Tarot, the Queen and a Time of Mourning
Looking back on this day. 8/9/2022.
Original post 10 September 2022
Our Queen Elizabeth has died at a good old age. She has been gathered in at harvest time, taken away in Virgo season under the watch of the stars of The Virgin and the planets Neptune and Jupiter. She, a queen of fixed Earth; a Taurus sun sign subject born 21 April, has been given back into the keeping of the mutable Earth sign of Demeter.
Now Elizabeth becomes a different kind of star in the firmament, a chapter between chapters, linking her father George and her son Charles, in a story and in a chain 1000 years long, broken only by the years of the Protectorate 1653-1959, forging the dramatic, complex and sometimes violent history of kingship in these islands.
George never expected or wanted to be king. Elizabeth did not ask or expect to be Queen, or to become Queen so soon and so young. Charles? Now he must change his life, and do it late in life, to assume that added weight of kingship.
Lady Colin Campbell tells us that the Queen actually died at 14:37 PM on Thursday 8 September, a little earlier than the official time of death of 3:10 PM.
The State Funeral will be in Westminster Abbey 14 September at 11 AM but then she will be taken to Windsor to lie in the Chapel there.
More Information here
Elizabeth as Queen of Scotland
Elizabeth was crowned Queen of the United Kingdom of England, Scotland,Wales and Northern Ireland and was the Head of The Commonwealth, her unique world legacy after the end of Empire. No other former Empire has created its equivalent.
Much has been made over the years of the Queen's German blood. But she died in Balmoral, in her beloved Scotland, and she was descended on her mother's side from the beautiful and tragic Lady Glamis, Janet Douglas Lyon, pictured below.
Lady Glamis was judicially murdered, burned at the stake in Edinburgh Castle in 1537 on charges of treason and witchcraft, cooked up by James v for reasons of personal malice, out of hatred of her family, and especially her brother, the king's former regent, Archibald Douglas.
I was watching the live television as the Queen's body was being driven from Balmoral down to Edinburgh, where it will lie in state tomorrow in Holyrood House.
It brought back personal memories too, of many happy times up in Scotland when my own children were small, and I was still physically mobile, and eager to show them some of the beautiful places I had been taken by my own parents.
There was something immensely poignant at the sight of the coffin, draped in its red and golden yellow flag, the Royal Standard, leaving the place of Queen Elizabeth's last happiness. The ghosts there were powerful for her.
Now perhaps she will be leaving her own ghost.
We know Balmoral was a place of many happy memories for the Queen. Being there reminded her, she said, of her childhood, playing in the garden at her mother's home in Glamis, where the sun always seemed to shine. This is the human experience encapsulated in the The Six of Cups, old family times, old friends. Seasons in the sun. Simpler times, and the timeless moments when we were small, and the world seemed full of marvellous mysteries.
Well, it was.
And it is.
Life is inevitably sadder the older we get, our losses etched deeper and deeper.
But that doesn’t make the world any less wonderful and mysterious, and the greatest mystery and miracle is, that we are even here at all.
As for happiness:-
“Happiness we can only find in ourselves, it is a waste of time to seek for it from others, few have any to spare. Sorrow we have to bear alone as best we can, it is not fair to try to shift it on others, be they men or women. We have to fight our own battles and strike as hard as we can, born fighters as we are.”
-Axel Munthe, The Story of San Michele
Harvest Moon in Pisces
The Harvest moon 9 September 2022 was brilliant in the zodiac sign of Pisces, the sign of visions, ghosts and dreams, in the Twelfth House of Unknown Destinies.
Pisces is associated in the Tarot with- well, The Moon card.
This card talks about the cycles of Nature, the power of the wild and the wild creatures, fertility, contagion, danger, high tides, a hunter's moon. Hear the barking of the dogs and the howling of the wolves.
We are experiencing a Twelfth House event. This is something more than the death of an old lady, however grand, at a good age. It is also the death of something in her people, a link to the past and Britain as it has become after World War 11.
Eminent astrologers see the reign of Charles as an event of ill- omen for the future of the Monarchy as an institution. I can see that potential and the Moon card is anything but comfortable whenever it appears. But this is a benign, deep, visionary Full Moon. His vision may outstrip his means or freedom to execute. At least he has vision. But though he will do his dutiful best, he no longer wants to hold this Cup, if he ever really wanted it.
In The Season of Virgo
The Queen Elizabeth has died in the second decan of Virgo, associated in the Tarot with the Nine of Pentacles, 'The Lord and Lady of Material Gain'.
This card describes a life that has every appearance of luxury but it has come at great hidden cost. There has been untold personal sacrifice behind the scenes. Personal wishes denied. What has been lost or sacrificed has been normal personal freedoms, symbolized in the Tarot by the falcon sitting on the lady's wrist.
The 'Gilded cage?' Balmoral was this bird's escape.
Many of us had been inwardly preparing for this news, while hoping that the Queen would get to celebrate her Platinum Jubilee. Hoping that her last months, now that she was living this strange new life without Philip, her husband, ally, friend and companion of 73 years, would not be too greatly darkened by two particular family troubles involving scandals and rifts.
Tarot Predictions December 2021
It is not OK to issue predictions of death. Once upon a time, for reasons of state security, it was an act of treason in England, punishable by death, to issue a prediction concerning the death of a monarch.
However I had been expecting we would lose the Queen this year, 2022, based partly on feeling and observation. Many of us will have felt the same. The feeling was also based on what I had seen in the Tarot, and I dropped a broad hint, based on a Tarot reading written up in mid December 2021, which was later published at AskAstrology.com
The cards had indicated it would happen anytime between July 2022 and the end of the year. This was based on the appearance of the Three of Swords drawn against the position I had allocated to the month of July/zodiac sign/House of Leo. The Three of Swords is severance. Leo is the sign of Royalty and also corresponds with high summer-late summer. So my cards were not completely spot in in terms of the timing. But they came pretty close.
I was working with The Gilded Tarot, and as you'll notice, this deck is pretty well used but I felt drawn to use it on this occasion.
Extract from an article at Ask Astrology December 2021:
Leo: 5th House (July-August 2022)
Heartland, creativity, passion, romance, royalty, children
Tarot card ~ 3 Swords Reversed
“This is always a challenging card, but is one of those cards that are actually better news, being drawn reversed or upside down. The Three of Swords is about grief, loss, bereavement, arguments, Drawn in the Fifth House, it suggests that tensions between certain countries may ease. On a personal level, we are coming to terms with a family loss, or quarrels may be settling down.
Loss, sadness or disappointment. No-one escapes these experiences. How we deal with them determines whether we learn something new, and grow bigger and stronger, or whether take things personally, and see ourselves as victims and dwell on our grievances, thereby adding to the damage.
Leo is the zodiac House of royalty. There could be national mourning in 2022 for a much loved figurehead.”
Whatever people may feel about our constitutional Monarchy, or the Queen, the death of Elizabeth marks the end of an era in Britain.
A year later, there is still, not just a sadness, but a profound strangeness upon the land.
Thank you for reading.
Till next time.
Was that a picture of Lady Glamis in the section where you were writing of her? I see your late queen in her face.
Enjoyed every word.