The artist who created the image above has turned her Moleskine pocket sketchbook into an astounding collection of alchemical and metaphysical drawings. "But whoa, hold on there," you must be thinking. "That card clearly is clearly decorated with ten red dots, not four!" Don't worry, you haven't been shortchanged. This is a diagram of the Tetractys, a symbol which was sacred to the Pythagoreans; it was central to their mathematical and metaphysical concepts of how space is organized. The ten points represent all of creation's elements in perfect harmony -- just like the Tree of Life, which may even have been inspired by the Tetractys. It's the four rows that those points occupy, however, that concern us here. They were so important to the Pythagoreans that they even swore oaths by them:
"I with pure mind by the number four do swear;
That's holy, and the fountain of nature
Eternal, parent of the mind..."
The rows symbolize not just the four classical elements, they also represent the mathematical dimensions that I mentioned in my notes about the Tarot's four Fours. The point, the line, the triangle, then the tetrahedron -- this is the conceptual ladder we climb as we begin to contemplate our seemingly concrete world of matter and substance. They also had all sorts of mathematical and musical significance that I can't even begin to coherently explain.
As you can see, this pyramid is weighted at the bottom, where our earthly, three-dimensional concerns dominate the senses. This is fitting for the Four of Coins, which is like an anchor that keeps one ever-mindful of the demands imposed by the "real world." Without building that strong foundation, we're ill-prepared to consider the other worlds which await our attention-- though, as before, there is always the risk of dwelling in the basement for too long and forgetting about those other higher planes entirely. Remember, the Pythagoreans swore by all four layers, not just the one that afforded the most stability and comfort. The only way to cultivate lasting material comfort is to have priorities that extend far beyond the material.
2.08.2009
"I With Pure Mind By The Number Four Do Swear..."
9.16.2008
Four of Coins
To the casual observer, true strength and power are almost impossible to fairly assess except in hindsight. If you had looked at a picture of this neighborhood a week ago and been asked to pick which house would survive a hurricane, would you have picked this one? Can we attribute it to stuctural integrity or merely to variables within the storm itself? Ultimately, it doesn't matter -- when the winds begin to blow, you either have it or you don't. But in the meantime, the fear that one day a storm might blow in and smash your house flat shouldn't keep you from building one to begin with.
The Four of Coins is an emblem of fortification and stability; the number four indicates the corners of a square or the base of a pyramid, and mirrors our own desire for power. Perhaps this makes you someone that others can cling to and depend on, or maybe it means that you'll flourish while others on either side of you are washed away -- that pretty much depends on what your own priorities turn out to be. But beware, because power changes our priorities and our ability to see beyond the walls of our own fortresses. If you refuse to take risks or start dismissing appeals to emotion and common sense as merely troublesome noise, those walls will become your prison. [Via]
