magical image of the decan per Crowley’s 777: An old man leaning on a staff and wrapped in a mantle
Mercury rules both the sign and the decan. The related deities are Cronus and Hestia.
Want to follow along with the creation of this deck? Sign up for the newsletter! No spam and your info is never shared. It comes out monthly if all is going well, though sometimes a month gets skipped!
magical image of the decan per Crowley’s 777: Tall, fair, large man, with him a woman holding a large black oil jar
The Nine of Disks/Pentacles is the secand decan of Virgo. Virgo is Mercury ruled and the decan is ruled by Venus
[coming soon]
Want to follow along with the creation of this deck? Sign up for the newsletter! No spam and your info is never shared. It comes out monthly if all is going well, though sometimes a month gets skipped!
per 777: A virgin clad in linen, with an apple or pomegranate
The 8 of Disks or Pentacles is also known as the Lord of Prudence. The ruler of Virgo and 8’s is Mercury, ruler of the first decan of Virgo is the Sun.
[coming soon]
Want to follow along with the creation of this deck? Sign up for the newsletter! No spam and your info is never shared. It comes out monthly if all is going well, though sometimes a month gets skipped!
Magical image of the decan, per Crowley’s 777: A swarthy hairy man, with a drawn sword and shield
The Seven of Wands, Lord of Valour, Leo’s third and final decan, ruled by Mars: Six against one: is this the hill you want to die on?
[coming soon]
The tarot Six of Wands is the Lord of Victory, the succedent or middle decan of the fixed Fire sign Leo. 777 describes the decan image as “A man crowned with a white myrtle wreath, holding a bow“.
The Picatrix decan description is similar, with the additional detail that this is a man who will mount and ride [a horse].
36 Airs of the Zodiac give the related deity as Isis, the goddess who wears a crown that has what looks like the pictogram of a figure seated on a throne. It is shown here in the card on the hill in the distance that the figure rides towards.
Per 777: A man in sordid raiment, with him a nobleman on horseback. accompanied by bears and dogs
Deity per 36 Airs of the Zodiac: Hephaestus
A complicated image for the Five of Wands, the Lord of Strife (and striving). An image that suggests the hunt.
The 777 description is likely loosely based on the Picatrix description: A man dressed in filthy garments; and there ascends with him the figure of a lord of the horse looking toward the north; and his figure is like the figure of a bear and the figure of a dog. And this is a face of strength, liberality, and victory.
Sort of bleeds into the 6 of Wands, Victory. if you ask me. Working on that one now!
Both Agrippa and Bruno have a figure riding a lion. I did incorporate the lion (Lion-Serpent) for Leo into the design, but enclosed in a pentagram, and netted – as Saturn, the planet of restriction and pressure, rules the decan.
[coming soon]
Per 777: A man in sordid raiment, with him a nobleman on horseback. accompanied by bears and dogs
Per 777, the decan for the Four of Cups (Luxury, or Blended Pleasure): A swift-footed person, with a viper in his hand, leading dogs. Except for the male pronoun, it sounds a lot like the huntress lunar goddess Artemis, who was swift and often accompanied by dogs. Her lunar connotations make a lot of sense for Cancer, ruled by the Moon, and the decan itself ruled by the Moon. So this figure had an Artemis inspiration, and is shown running along the seashore with two dogs that will probably be colored black as a nod to Hecate and Anubis, also associated with the decan.
Some of the other decan source image descriptions also mention hunting, dogs, and running. The 36 Airs fragmentary text gives the decan to Hecate, triple faced lunar goddess who also is associated with dogs, Ibn Ezra mentions Anubis, and the Egyptian god of the decan is serpentine Typhon or the somewhat canine Set. In this image the faces in the Moon represent Hecate.
The figure carries a lunar horn-shaped drinking cup, while the dogs each bear a cup as well however precariously. The fourth cup is spilling out – no one has the need for it or an additional hand to carry it! After all, a fourth cup would be both a luxury and a restrictive burden. Two figures look behind, one ahead. The pleasure is blended with the knowledge that stasis is impossible!
[coming soon]
Four of Cups, ©2021 M.M. Meleen
This was a fun image to work with. Crowley’s 777 lists the decan image as: A beautiful woman wreathed with myrtle. She holds a lyre and sings of love and gladness.
The tarot Three of Cups, Lord of Abundance, is the middle decan of Cancer, Cancer ruled by the Moon, with the decan itself ruled by Mercury (though the Vedic tradition has it as Mars – which is perhaps a hint as to why 36 Airs of the Zodiac attributes it to Hercules, who doesn’t fit well with the cards meaning unless you ponder Hercules/Herakles’ connection to Hera.)
The woman here was inspired by the goddess Saraswati, who has many Mercury-like attributes. Saraswati normally holds an instrument called a veena which is in the same family as the lyre. Here she holds a lyre as she sings “of love and gladness” and toasts with three different ornate chalices. The peacock is a bird sacred to both Saraswati and Hera.
Update: You can see the color version here.
Want to follow along with the creation of this deck? Sign up for the newsletter! No spam and your info is never shared. It comes out monthly if all is going well, though sometimes a month gets skipped!
The Two of Cups is also called the Lord of Love. At first, I found the decan image listed in 777 (which appears to be loosely based on the Picatrix images) a bit perplexing for a card of Love. 777 lists it as “A man with distorted face and hands, a horse’s body, white feet, and a girdle of leaves“. Picatrix lists it as “A man having twisted and crooked fingers and head, and his body is like the body of a horse, and having white feet and upon his body fig leaves. And this is a face of teaching, knowledge, of love, subtlety, and of skills.” Thinking about this made me see him as a Chiron-like figure. Chiron the Centaur was very learned, and a loving teacher and father-figure to many great heroes whose rearing was entrusted to him in their childhood. You can see the illustrious list of his students in the link, and he formed many loving relationships as he reared and cared for them.
Agrippa’s decan description is different, and fits with the idea of Venus as the decan ruler: “In the first face of Cancer ascendeth the form of a young Virgin, adorned with fine cloathes [clothes], and having a Crown on her head; it giveth acuteness of senses, subtilty of wit, and the love of men.” Likewise Bruno’s description is very Venusian: “In the first face of Cancer is a crowned woman who is luxuriously dressed. She is holding an olive branch in her right hand and a drinking cup in her left hand.
36 Airs of the Zodiac gives an association with Nike, the goddess of Victory who was Zeus’ charioteer. At least the charioteer reference fits for the introduction of the sign of Cancer, whose trump card is the Chariot. Nike however had no consort, and no children. While she could indeed be a crowned virgin, it’s a curious association for the Lord of Love except that she was often paired with Eros, the god of love and child of Aphrodite/Venus, who flew along behind her chariot in the celebrations that followed Victory.
I’ve also included the dolphins “argent and or” (silver and gold in heraldic terms) that are in the traditional Golden Dawn description of the card, and as seen in the Thoth deck, in my Rosetta, and as the lower half of the hippocampi (horse-dolphin hybrids which in consideration of the horse references of the decan image is interesting) of Tabula Mundi. Dolphins are associated with the womb and with the womb’s alchemy. The idea of them as silver and gold are likely a lunar-solar thing, a fertile combination of female and male. Makes some sense with the idea of Cancer and Venus (both feminine and lunar) in the sephira for Twos, Chokmah considered masculine and associated with the Zodiac itself, composed of stars that are after all suns, so solar.
One thing you will notice if you look at the Two of Cups in almost any classic tarot deck is that every one contains some curving twisting sinuous shapes. You can see it in the card from Rider Waite Smith, Thoth, Golden Dawn decks, my own Rosetta and Tabula Mundi, and even many Marseilles deck. Looking at them all together one thing pops out at me – in every one these entwining shapes form a vesica piscis by their intersection. This is very symbolic and intentional, for it not only references the “bladder of a fish” – an indirect reference to the dolphins and the womb – but also form a quite feminine shape, that of a portal through which things are born. Quite appropriate for the maternal sign of Cancer paired with decan ruler Venus, the Empress and mother figure.
So I’ve put both the male centaur-like figure in, as well as the young female figure. Perhaps the bundle she so lovingly holds will someday be entrusted to the wise centaur for rearing. Perhaps she is the vision of love that arises from the alchemical mixing of the fluid in silver and gold cups he holds. I’ve seen this card predict a future pregnancy, before it even happened and was just as they say, a “twinkle in the eye” (which sounds very zodiacal and vesical!) In any event, this card can signify the start of love – and that love can take many forms. It can be romantic love, or the love of a mother for a child, or a mentor for a student, or that higher love where 0 = 2. One becomes Two, or two become one and none.
Want to follow along with the creation of this deck? Sign up for the newsletter! No spam and your info is never shared. It comes out monthly if all is going well, though sometimes a month gets skipped!
The third and final (in more ways than one) decan of Gemini corresponds to the tarot Ten of Swords, the Lord of Ruin, ruled by the Sun. As Gemini, again we have twinned beings, but this time, just like in the Gemini mythos of Castor and Pollux, one twin must die.
777 lists the decan image as “A man in mail, armored with bow, arrows, and quiver“. 36 Airs of the Zodiac associates the decan with Praxidike, the executor, the dispenser of justice, and mother of the Erinyes (Furies). Praxidike was also an epithet of Persephone, who dispensed final justice in her role as Queen of the Underworld and the dead.
This decan also has the flavor of finality for another reason, as it was the last decan of the Egyptian year, and ends just as the Summer Solstice in the Northern hemisphere begins. The Oak King, or the Sun King, or the Green Knight – whatever you want to name him, must die here, sacrificed for the fertility of the land. At the Solstice, the days reach their longest, the Sun reaches it’s full strength only to begin the inevitable period of its waning.
During this days of this decan, the Sun appears above and behind the head of the constellation Orion – though you can’t see it, he appears to wear the Sun like a hat – or a head. As Solstice passes and the Sun proceeds into the next decan of Cancer, it descends from his shoulders as if stricken off by a sword. So while pondering this I realized that the “man in mail, armored with bow, arrows, and quiver” could indeed be an Orion figure. Depictions of the constellation sometimes show him with a sword in one hand held overhead and a bow in the other in front of him. Some illustrations have the bow replaced with either a lion’s pelt or a shield, but to me when I look at the constellation I see a belted warrior armed with a curving bow.
The constellation Orion is right next to that of the constellation Gemini, whose stars distinctly show two twins. Most often we think of these as Castor and Pollux – one mortal and one immortal. Yet history has many stories of twins or brothers, one of whom is slain, sometimes by the other. There is the story of Horus and Set, battling over the right for kingship, and a symbolic battle of light and darkness, that we see hinted at in the hilts of the two swords closest to the foreground.
[coming soon]
Want to follow along with the creation of this deck? Sign up for the newsletter! No spam and your info is never shared. It comes out monthly if all is going well, though sometimes a month gets skipped!
