Eight of Discs:
1 to 10 degrees Virgo; Ruled by Mercury (Ceres), Saturn and Sun; Lord of Prudence; “Changes in Enterprises.”
In the knitting basket,
eight skeins deep
the new scarf in the variegated yarn
is nearly finished.
The plump balls come unraveled,
they seems bent on escape,
rolling under the furniture,
leaving a trail of a single strand of yarn.
Hiding in the yarn bag,
deep in the inside pocket
the favorite wooden knitting needles
at the ready,
dreaming up the next project.
King of Discs
More than Jack
’s magic beans,
Every act is a ritual.
Honor the land to honor me;
Charged to care for the vineyard;
empty vines are disobedient;
it is good land, where grapes grow.
Make harvest not war.
Count the yield in the third hour and then again in the sixth;
clear away the stones, nettles, and thorny ground;
do not trample down the starts, nor destroy my portion.
Look to my holy mountain, and the fertile hills;
Mark each seed;
plant a fig tree in their midst.
Sing the song of the vineyard,
‘Plowman dig my earth’.
like the ox, the wolf, the lamb; and the lion,
I will eat straw.
My toil will make firm the feeble.
I will keep it day and night.
Perishables grow in my garden,
yet Death is swallowed up
my tiny seeds.
For this decan period is the Six of Wands
Six of Wands:
10 to 20 degrees Leo; Ruled by Triple Jupiter; Lord of Victory; “Joyful Spirit.”
The self-confident declaration in the tallest sunflowers,
The grounded peacefulness of spinning pinwheels.
A peek into the freedom of the August child
Brings marshmallows on a stick, melting over a campfire,
Pixie sticks, popsicle sticks, pick-up sticks.
Summertime days just waft away,
Like the tinkling music of the ice cream truck just out of hearing,
The smell of the road tar
Beyond the reach of the conscious mind.
The brave risks of youth, in the name of daring adventure, often leave no trace
Of a time when the street light coming on
Signaled the time to go home.
Baseball cards, slapping the wire spokes of the bike,
Pedaling at top speed.
Page of Cups at Lammas
A little unsteady
she takes her first steps,
more mermaid than a two-legged.
Blue eyed, blue-blooded,
born like all kings and queens,
with a silver spoon in her mouth.
A beach baby, full of sand and seaweed
she watches the waves.
When indoors, fish fly to find her.
The Tower at Lammas
‘Woke last night to the sound of thunder.’
I catch myself
counting one, one thousand, two, one thousand,
after each lightning strike.
‘Nowadays the world is lit by lightning-
how frightening.’
Falling, falling falling,
as if in a dream,
the falling that wakes me from my sleep.
I catch myself and
wish that I dreamt more of flying then falling.
‘Falling and calling your name’ out loud,
I catch myself.
Dreams of Italy,
vertigo at the Domo in Florence;
Dreams of the Cathers in the south of France, falling.
‘Ashes to ashes we all fall down.’
I catch myself.
July 31: 10 degrees Leo;
Sun decan Leo/Leo.
Feast Day: British witches stop Hitler’s army from invading, 1940.
Sabian Oracle: “Early morning dew salutes the sunlight.”
Constellation: Crater; keyword- “Rulership.”
Strength: 1 – 30 degrees Leo; Fixed fire; Daughter of the Flaming Sword and Leader of the Lion; Ruled by Sun; Eighth Trump.
For some, Adolf Hitler has been called the modern world’s most famous and most evil, black magician.262 On this day in 1940, English witches gathered in the New Forest and raised an energy cone to stop the Nazis. One of the various covens active that night was Gerald Gardner’s coven.263 Gerald Gardner has written many books are witchcraft, many still in print. Strength against a common foe takes this trump to the archetype of good versus evil. Immediately following Britain’s declaration of war in 1939, Dion Fortune began a series of regular letters to members of her magical order, the Fraternity of the Inner Light, who were unable to hold meetings due to wartime travel restrictions. This story is outlined in the book, The Magical Battle of Britain. With enemy planes rumbling overhead, she organized a series of visualizations to formulate “seed ideas in the group mind”, archetypal visions to invoke angelic protection and uphold British morale under fire. “The war has to be fought and won on the physical plane,” she wrote, “before physical manifestation can be given to the archetypal ideals. Always optimistic, she guided her fraternity through the dark days of the London Blitz continuing her weekly letters even when the bombs came through her own roof. On this feast day, Lady Strength becomes Dion Fortune. Lammas Night (1986) by Katherine Kurtz, offers an original and interesting treatment of World War Two-era fiction. featuring a magical coven. The book serves as a primer on practices of the Old Religion. Lammas Night includes a spirited discussion of reincarnation theories and comparative religion, yet there are no lectures in the book, just presentations fitting seamlessly into the telling of the tale. Not the stuff of “Sword and Sorcery” or “fantasy,” here, Strength is definitely determined by the strength of the mind.264
June 20-22: 0 degrees Cancer
Feast Day: Midsummer, Litha, Summer Solstice, Alban Heruin, Coamhain
Some have a Summer reading list; some have a Summer card list and still, others might have an art list. I have a Summer list for all three to share with you. The Tarot image of a suspended man, as found in the trump key number twelve, the Hanged Man, is one such Summer card. Like the Hanged Man, “as if by magic,” the endless cycle of the seasons is physically and momentarily suspended at the Summer Solstice. Midsummer, also called Alban Heruin is associated with the Tarot cards the Hanged Man, the Sun and the Ace of Wands, as symbolic manifestations of the union of the male deity with the Goddess. These are the cards of Summer.
Author- Dara Doolittle, copyright 2018