Episode 113: The Element of Fire in Tarot

[Music] And my heart says, "I am burning." And my heart says, "I am burning." Won't you help me put out the fire? Every night, how money will you desire? And in my heart there is a lot of fire getting higher for you. [Music] Hi everybody. Welcome back to Forgins Wheelhouse. And we are now starting our four part series on the elements as viewed in Esoteric Tarot. So today we're going to be dealing with fire. We're going to go fire water, air, earth, which is the order we always go in in Esoteric Tarot. And the cards that we're going to cover are several because elements appear in nearly every card, except for I guess you could say the planetary ones. And there's even an argument for that. Right. For sure. Right, we can argue about Jupiter, but Mars and Sun for sure. So we're going to be dealing with the judgment or Eon card, which is the major of elemental fire. And then we'll be dealing with the three zodiacal majors of fire, which would be the Emperor Strength or Lust and Temperance or Art. Lots of alternate titles in here. And then we're going to be dealing with the entire suit of ones, as well as you can kind of consider the kings or thoth knights as being the fiery part of their suit. So we can kind of just talk about that briefly, I guess. And I guess a lot of cards. I mean, I think we don't have to like, you know, go deep dive into everything. It's basically a quarter of a deck. Yeah, pretty much. And if we're going to talk about Mars and Sun, of course, that would be the tower and the Sun. All right. So we're going to talk first, I guess, about elemental qualities. And these derive originally from the Greek philosophers. We're talking about like 400, 500 BC elemental theory starts, I think, with impedacles and Hippocrates who had the sort of medicinal view of the four elements as they arise in the human body. And then, you know, Plato actually assigned a name, Stoieheon, to describe an element. And that's the Greek term for it. And then finally, with Aristotle, by the time you get to like 350 BC, he's talking about combining the four into sort of a fifth entity called the quintessence. Yeah. And then we also have some of the alchemists of like the 14, 15, hundreds who start more explorations on the elements for both physical, medical and alchemy purposes. Right. And the spirit that arises from them. So the qualities of fire are easy. They're hot and dry. Nobody would dispute that. And it's interesting because we always describe the elements with two descriptors like that. But they're kind of based on, you know, these pairs of opposites. So fire is always hot. And water is definitely wet. But when it comes to dry and cold, it gets a little bit confusing because typically dry and cold are both described to earth and air is supposed to be hot and moist. But it really depends on who you ask. So anyway, hot and dry for sure with fire. And in terms of dignity, it shares its mode. It's, you know, polarity with air because air is also supposed to be hot both rise. Air is supposed to be hot and moist versus fire being hot and dry. Yeah, I think the rising and descending are important considerations with the four elements. And you know, that's even reflected in their symbols, you know, the upward triangle for fire and the downward triangle for water and likewise for air and earth because air and fire are considered to rise. Whereas both water and earth are supposed to descend. So they, you know, one thing I read was because rain comes down. It's returning to its home, which is below or something like that. And because fire goes up, it's returning to its home, which is above. You know, one goes up, one goes down, right. And the only difference between the fire and the air glyph, of course, is that line in the middle of the triangle, which I've seen as being kind of that sort of eternal separation between air and earth like they never meet kind of a thing. And that's why the lines there. I'm not sure if that's, you know, that's just one explanation. It's an interesting point because, you know, you said air and air and earth don't meet, but they also also fire and water don't meet in the sense. So you know how we're going fire water air earth, which is the Yodhav, Bavhe for world kind of order. There's another order that you see a law in the classical where they do it consider the earth as, you know, a globe, right here we are, that's the bottom level. And above that is water, the water on top of the earth. And above that level is air and the highest level is fire. Right. You know, the, it's not the same order. And there's always this buffer of air between fire and water because fire and water are opposites and like that's like the air is both what you get when you combine fire and water and and like steam, you get this like air effect, but also it's like a buffer between these two incompatible elements. So you've got the celestial region region above where like the sun, the stars, which are form of fire. Above and then that's where also they say meteors are transitional fire instead of like fixed permanent fire. And then you have the air, the buffer and then you have the water and then you have the earth as the lowest level. But what I find really interesting looking at that model is like the connection between so earth is the lowest and fire is the highest just like in the traditional order. But there's also that like transition of fire to earth like through spirit. And I was thinking looking at that model and thinking and this is never really mentioned. But if you think about it below earth in that level. Yes, because what's at the core of the earth. Yes. But a big fiery ball of molten goo. So it's almost like fire is above and fire is below you have the earth fire and you have the star fire. Right. Kind of like I don't know the divine wisdom in the more human wisdom or energy or something because fire is basically energy. So it's. I don't know. Just some musings I had looking at that going. Oh, but but fires also below us as well as the highest level above us. Yes, that makes a lot of sense because well there is a thing about fire and earth. I mean like fire and air in terms of elemental dignity as we use them in the terror fire and air go together. They're friendly. They're considered friendly in the same way that water and earth are considered from air feeds fire. Exactly. Or can blow it out. But yeah. Right. But fire and earth are interesting as a combination because they are. You know, I mean it's like we think of them as the highest and the lowest, but again you said you know there's this sort of thing where you can sort of imagine them inverted. And also fire kind of depends on on earth in a way. I mean fire right. It's fuel fire needs matter as it's fuel. Exactly. And the thing about fire is that it is fleeting because it consumes it consumes itself. And then when it's done consuming it's gone. So you know it depends on that matter to sustain itself. And I think there is a sort of profound mystery in that in the way that the cycle renews. You descend fire water air earth, but it's the earth that fuels the fire earth as it matter. And that's an interesting thing too. I mean when you think about like wood. You know when you think about wood as fuel it's earthen. But when you think about wood as that green fuse you know that's live then it's fire. Right. And both are true. Yeah. Fire is interesting because it's you know they say fire is the energy and fire is transmutation because it takes one substance and it turns it into another. But it's actually like transmutation in both directions because not only will fire. It takes something and you know consume it and turn it into something else whether it light or he or or ash or whatever. Whatever transmutation is happening but it is said that everything derived from fire originally like that spark or something the big bang or whatever. And so it both creates and destroys. Yes. Yes. There's something just always incipient about fire and that's even reflected I think in the idea. I mean we'll certainly get into this with the cabala but also in its power of this things you know to will. It is the thing that begins everything. Yeah. And it's definitely like really self will like you think about will yet to will but it's implied the self but that's really important with fire it really is a self oriented energy. Yeah, and it doesn't be so. respond to anything else. - You know, nothing else is there. (laughing) - Exactly. It's not gonna be worried about feelings or about reason, the mind, or about practicalities. It's just got its passion and its desire and its inspiration and its desire to change and innovate and self-willed things. It's not gonna be worried about feelings, you know? - Yeah, I was kind of looking through some of the astrological keywords that kind of go with the element of fire. - You know, we think of courage and vision, heat and energy, purpose, things that arise from the independent spirit. - Creativity, it's got purification, which can be both creative or destructive, you know? I like the word transmutation for it because basically transmutation is changing from one form to another and that's kind of what fire does. And if you even look at the symbol for fire, it's an upward triangle, right? And that's also the symbol for a change because it's the Greek delta. When I used to do accounting, one of the things that I always did as kind of a shorthand is whenever you made a change in your work papers, you'd put a little triangle there and that's kind of like a shorthand to mean change. And so I thought that was interesting that the delta change is the same as the symbol for fire. - Absolutely. And in calculus, you use delta to represent the difference between, it's the same thing. You know, if we think about the like three signs associated with fire, Aries Leo and Sagittarius, you know, that's the ram, the lion and the archer. And I think that's really interesting because it sort of encapsulates that creative and destructive potential of the signs. The ram, of course, being famous for its aggressive energy, its drive to mate. - The headbutting. - The headbutting, exactly. - The headbutting and the running, exactly. And then the lion, of course, just being powerfully steadfast and king at all times and regal. - Strong. - And, you know, and there's an air of, immanence or maintenance about it of just prevailing by existing, by being superior simply by being alive, you know, and all of the metaphors of kingship that go with the lion and its sort of solar associations. And then the archer, you know, one thing that's been interesting to think about for me, just thinking about it more through tarot, is that it really is, you know, it's a death-dealing weapon, you know, the bow. And so, you know, when I think about-- - Well, they all are weapons in general, dealing with-- - Yes, all weapons are death-dealing, yeah. But I mean, thinking about this cycle of creation destruction, the archer is a destructive force in a way. - That's interesting because it's also a healing force because when I think of the archer, I also think of Kyron the Centaur, you know, and I think of it's lepius, the healer, all of which are kind of tied into the Sagittarian. So it's gotten both going on, you know, just like fire itself, it's got the healing-- - That's right, that's right. - That's right. - And life-giving stuff, but it's also got the destruction after. - Exactly, exactly. It kind of goes on both ends and, you know, by sort of looking at those three cards, the Emperor's Strength or Lust and Temperance, we can kind of see the way that story can be told in two different ways. I mean, I often think that stories of fire and tarot are stories of epic heroism and adventure and becoming your own myth. And that can end in fame or tragedy, you know, it can kind of, the story is compelling either way, archetypally. I've been thinking about this a lot in terms of Homeric epic 'cause I'm doing a project on that right now. And thinking about the idea of clasus of glory, which is always described as undying, clasus aftitan. And it's interesting that fire gives us a way to not die, you know, to become immortal through fame or, I mean, the language of alchemy, which of course is associated with the temperance card, is all about not dying at some level. To look at those three majors a little bit more closely, I mean, I kind of associate the Emperor's Strength or Lust and Temperance or Art with kind of three stages of that hero's journey. So the Emperor. - It's kind of encapsulated in their motto, is actually, you know? - Yes. - I am, I will, I aim. - Exactly. - The whole trajectory there. - Yeah, yeah. And I think of that the Emperor is sort of having to do with that ambition, that initial drive, you know, the drive to conquer, whereas the Strength or Lust card, with going public, with being seen, with expressing that life and burning with it and being radiant with it. And then to me, you can think of the temperance or art card as the great work, the legend that forms out of it, how to become a legend, how to become your own personal myth. And I think that that's a question that always comes up when you're looking at the judgment or eon card, you know, which some people find very difficult to interpret because it's so big. But I think it's a challenge or a confrontation. - Yeah, a challenge to ask yourself, what is your personal myth? What is it that you mean to bring forth in this lifetime before you leave it? You know, what is your, what are you here to do? What were you meant to do that you haven't done yet? I find that that is a very focusing and clarifying quest when the judgment or eon card comes up because it does tie into those questions of will. - What is your true will? - You regret if you didn't do the judgment day comes. (laughing) When we say do what you will, it's not do what you want, right? You know, it's not exactly that. It's what is the big thing, you know, that you're here to do that you've been avoiding because well, for whatever reason, I mean, there's a million reasons not to do the thing you're meant to do. And most of the reasons in the long run don't matter. - The majors of fire? - Well, we could just briefly mention, you know, the sun and Mars, you know, if you talk about the signs, Aries, Leo and Sagittarius, that would be the tower, you know, for Mars, ruling Aries and the sun, ruling Leo. And then Jupiter is, you know, that's the only iffy one would you consider that a card of fire because the sun and Mars definitely, I mean, the sun is literally Lord of the fire of the fire. (laughing) - You know, you see people ascribing Jupiter to fire, especially in the more traditional texts. - Well, it's interesting too because, you know, sometimes Jupiter's air, right? So definitely there's this quality of, maybe that's part of the whole, and you know, it's the mutable sign where it's about to change. So the planet ruling it is kind of borderline fire, you know, it's like, can be fire if you consider it, the ruler of Sagittarius, but generally speaking, it's considered air for, it's a piece of the quality. - So it's like a hot gas giant. - It's interesting like the whole like fire, water, air and earth, we were talking about the rising and sinking, and that's, you know, when you think about what happens when you burn something, what fire is doing is it's transmuting, changing matter to heat and light in the process, the smoke air rises and the ash earth sinks. So that's kind of interesting anyway. - It is interesting. - And there's also, oh, something else I read that was kind of interesting is that, I think he was a alchemist and doctor who said that, there are like three substances of matter itself, when he says, he gave the example of wooden, he said, what burns is sulfur and what smokes is mercurious and what becomes ash is salt. And I thought, yeah, that makes sense. - Yeah, that makes sense. And that's an important point too, like it kind of leads into the fact that just in general, these elements aren't pure really in themselves 'cause every element can change and does change in nature to the other elements. They're not like a fixed thing that exists like purely on their own. - Right, and they're not just physical as well. They have metaphysical qualities that help us understand them. - I was just breaking my brain a little while ago, looking at Robert Wings, Hermetic Cabala, and on page 43, he breaks elements into five, no, six different categories, primordial elements, primal elements, transitional elements, specific elements, astral elements, and based elements. And I'm like, oh, shit. Yeah. - Who needs it? Who fucking needs it? But anyway, if y'all wanna go check that out, it's in there. (laughs) - I generally find that it's interesting to kind of study these fractal breakdowns that we do in esotericism, but when it comes to doing a reading, sometimes it's better to let it just be a big soup. (laughs) So in terms of the minors, the minors, so we have the two, three, and four of Wands associated with the emperors. - Don't forget the H. - And the ace, of course, yes, the ace, the throne of the suit. We have the ace, and then we have the root, or the, seed, you know, is another way to--or the crown. Right? Kind of these sort of--what seem to be mutually incompatible metaphors, which somehow makes sense. And then we have the Decanic Miners, the two, three, and four of Wands associated with the Emperor. So that's Dominion Virtue and Completion. Sorry, Aries, yep. And the five, six, and seven of Wands associated with Leo and the Strength or Lust card. That's Stryph Victory and Valor. And then the 8, 9, and 10 associated with Sagittarius and the Temperance or Art card. And you know, it's interesting because in Tarot they seem to trace a very particular arc. I mean, we talk about the potential creation and destruction qualities of fire. But in this story, it goes literally from Dominion to Victory to oppression, starting with the beginning of the middle of the middle and then the end of the end. So I kind of think of that as a journey of conquest in the Aries Miners, followed by sort of contest or contesting and competition being in the spotlight in the Leo cards. And then all of it coming to an end, a kind of mythic collapse for Goethe or Ill in the 8, 9, and 10 of Wands. Another way to express like kind of the same thing you said, but in a different way is that the Dominion or the Aries energy is declaring oneself kind of a self declaration. And then in the Leo part of the journey, you have this expression finding of and expression of your true will. And then the end, the Sagittarius part of the Wands journey. You are aiming for a goal and hopefully hitting that target. Yes, yes, or even transmitting it onto the next generation if you use the Kairan model. You're releasing that arrow. Releasing that arrow exactly into whatever its destination is. One thing that I thought about kind of recently when writing 36 secrets was that the 10 of Wands, it reminds me of the bundle of sticks that was used to represent the sort of ancient idea of fascism. The bundle of sticks is known as the fascis and it used to hold an axe in it. So that idea of oppression and sort of overwhelming power and fascism kind of go altogether with that idea for me. But it can also be just the fire burning itself out, you know, to the embers and completing its cycle, you know. And using a ball its fuel. And the story being done. And then, you know, the hero, his mortal part having been burned off in the refining fire of judgment. The hero rises and is transmuted into the sky or whatever it is that that heroes do after they're done. And then I also think of that moment as poignant because it also falls at the end of our calendar year. The 10 of Wands is the last of Sagittarius. So the right is the low point of the sun's journey here in the Northern hemisphere anyway. Yeah, I think the story of fire really tells that, you know, the story of life in a very compact and instinctive way because it happens to be pegged to our calendar, at least in the northern hemisphere. It goes for well. It's spring through summer to winter. Yeah. Well, I guess, you know, I don't want to give the ace short shrift. But I think it's always worth pointing out that that ace, you know, when we see it, it's natural will, right, as opposed to invoked will, which is the sword and that life force that it represents, we see it because it's not a dead piece of wood, right? It is a living piece of wood. It's pure potential. Right. And even though it's separate from the tree, you know, it is alive because that's the paradox, you know, because it is bursting with its own vitality. And that's why the YODES are falling from it in the right-of-wait Smith card. It has that correlation with YODES the sort of like first letter of the tetragramaton and the source of all creation. So one thing I thought was interesting is just to look at the Deccan constellations for those signs. So in Ares, the three Deccan constellations would be in Dramada, which is shared with Pisces because there's kind of some overlap there. But part of Andromeda, Cassiopia, and Cassiopia's throne called the Throne. So those three constellations are of Ares. And so there's probably some mythology there that is relevant to the, you know, the tale. And then if you get go to Leo, we've got of course the Leo constellation, Leo minor. We've got part of Ursa Major, the tale of the bear part. We've got one called Canis Venatisi, which is the hunting dogs, which that makes sense. And then for Sagittarius, we have one called Ara, the altar. We have Corona, Australia, the southern crown, and we have Lyra, the Lyre. So it's a nice little trajectory. It sounds interesting in terms of the potential mythologies that could correlate. You could totally construct some very interesting narratives out of those. Yeah. For sure. Let's see. Oh, we should talk a little bit about court cards and the way the, yeah, the lending of the elements. The 16 sub elements. Yes. Yes. And how complicated that is. But, but, you know, so all court cards belong to their suits. So all Wands court cards are fiery, but also we have the rankings by elements. So I'll red-weight kings or thoth knights are fiery. All queens are watery. All red-weight knights or thoth princes are airy and all pages or princesses are earthy. When we talk about the knights or kings in, as being the fiery part of their suit, the fiery part of fire, the fiery part of water, etc. That's interesting, right? Because they are, their, their two main decons are mutable. And fire has that fleeting quality about it. I think that it's the brightness, the inspirational qualities of fire in a metaphysical way, the way that a king or knight can inspire. And the penetrating quality of fire. The sudden insight into what needs to be done the vision or the sort of leadership abilities. And this is not necessarily huge on follow-through. You know, I mean, the, it's definitely a flash type of thing. Like, so the, you know, the, the thoth knights are on horseback. There's this sense of like, surging forward. But you can only surge for so long. There's even something else I was thinking about, you know, the suits. We have aries and I think of aries, okay, they're kind of like the blunt weapon, you know, the club or what are the Lancers or whatever. And, you know, then in Leo cards, it's more of the actual wand, you know, the directing the will completely. And then in the Sagittarius cards, well, obviously it's the arrow. And the arrow symbol, symbolism in Buddhism has to do with the sudden enlightenment is they, they symbolize that by the arrow. So I thought that was kind of interesting. It's also interesting that, you know, when you look at the sort of medieval conception of the influence of the planets, they're always holding a dart, which is, you know, a form of arrow in their right hand. And that dart is what they're sending quotations. Well, that too. But which is also apt. But, you know, but that's what they're sending down into the material plane, you know, the divine influence that is going to cause something to happen. So it has that initiative quality as the arrow. And I also think of like, when I think of Kings or Knights as being fiery, I also think of them having an executive function. I mean, if you think of what an executive does in a corporation, she or he is supposed to have the vision, they don't do all the work, right? They set the plan. They definitely don't. You know, they just tell everyone, this is a good idea. This is the direction I have in mind for the company. This is my vision. That's a good way to put it. Yeah. Yeah. And they're not, you know, turning the, they're not turning the wheels on the bicycle here. Yeah. But they're steering the ship, you know, because somebody's got to be in charge. That is an important thing for an executive to understand in a way. You know, it's like, it's not your job to micromanage every little thing. It's your job to make sure that overall the vision and the principles are going in the direction that you want them to. Yeah. We haven't really talked about, you know, there's fire of fire, fire of water, fire of air, fire of earth. And likewise through the rest of the whole thing. So in a sense, the most fiery court card would be the fire of fire card, which is the night of Wands, King of Wands and right away it's not. Yeah. And I think that that's really interesting. I mean, I often think of that card as being, you know, the one that you follow out of confusion or darkness, you know, this is someone who has a lot of charisma most likely. I always think of that one as like the horse bursting out of the gate in the horse race. The horse out of the gate. That's right. The one who sets the pace. Yeah. Yeah. Which is, you know, kind of nice given the sort of course associations of the Sagittarius archetype. It's interesting because you can have those qualities in the other ones as well, but they are mediated by the suit in some way. Can be the fire suit modified by the rank or it can be the rank modified by the fire suit? Right. If you think of what's the fiery part of water, which drives people nuts, because they're opposites, but you do have spiritual leadership. You do have people who are inspiring in a way that kind of gets you where you live. The fire is a part of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the fire. The spirit of the spirit of the fire is a part of water, the one who I think of as kind of like the holy grail questing night. Inspirational or spiritual guru could be as well. And sometimes we use them as patron of the arts because of the association of inspiration. Yes, exactly, with works of art. So there's a way to do that. There's a way to apply the fiery part to all the kings of writer-watesmith or knights of thoth. That's interesting then. So then if we go through just the wands courts, we talked about the night, but then the queen, that would be the watery part of fire. And that's the more reflective part of fire. I often think of that being true. There's a desire with the watery parts of each suit to connect and find the pattern to build bridges and make meaning with others. And I think that that is true of the queen of wands, certainly that she sees her own reflection, but she also sees the fire in everyone else as well. For her to me, like in comparison with the night, it seems like a quality more of internal fire than external fire of the night. Like the night is bursting out of the gate. He's very yang, very forward, very penetrating. Then the queen is more like that internal like Shakti inner fire. There's an awareness of her inner fire too. I mean, I think that's what makes her so hot. There's that sense of her own aliveness as seen through the eyes of others as well. There's a receptivity, a fiery receptivity. And then we get the prince or I guess in right away at the night, but the prince of wands, air of fire. Again, you think about, okay, what does air do to fire? It blows it up, right? I always think of the prince of wands as being like this kind of like he's bursting through a hoop of fire. Wait, look at me. You know, it's a moment where you take a bellows and you shoot it into the fire and it rises up a couple feet. That's the prince action. Yes, and it is explosive like that. When fire is suddenly given access to air oxygen, it burns so brightly. Look at me here, how bright I am. Which is both quality of the air combining with fire, but also that sort of Leo center of attention being in the spotlight thing. And then you have the earth of fire, the princess or page of wands, which is, you know, interesting also because there is a chemistry in that card for sure. She's a force of nature. Yes, and I think that she really kind of encapsulates that idea that the fuel is required for the fire to burn. You know, I mean, you can kind of think of that as well in the in the night or king of tentacles, but to me that's like the potential in a way. You know, it's sort of like the huge stack of cordwood. It's both the potential and like the ability, I think of earth of fire. It's the fuel for sure, but you could also look at it as the other end like the ability to actually manifest that. That's what I mean. Yes, yes, yes. What you need the fuel to do. So it's, yeah, if I think of the night of discs of king of tentacles as the stacked cordwood, I think of the page of wands as being like the match or the ignition. You know, it's sort of like there's a little bit of there's a mirth in there to hold the flame, but it's the purpose is to set things on fire. Right. Fire? There's a hunger for sure, because what does fire do it consumes the fuel, the matter, the earth. So it's definitely a hunger, desirous, you know, you think of flames and they just won't going to consume everything in their path. That's right. And that's why I think, you know, in terms of the metaphysical qualities of fire, we think of fire as being associated with the drives. The drive to live, the drive to eat, the appetites, the drive to have sex, the libido, you know, it's all that kind of hunger that goes with being alive. Yeah. I found fire the hardest element to understand when I was first beginning to read, because it's so basic. You know, it's just who we are, you know, whereas it's easy to say, you know, water is emotions and air is thoughts and earth is things. But the desire to be alive, we're so imbued with it that we don't even think about it. Right. It's literally part of us because we are alive. Right. You know, over-- And a mating spark. Yeah. Over the years, it's become easier for me to see that maybe just from being older, you see the life trajectory of people and how their ambitions and their lusts and hunger is and drives shape their lives. But harder to see when you're young. Shall we talk to most? How we talk to most. Youth, it's wasted on the young. So, shall we do some kabala here? Oh, I guess so. Yeah. Well, because it's a little bit confusing always talking about the concept of the number four in kabala because we've got-- we've got the four worlds, we've got the tetragramaton, we've got the four elements, but they are kind of tied in with the three mother letters. So, you've got different letters that are associated with these concepts of four. But maybe just to start with the four worlds, Otsilut is associated with the element of fire. And it is sometimes translated as proximity, nearness to God. And sometimes there's nothingness because it's the nothingness out of which everything arises. I guess that Lon Milo-Ducat likes to talk about it in his sort of metaphor of the production of chairs. You know, as the lowest world, Asia is the world of actual chairs. The world of Yatsira is the world of blueprints of chairs. Right? And angels drawing archetypes of chairs. And the world of Briah is the inventor, you know? For chairs. You need for chairs the excitement, the idea of a chair, the concept of a chair of all seating devices in general. But then in Otsilut at the sort of highest level where everything is sort of sublime and intertwined, it's just this sort of amorphous desire for rest. For sitting down. I can relate. Yes, yes. So, you know, it's like if you can imagine that that that very first impulse, that desire for something, again that hunger that we were talking about. Yeah. And then eventually it will manifest in the form of a chair you can sit your ass down in. But, you know, at the beginning, it's just, oh, I'm so tired, you know. So at the basic level, it's just need. Yes, it's just need. And then the need gets defined and then the need gets blueprinted out and then the need gets manifested. Manufactured and made real and concretized, yeah. You know, so in terms of the letters associated with, I suppose since we're talking about four worlds we should talk about, Tetra Grammitan. Yodhavavhe, of which the first world, the fiery world would be Yodh, it's interesting that just a couple words about Tetra Grammitan in review, is that, first of all, it's not to be pronounced, right? So you can spell it out like Yodhavavhe, but more typically in Judaism people will say Hashem, which means the name, the fourfold name of God, or Hashem, for Ash, the special name, or they will say Adonai. You can just look at it and even though it doesn't spell Adonai, you say Adonai. And in fact, what inscriptural texts they'll do is they'll put the vowel points underneath with the letters for, you know, indicating those sounds in Adonai, which is how later on people started reading it as Yahova. Because it has those vowels from Adonai. But you know what's interesting is that if you take the Yodh and all it represents the secret of creation, the sort of spark, the divine in the impulse, the secret seed exactly, and you take that, and then you separated off from the "he" "vavhe". "Hey, hey, vavhe" spells "hovet", which is the present moment. And it is a reminder that you have the divine and the present moment, and that it's continually forming. This is the whole idea of the tree of life. It is creation, but it's creation that is in process. It's constantly being formed. It's not done. It's not great. Finished. Right, we had the big bang, but it's not like things have stopped moving since then. Exactly. And the other thing about Yodh is that, you know, every letter begins with Yodh in a sense. You know, it's just the point. It's part of every other letter. The number is 10, so like the 10. fingers of the hand. And then we also have that sort of idea that the yod, it's in the highest point of the tree in Ketter, but the sort of swirly, the tail, you know, is reaching down into the next level. It's descending into the realm of the night. Right. It is there to connect us with the divine. And I love that a yod looks like a flame. It does. It does. Yeah, it's kind of represents both the divine reaching towards us and our aspiration towards the divine as well. And then there's that connection to earth because it's also the letter of the hermit card. That's right. Yeah. And which it brings it back to that, you know, little reflection I had about the fire within the earth, which is a lot to do with burgo in a sense, the below the earth's crust. What's below? What's confusing is that we also have the three mother letters which are keyed to the fire, water, and air elements. So we talk about sheen letter sheen as associated with eon or judgment. And sheen is an interesting one because it's associated with the idea of atonement and penitence and yom kippur. So, you know, there's a connection with the judgment or eon card. But it's also, you know, it has a bunch of other meanings too, like tooth. You know, that's one that we use all the time. That's a good one in terms of the idea of fire being hunger and appetite. And, you know, in the fire of digestion. Yeah. That breaks things down. The fire energy of breaking down. Yeah. That energy of appetite and eating, yeah, and consumption. Another is steadfastness, another is change for the good, the idea of return and the idea of year, which is all seem, you know, at first unrelated, but they have this kind of change. Definitely we've already covered. And yeah, there's a cosmic cycle kind of thing going on with the judgment card, which is again, why it's kind of hard to perceive when you're in the middle of it, but just as people do on, you know, on yom kippur, it forces you to kind of take a step back and self-evaluate. How is your life going? Are you doing what you're meant to do? Oh, and it's worth noting since we talked about atsilute, we should note that in terms of colors, which are kind of the next thing on our list, it's the colors of atsilute, which are shown as paths on the model of the tree of life usually. Right. So we combine the colors. The major, the major path. Yeah, the 22 paths are colored in atsilute colors, whereas the sephirot, the 10th sephirot are colored in briaw colors, because simply because it's balancing those polarities, the male and the female, the, you know, the active and receptive into one model. And, you know, how would we describe the colors of atsilute? You know, the colors of briaw are kind of easy. They're, they're, they're very opaque and solid and, and yeah, the colors are more like the colors of natural, the natural world. What's a good example of it? So we would have, if we look at, let's see, Hokma being blue, you know, the sky, the sky gods, the sky is blue. The colors of atsilute do seem to be very celestial colors in a way, you know, and radiant. I'm looking at sort of the sephirot colors of, you know, brilliance isn't even a color, right? Right. All the aces are, yeah. Well, you get, once you get down into the lower worlds there, at least white, instead of just brilliance. Do you have purisopth luke, crimson, deep violet orange, clear pink rose, amber, violet purple, indigo? They do seem like all colors you would see either in the sky or at the sunrise and sunset, you know? Right, exactly. Then when you get into the path colors, you often see descriptors like glowing, you know, like glowing orange scarlet or bright pale yellow. You know, there's a, there's a quality of light in them that we don't necessarily see elsewhere, you know, in atsilute, we see these sort of pure, there's a purity and a radiance to it. And then when we get down to Asia, there's a, you know, the colors of earth, there's a quality of being mixed and flecked and speckled and kind of productively contaminated. You know, Crowley has a section in 777 on the different scales of color. He says, you know, he lists it one through ten. He's talking about the sephiroth rather than the path, essentially. But he, you know, he says, brilliance represents the colorless luminosity of feather. The blue is that of the sky. The crimson represents blood. The deep violet is a piscopal. Piscopal. The orange is the energy of the sun. The rose is that of dawn. Amber is the voluptuousness of Aphrodite. That's beautiful. So he's kind of connecting it to these sort of mythic themes. Yeah, cosmic themes. That's an interesting difference between the at saluth colors and the Bria colors or the king and queen scale colors is the, he says that the king scale colors are the transparent as opposed to the reflected colors. Oh, yeah. They're like the ones coming from divine above. And then in the queen scale, they're being received and reflected back. Yes, yes, that makes a great deal of sense. Yes. Just look at the the minor colors for the king scale, the ten colors for the ten sephiroth are brilliance, pierce, soft blue, crimson, deep violet, orange, clear pink rose, amber, violet, indigo, and yellow. But basically we're starting with, you know, white and keather with the ace or brilliance, actually, not even white. And then we're going into the two and three of the supernals. So it's between the the pure soft blue like a sky blue sky god type of thing to the crimson, which is, you know, the red blood. Right. And then when you combine them, you get into the deep violet. Right. And then yeah, the very next one, the four is deep violet. And then you get the orange, which is the five, which is the solar energy of give or the fire energy, the the marshal energy you can worry. Right. Well, it's yes, but it but orange as the color is solar derived, orange is the color of the energy of the sun. And so in it's manifesting in the five through the marshal, you know, energy. And then you get the six, the clear pink rose, which I imagine that you could combine the deep violet and orange and get something approximating that that of the kind of that and that's definitely the the solar energy because it's different. Then the seven amber, this that's the vanusian voluptuousness, you is talking about the amber of Aphrodite's honey dyes or however we put it. Then the violet in eight for hold, the indigo in nine, which would be yesoed and then the yellow in in 10, which is the the manifestation of this. It's interesting because the 10 is yellow. So it's like that's a very solar fire color. Yes, yes, it is. So that it's like the manifestation of the the entire fire suit right there. Yeah, right back back to itself, basically. Yeah, it's interesting how when you get to Malkut and Al-Sili, the bottom sephirote and kind of ties it back up into yellow, that's almost like, you know, we think of yellow as also being the heart of Briotte, the of Tiferet. So it's almost like you can think of that yellow as being translated into the next world and to powering it into the heart of the moon. And also you can tie it back in a sense. Now this is kind of just free association, but we think of yellow as the color of our sun kind of, you know, what I mean, if a kid draws a sun, he's going to grab the yellow crayon and draw this yellow sun, and you know, we started out with white brilliance from above, which it catered, but you know, if you look up what's the white brilliance from above, it's the sun, you know, it's important to sort of like think about that as yellow being the translated version of brilliance because it's really prominent in the Otsuluet scales. You have it both in Malkut, in the sephira, but also in as the color of the Otsuluetek path of the fool and the magician, you know, bright pale yellow for the fool and yellow for the magician. So, yeah, in our point besides white, which is really considered the absence of color, it's the color that contains the most light yellow. And by the time we get to the colors of Asia, the yellow never really appears except as flex and rays, yeah, or kind of muddied as citrine. Yeah. Oh, and one thing we should mention around colors and the elements is that when we get to the court cards, there aren't really the same, you know, color scales, it's all, they're all just colors of fire. So all the court cards are going to be just in the colors of their element, basically. And it's interesting, you know, I find with court cards, even though, you know, we go to great effort to sort of parse out their specific decons and signs. I always like to mention that in readings, they tend to correspond to people's elements, but not necessarily their signs specifically of, I've seen, you know, - Oh, and referring to people, you mean? - Yeah. - Like when they show up as people and not as a-- - Exactly, you know, it will turn out that the queen of ones is Aries or Leo or Sage, you know? - Right, right. - These people will turn up a-- - And she's a type rather than a sign. - I don't know, that's just for me. And I suppose it's different for every reader. Other people might get more specific results, but I always find that they're very accurate in referring to element as opposed to sign. (laughing) - Yeah. - I didn't really go deeply into this, but maybe you did. I mean, my favorite myth of fire to use to illustrate the Emperor's Strength, Last Temperance Art, Cycle, Aries, Leo, Sage is the Heracles or Hercules myth. - I definitely have to know. (laughing) Yeah, because it starts with, you know, child of Zeus, the Emperor, kind of a thing, you know, with his prodigious literal strength, the one JJ tar actually has Hercules on it. And he's battling the Namean Lion, which is basically-- - And the 12 laborers, you can think of that as kind of, correlate to the sun's journey through the 12 signs. - Ooh, I like that a lot. - It's definitely a journey of fire, you know. - Definitely, he's a super-solar hero. And then the whole temperance thing, it's interesting because his ending is very much a Sagittarian ending. You know, there's the, he gets into this quarrel with the Centaur Necess. - Yeah. - And you know, he's, who's, who's raping his wife. - Point wise, arrow. - Right, so, so he shoots Necess, as there's that arrow, but also Necess's blood is connected by Hercules wife. And she's told by him, "Well, if your husband ever "strays, then this will make him faithful to you." So she takes the blood so short, and when Hercules inevitably strays, she puts it on him and he burns up. So, you know, that seems, you know, apt in a way. So, I mean, he burns up, you know, he's, burns up metaphorically, he's dying from, from the venom, but he asks to be placed on a pyre, so his mortal body can be relieved of its suffering. And, you know, as that mortal body is burned away, Zeus, you know, brings him the immortal portion of him up to Olympus. So again, that's the refining fire of judgment at work there at the end of life. - Yeah, I can, I definitely see in the, in the Hercules, or Hercules character traits of Aries Leo and Sagittarius. - For sure. - For sure. - Yeah. - Yeah, it's a really good one for that. - I mean, if you even look at some of the deck and imagery for Aries and for the degree, specific degree symbols, I think the first degree of Aries, like the very first degree of Aries, and at least one of the degree symbolisms is a man with a club, and they, you know, very much sound like Hercules. - Absolutely. - I got another good one that I thought was good because it kind of ties into that whole idea of fire as being related to appetite and digestion and appetite, and shen tooth and all that. Logi is a Norse god, and the name literally means flame. So he's there god of fire. And an interesting myth around logi is that he had an eating contest with Loki. - Yes. - So Loki and Loki had an eating contest. And at first they were evenly matched when it came to, you know, devouring the meat. But logi ultimately won because he consumed the bones and the wooden trencher it was served on. - That's right. That's right. That was the contest with the giants where Loki was challenged to undergo these ordeals that were disguised as sort of ordinary sized challenges, but how can you beat the concept of fire when it comes to consuming anything? - Right, right. - Yeah, interesting. - Then we've got a lot of other great fire gods. One that I have liked working with lately is Agni. - Gonna bring up Agni. - Yeah. - Vedic god of fire. The one that accepts the sacrifice when you put your devotional offerings into the flame. And said to have three forms, some say Agni dwells in the sun, but some say that Agni is the terrestrial fire where Indra is the intermediate fire and the sun's surya is the celestial fire. But pretty much all agree that Agni is the literal fire that has seven, some say five tongues, some say seven tongues. But one thing I've been doing lately occasionally is something called fire yoga. And it's not, you know, like, it's not the yoga where you're like doing it in a hot room and you're sweating. It's basically you're feeding items into a fire devotionaly as a practice of your offering parts of the self really to the fire. - How interesting. - With each of the items you put in the fire and consume in the mantras you say or your offering parts of the self to the divine. That's been really fun to do. - Yeah. - Yeah, that sounds perfect. - I enjoy it. So some other fiery gods, Horus, fire. - Hafeistus or Vulcan, the blacksmith, Pele, the volcano goddess. - Mm-hmm. - Let's see who else? Hestia goddess of the hearth fire. - Yes. - Investus, the tender of the flame. Heliosinopolo, sun gods, prometius, carrier of fire to mankind. Bridget is associated with fire. - All this cross-quarter festivals where you set things on fire and bring it into your house. Almost every festival is in Wall Street. - It's just a bunch of-- - It's just a bunch of things, it seems like it's a fire. - It's all pyromania. - Fire and hemisphere pyromina. (laughing) - Every time there's one of those holidays and then my husband asks what it's about, I just say it's like all the rest of them, it's fire and fucking. - Yeah. - Pretty much. (laughing) - Oh, another interesting is that, Bridget I guess, she's associated with other things that we associate with fire like inspiration and poetry and arts and stuff. And she also supposedly had a sister that was a blacksmith and that was sort of an underworld goddess. That makes me realize that also as a fire god, we have Hades and for-- - Yes, the sonic fire. - Right, the sonic fire, the association with the judgment card. - Yeah. - Come up from below. Then we have, of course, Ra, another sun god and second man, the lioness is a very fiery goddess. Chundie, a form of Durga is extremely fiery. - And not to mention Babylon herself. - Right, Babylon and Wadget, Egyptian serpent goddess who burns her enemies. - Yes, true. I mean, you have to have gods and goddesses of fire because fire is the first thing. It's ontologically prior to everything. It's the forces of life and, you know, what would you worship if not starting with that? - Yeah, fire is literally considered divinity in so many cultures. - The eternal flame. - One thing that Agribus says about fire, there's kind of a wonderful paragraph in the first book. He says it's active, powerful, invisibly present in all things at once. It will not be a fronted or opposed, lest as it were in a way of revenge. It will reduce, on a sudden, things into obedience to itself, incongprehensible, impalpable, not lessened, most rich in all dispensations of itself. Fire is the boundless and mischievous part of the nature of things. It being a question whether it destroys or produce it, most things, which is again, you know, so much of what we've been talking about. It's animating and consuming force. Along those lines, it's associated with the choleric temperament, which is, you know, the fierce or quick or angry temperament, which is supposed to be based on yellow choler. - Yeah, that's to do with the liver and bile, which, that's interesting, because that, you know, that's also digestion, appetite, and purification. The liver purifies in the body, and it's ruled by Sagittarius. - That's right. It's associated with the sense of sight, because fire, of course, produces light by which we see the foremost of the senses. This is one thing I didn't really know so much about, but there's a sort of breakdown of the four sort of human faculties in a grippa understanding reason, imagination, and the senses. So understanding would be fire, you know, imagination is water, reason is air, and of course, the senses are earth, which makes all kinds of sense. - Makes sense, yeah. - Then we have, it's associated, I guess, we're familiar with this from the lesser banishing ritual, it's associated with summer and the south, which for us in the Northern hemisphere makes all sorts of sense because fire's hot. And the idea of noon, you know, the sun being high in the sky. - Right, so that would correspond to Hathor in the. - And it's supposed to be associated with, you know, Archangel Michael, you know, these archangelic correspondences have all sorts of people fighting over them, but this is Michael as the fiery warrior, the soldier, the sword barrier, the dragon slayer. - Yeah, I think the dragon slayer. - The dragon slayer. - The dragon slayer. - The dragon slayer. - The dragon slayer. - The dragon slayer. - I mean, we obviously place Michael in the south with the fire in direction in the lesser banishing ritual, but the fact that he carries a sword, you know, you're like, "Oh, yeah, yeah." - But he killed a dragon so fire. - Yes, fire. - It's also interesting to think about like, again, fire is a metaphysical quality. It is said to rule the seeds of plants. So, you know, the leaves are juicy, so watery, the roots are earthy. - And all that energy in the seed is the fire, you know. - Exactly. - All that potential. plants that are a small. associated with fire tend to be Marshall and solar as you'd expect things that are thorny or spicy or pungent Or on the solar side things that are golden or radiant, you know or or turn towards the Sun and then animals Animals are said to have fiery natures generally, you know if if our fire of life is extinguished we die But also more specifically salamanders of course and lions picking. Yeah, salamanders are strange because you know on in here and on earth when you think of a salamander Yeah, always in in the wet damp places But I guess the fire that salamanders live in our supposed to be the Essential spirit fire and not literal fire. Well, I thought that maybe it's not the literal salamander But maybe sort of a mythical idea of a creature, you know But it's based on something Something that they maybe they saw some kind of reptile as opposed to amphibian, you know, basking in the Sun You know those little orange ones we see all around yeah, yeah, could be there They are the fire colors. They're orange with red dots on them Yeah, I mean when you think about the other three elementals it's salamanders and undines and you know Sills and no and when if you ever see neither any of those When it was the last time you saw no Right thunderbolts are obviously fiery pyrites in metals flints as best as which is interesting because it literally means doesn't burn Gold if you think of the solar of course. Yes, absolutely gold Yeah, maybe iron two for Mars, you know, yeah, so in the body I would think of it as being the solar things like the heart Yes, probably the eyes for the sight and and the solar plexus or Manipura chakra where the inner fires in the belly kind of thing Right the Kundalini spiraling serpent force the snakes of the Sun Yep, definitely dragons. Yeah dragons for sure. I'd consider dragons blood and frankincense as being kind of fiery Oh, absolutely My frankincense frankincense above all, you know is the solar Radiant force saffron of course, although that's sometimes considered Jupiter and two for its expansive properties I've often seen Rosemary as solar well Jupiter is a Sagittarius thing. So that's you know, yeah, you can Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know there got you know for weapons or implements obviously the wand But also things like the club in the spear and the lance and the arrow and the crucible and furnace Yeah, all of the heating devices Literally everything in my household that had to do with heat failed in the month of March in February and March like the furnace Yeah, the toaster the oven the Dryer you know I think I did at some point I don't remember exactly what was going on even my iron died of all things weird. Yeah, it was really strange It's all okay now your own personal inner fire depleted at that time too on the country my inner fires seem to be burning high Maybe it was taking up all the fire Yes, yes, perhaps I did At that you can have the the powers and magical things the powers for the a on e on our judgment card our evocation Hyromance Pyramansi love that invisibility Which is interesting because he's talking about it as being seen Transformations which makes sense we've been talking all about that and vision of the genius Yeah, so that makes a lot of sense with the will and the true will and the discreet Green usage of that All right, so that concludes our discussion of the element of fire. Thank you everybody for Coming along on this incendiary journey with us as our Confligration burns to its embers. We will be back next time with the element of water as it appears in esoteric tarot Thanks everybody and we will see you then