Taurus decan 3, in which warm and loving Venus is frustrated by cold indifferent Saturn…”Phase I, in which Doris gets her oats.”
- Sign ruled by Venus
- Decan ruled by Saturn
- Sevens ruled by Venus’
- Triplicity ruler Saturn
The image described in Crowley’s 777 for Taurus decan 3 is a challenging one: “A swarthy man with white lashes, his body elephantine with long legs; with him, a horse, a stag, and a calf.” I gave him a scythe for Saturn, which makes him look even more elephantine by its placement. It is also an obvious combination of Saturn and Venus/Empress (ruler of Taurus), the cutting of the grain.
The word “elephantine” is interesting, as while of course it means “like an elephant” I figured it probably had an additional archaic meaning. And when I investigated it, it does, for it also means very large in size, and “ponderously clumsy.” Ponderous suggests a great weight – the burden of Saturn ruling the decan. I suppose one might be clumsy if one was both enormous and long-legged as well as old enough to have white lashes.
I suppose another meaning of “white lashes” could also be scars – it would fit, though is more Martial, as the Taurus 3 decan has associations with bindings, fetters, and slavery. But I chose the other meaning of white eyelashes as I saw him as an old farmer (Saturn, ruler of the decan both in triplicity and Chaldean systems) working the Earth (Taurus, and Venus, ruler of both Taurus and Sevens).
Where I live, the last frost date now falls near the end of this decan.
The Hermetic title of the Seven of Disks card is Lord of Failure, or originally in the Golden Dawn system, Success Unfulfilled. Crops fail, due to blight or frost. Indeed, against the black background there are patterns that look like frost crystals, or spores. The farmer, to ensure survival, must have a Plan B! This is where the horse, stag, and calf of the description come into play. If his crops (Taurus) fail; does he harvest and replant? Is there still time (Saturn)? The horse in the disk representing his thought-bubble is pulling a plow, perhaps he can plant again. If that fails though, he might have to hunt for food this winter (the stag in the snow) and/or kill off his cattle to eat in the spring (his calf in spring grass). Otherwise, he might die – the skeletons.
Yet the skeletons also represent the Litai, the gods per the 36 Airs of the Zodiac fragment, which you will read about in the section on the gods of the decan in the upcoming book. The seven Litae goddesses shown praying here among the disks are not just old and lame, but skeletal, fitting the Saturnian theme. They alternately could stand in for the Pleiades and Hyades – each a group of seven sisters associated with the decan, and with weeping.
[And now, a word from our sponsor: Plan B is a birth control pill for termination (Saturn) of any possible pregnancy (Venus) after unprotected sex. In some countries, it has a more humorous name: After-D! And now, back to our regularly scheduled program.]
The Ptolemaic god per 777 is Apophis, terrible serpent associated with darkness and natural disasters, who assailed the solar barge in an eternal battle of darkness and light. He is sometimes pictured being dismembered.
- RWS image: A man pondering his potato crop that appears to be potentially blighted.
- Thoth image: leaden disks marked with Saturn symbols, surrounded by either blighted or frosted plants
- Tabula Mundi image: an artistic depiction of the “Tree of Life After the Fall” diagram or the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden, used in the Golden Dawn teachings for the Philosophus grade (Netzach, sphere 7)
- Rosetta image: the Minotaur trapped in an underground maze
Each of these shows failures, disasters, and bindings. But what I like about the Telos Tarot of 777 Taurus 3 decan image is that is also shows a way out and ways to cope through thorough preparation and a mature response to the unforeseen, as well as an appeal to higher powers.
To be continued in Part II.