemy of Water and Fire in terms of
moving into different signs of the zodiac, I decided to write about a card that
brings together those two elements – Temperance.
In the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot we see an
angel pouring liquid from one cup to the other.
An angel also appears in the Sharman-Caselli version; here the alchemy
is emphasized by the colours of the cups: gold (often associated with the Sun) and
silver (the Moon). There’s a need for
flow between the conscious and unconscious, indicated by the flow between left
and right hands, as well as one foot being on land and one in water. The
rainbow symbolizes promise, as does the sun.
The Crowley Thoth tarot’s version of
Temperance, entitled ‘Art’, depicts the alchemical union of Fire and Water. We see here the lion and eagle, representing
the Fixed signs of Leo (Fire) and Scorpio (Water), on either side of the
cauldron, opposites balancing each other.
While water can extinguish fire, it can also join together with fire to
form steam – which we see rising through the centre of the card, forming two
rainbows enveloping the woman’s shoulders. Again, that symbol of hope and
promise...
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| Art (trimmed): ©Thoth Tarot |
... which also appears in the Druidcraft Tarot’s Fferyllt, the Druid
alchemist.
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| The Fferyllt (trimmed): ©DruidCraft Tarot |
Red and white serpents wrap themselves, in a shape resembling the
caduceus, around a tree in the Wild Wood. Red symbolizes Fire, blood, and iron.
In the accompanying book, the creators of the deck have chosen white to symbolise Air, although for me
it’s Water. A face set into the roots of
the tree is half in shade, half in light – two sides to everything. The blending,
or union, of opposites here fuels creativity, much as the Fferyllt does in the
DruidCraft, or the angel in other versions of the card. Alchemy at work.
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| Balance (trimmed): ©Wildwood Tarot |
Margarete Petersen's Mediatrix also brings together opposites - light and dark, warm and cold, conscious and unconscious ... or as my friend Margo says "receiving stardust and giving water". I can see all four elements at work in this image - the 'angel' stands on the Earth, one arm reaching out to the Fire of the sun, the other to the Air of the universe, while a 'stream' of Water flows nearby. The known/conscious of the Sun/Fire is separated from the unknown/unconscious of the Moon/Water by the ubiquitous rainbow.
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| Mediatrix (trimmed): ©Margarete Petersen Tarot |
Thank you for stopping off here
on your journey through this Lammas Tarot Blog Hop! Please do come back and read some of my other
posts.
The next stops on the Tarot Blog
Hop are - depending on whether you’re moving backwards or forwards through the
list – Morgan’s or Joanne's blog . The Master List can be found here.
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Druidcraft Tarot created by Philip Carr-Gomm and Stephanie Carr-Gomm, illustrated by
Will Worthington, published by Connections 2004
Margarete PetersenTarot, AGM-URANIA, 2004. www.tarotworld.com
Sharman-Caselli Tarot
created by Juliet Sharman-Burke, illustrated by Giovanni Caselli, published by
Connections
Thoth Tarot created by Aleister Crowley, illustrated by Lady Frieda Harris, published by US Games Systems, Inc.
Wildwood Tarot created by Mark Ryan and John Matthews, illustrated
by Will Worthington, published by Connections
What a great selection of cards! I don't think I'm familiar with the Mediatrix--I will definitely check it out!
ReplyDeleteI always like looking at decks that I do not own.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful and thoughtful philosophical musings...I am going to be thinking about this most of the evening. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI love telling my clients that Temperance is, to me, the card of the Alchemist and asks them what energy they are willing to change. :D
ReplyDeleteI liked this, I always enjoy comparative posts :)
ReplyDeleteWhat a great and enlightening choice of cards, awesome comparisons, congratulations! :)
ReplyDelete