One of the most common interpretation of this card is that it represents a dangerous or treacherous man – which, IMHO, is a very superficial way of looking at a Court card.
Certainly this Prince can be sly, dishonest and untrustworthy – but only when badly dignified by the cards around him. The card can also sometimes come up to mark a person who is angry, or vengeful.
But the pure Prince of Swords type is a highly intellectual and usually well-educated person, with a rapid fire mind and a great capacity for abstract thinking. He produces ideas with astonishing speed, but often moves on too quickly to follow through or elaborate on them. He can be challenging, entertaining, stimulating – and completely exhausting!
The card represents a private person, who defends his inner space quite determinedly. This is some-one who is hard to get to know – in fact, you’ll probably not succeed entirely no matter how long you know him. He is a thinker, and chooses those he shares his thoughts with carefully. He’s usually also very independent, and often appears unemotional and cold.
Sometimes the Prince of Swords will come up to represent somebody who is embarking on a serious course of occult study – with the Knight indicating the dedicated initiate.
The bad reputation comes from one peculiarity of this card and the Knight of Swords, I think. They both tend to appear when a man is angry, violent or vicious. However this is a function of the Suit – Swords deal with conflict and pain quite extensively. So don’t imagine that every Prince of Swords you see is bad – most of them aren’t.
This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
by Rumi
Taken from SELECTED POEMS by Rumi, Translated by Coleman Barks (Penguin Classics, 2004).
“A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson, who went by his middle name Waldo (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882), was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. Wikipedia
Can sexual desire lead us to something that transcends the physical act? Socrates seemed to think so. In Plato’s Symposium, Socrates recalls the words of his apparent teacher of erotics, the priestess Diotima of Mantinea, who instructed him that lust was the first rung on a ladder leading upwards towards an appreciation of the form of beauty itself and, further, to morality and virtue.
This week’s missive is an exploration of two thoroughly uncontroversial topics: sex and religion.
Aside from delivering three consecutive X chromosomes, I will admit that my fluency with these subjects is derived more from arduous study than direct experience ;-). Nevertheless, I hope you get both a laugh and a head scratch on this sultry summer Sunday.
We absconded to the woods. Not just Schuyler, the girls and me, but the cousins, too. I brood over a brood of women. Sky and I have three daughters and her brother, Jason, has two. And, of course, there were friends in tow. Heaven forbid they spend any concentrated time with their parents. We planted our estrogen footprint at a spacious Hipcamp tucked into a redwood grove near Laytonville.
This wasn’t exactly a Thoreauvian retreat into nature for solipsistic woolgathering. Minding and feeding eight teenage girls is hardly a meditative pursuit. It was delightful, though. Sultry summer days, lounging languorously by the river bank, sprawling dinner spreads and cantankerous duels of Texas Hold’em. We won each other’s pennies as we gooed up the cards with marshmallow ooze.
All the dishes washed and embers snuffed, it was time to retire for the night, but I decided to swig a final nip of stargazing. I had barely located Cassiopeia when the clutch of girls returned from carousing the woods, undoubtedly with a pilfered bottle of cheap chardonnay furtively slipped into a backpack. They jammed into a large multi-peaked tent too close to where I was sitting. The vinyl walls undulated with cackles and giggles as they taunted each other playfully. And, quickly, I became unintentionally privy to a lively discussion on sex.
The girls were split into two distinct camps, like the Jets and the Sharks of sexual prowess. Granted, the age range spanned from 11 – 18, so a disparity in experience would be expected. Still, there was an “Ewww, gross” faction and what I might dub a more seasoned clique whose braggadocio was on full display. I lingered for more than a moment and then, as details became salacious, beat a hasty retreat to my van. Eavesdropping, despite lack of intent, is bad form and, honestly, I am not sure how much I truly wanted to know. And I am certain I want you to know even less.
As I drifted off, I smiled inwardly, reminiscing about the anxious fidgeting and fumbling associated with the removal of Jen Moran’s brassiere in 7th grade, my first rounding of 2nd base. The novel and forbidden is exciting in any era. But circumstances have changed since my youth, a period that was titillated by analog pornography purloined from under your father’s bed. At their beck and call, my children can instantaneously summon in the palm of their hand every sordid kink imaginable. I shudder at the thought.
Western society is a schizophrenic blend of Puritan and Libertine, prudish and prurient. Our sexual repression has in many ways led to our licentiousness. The extreme begets extremes. And while graphic sexuality pervades our culture like never before, so persists the tiresome dichotomous depiction of women as either virtuous gentleladies or impious harlots, as either Mary or Jezebel.
What is the ideological substrate that underwrites our sexual derangement?
The Abrahamic traditions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – purport that the universe was created by an omniscient, omnipresent and merciful God. As part of this cosmic handiwork, this Lord blew life into the nostril of a ceramic figurine animating a species known as Homo Sapiens.
Almost as soon as Adam and Eve began to bicker over fruits, this King of kings seemed to take keen interest in the behaviors his creations exemplified while naked. This preoccupation may seem odd given the myriad responsibilities of this simultaneously invisible yet bearded Holy Father. After all, there are 200 billion galaxies to attend to. However, despite the existence of 8 million earthly species, God seemed quite fixated on the carnal proclivities of one particular sect of primates. And He left us with a glorious book that resembles, in large part, a sexual regulatory manual.
“Living in sin” might suggest myriad iniquitous acts, but it doesn’t. Someone “living in sin” is not considered to be engaged in ethnic cleansing, slavery or plundering the earth’s resources. No, “living in sin” is understood as sexually aberrant behavior that may include homosexuality, sex before marriage (if you are a woman), adultery and even being the victim of non-consensual sex.
And from His perch in the cosmic panopticon, God monitors this deviant comportment. He hovers above us, maintaining 8 billion moral abaci registering our sundry sexual transgressions such that one day they will be consulted in determining the terminus of our respective afterlives.
In Catholicism, thankfully, you may be absolved of these moral lapses once you enter a booth and confess them to a man in a collar who, by decree, cannot have any direct experience with the sin he is expiating.
Not only are homosexuals, non-virgins and adulterers more than likely doomed to eternal blazes, but God appears quite clear in prescribing punitive measures for such offenses during our lifespans.
• • •
Jeff’s Bible Study Hurray! Public Stonings! (cue: trumpet sounds)
If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. (Leviticus 20:13).
If any man takes a wife, and goes in to her, and detests her, and charges her with shameful conduct, and brings a bad name on her, and says, “I took this woman, and when I came to her I found she was not a virgin,” then the father and mother of the young woman shall take and bring out the evidence of the young woman’s virginity to the elders of the city at the gate. And the young woman’s father shall say to the elders, “I gave my daughter to this man as wife, and he detests her. Now he has charged her with shameful conduct, saying, ‘I found your daughter was not a virgin’” and yet these are the evidences of my daughter’s virginity.” And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city. Then the elders of that city shall take that man and punish him; and they shall fine him one hundred shekels of silver and give them to the father of the young woman, because he has brought a bad name on a virgin of Israel. And she shall be his wife; he cannot divorce her all his days. But if the thing is true, and evidences of virginity are not found for the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done a disgraceful thing in Israel, to play the harlot in her father’s house. So, you shall put away the evil from among you. (Deuteronomy 22:13–21)
If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto a husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbor’s wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you. (Deuteronomy 22:23–24)
• • •
Thankfully, the world – or most of it – has evolved since the scrawling of this parchment. My daughters are susceptible to getting stoned in quite a different manner. Still, the patriarchal hierarchy propped up by scripture persists and religion’s tolerance for sex exclusively for the purpose of pro-creation shrouds sensuality in a shadowy shamefulness. The taboos of sex reach far into the corners of every society and deep into the psychic recesses of each of us individually. The result is our inability to discuss sex honestly, show each other nuanced affection, understand pleasure, and know how to ask for it. One only needs look to the odious legacy of the Catholic clergy to witness how sexual repression can precipitate the abhorrent abuse of children.
We are left to agonize – even in the 21st century – over issues like contraception and family planning despite the depletion of global resources due to over-population. We debate medical innovation, like stem cell research, that has the potential to alleviate real suffering. We squabble over who can marry whom and what rights people should be granted based on sexual orientation.
But, more, we shroud sex in ignominy such that many of our daughters (and sons) end up skulking about the Internet to figure it out. Our societal repression has birthed a pornography industry that amasses 97 billion dollars in global annual revenue. Many of these sites leverage sophisticated behavioral algorithms like the ones used by Facebook or YouTube. In essence, pornography, which glorifies kink over sensuality, is shaping our children’s sexual aspirations and behaviors. Extreme, sensationalized content garners longer watch times and more watch time generates more ad revenue. Good old-fashioned love-making has lost its eroticism in the same way real journalism has been supplanted by YouTube “experts.”
Of course, science offers religion regular doses of embarrassment. Evolutionary biology cannot be debunked on its merits, but it is side-eyed by the laity because it undermines the Judeo-Christian creation story that puts God in charge of nature. And it sullies the mythology of the Virgin Mary, the immaculate exemplar of female morality, who birthed the son of God without even a snuggle from hapless Joseph.
The portrayal of sex as sinful and indecent is not exclusively a product of the Abrahamic books. There is a broader pan-spiritual dimension to unpack. The iniquitous reputation of sex emerges from the perceived duality between spirit and body. Aside from gorging on a Cracker Barrel brunch buffet, there is little that is more carnal, more of the body, than fornication.
We are told that our corporeal self is of dust and to dust it will return. It’s quite literally dirty. Any object that takes form is ephemeral and subject to decay. Hence, we lift ourselves up and out of our impermanence and into the eternal spiritual realm. We sublimate the libido to grasp the infinite and find enlightenment. This is why monks, from the Trappists to the Tibetans, adopt abstinence, to purge the body of heretic impurity. One must stretch far to the fringes of all the major religious traditions to find sub-sects that celebrate sex as anything other than a procreative imperative: Tantra in Hinduism, Paganism as an offshoot of ancient Christianity, and to some extent Unitarianism from the modern Protestant wing.
Yes, sexual pleasure is a transient sensation that arises and subsides. It may ensnare us into a state of craving. At times, we chase the evanescent sensations of carnality to assuage feelings of emptiness but discover that as soon as pleasure appears, it disappears.
Indeed, our corporeal lives are fleeting. But there is a supreme vitality in a life that is always falling apart. Impermanence is beauty. Youth would hold no attraction without age as up cannot exist without down. A triumph is empty in the absence of failures. Life lacks purpose without death.
An awakened human recognizes this impermanence and lives her life of good work and action, chopping wood, carrying water and, when the moment is just right, making love. We bushwhack a middle path between life and death, wins and losses, asceticism and hedonism.
Sex should not exist at the extremes. It should be neither the provenance of the Vatican nor the San Fernando Valley. It ought to be on the table for discussion. But not too much. Everything in moderation including moderation, for the mini-skirt leaves too little to the imagination and the ankle-length frock too much.
Of course, sex and love may be as unrelated as Stalin and Gandhi. Sex may be cheap, tawdry and abusive. However, in its highest vibration, sex is the sacrament of love.
In the tenderness and ebullience of it, we recover sacred presence. We lose our selves in the finding of connection. One becomes truly invested in the other. We remember the oneness of the womb, prior to the individuated ego. We liberate ourselves from the conceptual mind to become engulfed in the now. (Though, admittedly, I have occasionally tried to prolong the pleasure of the moment through contemplating my stock portfolio). Far from impious, the act of love may be among life’s most transcendent moments irrespective of sexual orientation, virginity or marital status.
If life’s “miracle” cannot spring forth in the absence of this most basic visceral connection, then why is sex not seen as the most exalted enactment of our mutual interdependence?
And, if there is a God, I believe He is more interested in us loving each other, than loving Him. For in loving each other, we are loving Him.
Here’s a truly immaculate conception of sex. Union in love is an act of God.
“Of all ridiculous things the most ridiculous seems to me, to be busy — to be a man who is brisk about his food and his work,” Kierkegaard admonished in 1843 as he contemplated our greatest source of unhappiness. It’s a sobering sentiment against the backdrop of modern life, where the cult of busyness and productivity plays out as the chief drama of our existence — a drama we persistently lament as singular to our time. We reflexively blame on the Internet our corrosive compulsion for doing at the cost of being, forgetting that every technology is a symptom and not, or at least not at first, a cause of our desires and pathologies. Our intentions are the basic infrastructure of our lives, out of which all of our inventions and actions arise. Any real relief from our self-inflicted maladies, therefore, must come not from combatting the symptoms but from inquiring into and rewiring the causes that have tilted the human spirit toward those pathologies — causes as evident to Kierkegaard long ago as to any contemporary person who crumbles into bed at night having completed the day’s lengthy to-do list yet feeling like a thoroughly incomplete human being.
More than a century before our present whirlpool of streaming urgencies, Hesse writes:
Great masses of people these days live out their lives in a dull and loveless stupor. Sensitive persons find our inartistic manner of existence oppressive and painful, and they withdraw from sight… I believe what we lack is joy. The ardor that a heightened awareness imparts to life, the conception of life as a happy thing, as a festival… But the high value put upon every minute of time, the idea of hurry-hurry as the most important objective of living, is unquestionably the most dangerous enemy of joy.
Decades before the German philosopher Josef Pieper made his prescient case for liberating leisure and human dignity from the clutch of workaholism, Hesse laments how modern life’s “aggressive haste” — and what a perfect phrase that is — has “done away with what meager leisure we had.” He writes:
Our ways of enjoying ourselves are hardly less irritating and nerve-racking than the pressure of our work. “As much as possible, as fast as possible” is the motto. And so there is more and more entertainment and less and less joy… This morbid pursuit of enjoyment [is] spurred on by constant dissatisfaction and yet perpetually satiated.
Noting that he doesn’t have a silver bullet for the problem, Hesse offers:
I would simply like to reclaim an old and, alas, quite unfashionable private formula: Moderate enjoyment is double enjoyment. And: Do not overlook the little joys!
A century before psychoanalyst Adam Phillips made his compelling case for the art of missing out and the paradoxical value of our unlived lives, Hesse considers what moderation looks like in the face of seemingly unlimited possibilities for what to do with one’s time, and although the options available have changed in the hundred-some years since, the principle still holds with a firm grip:
In certain circles [moderation] requires courage to miss a première. In wider circles it takes courage not to have read a new publication several weeks after its appearance. In the widest circles of all, one is an object of ridicule if one has not read the daily paper. But I know people who feel no regret at exercising this courage.
Let not the man* who subscribes to a weekly theater series feel that he is losing something if he makes use of it only every other week. I guarantee: he will gain.
Let anyone who is accustomed to looking at a great many pictures in an exhibition try just once, if he is still capable of it, spending an hour or more in front of a single masterpiece and content himself with that for the day. He will be the gainer by it.
Let the omnivorous reader try the same sort of thing. Sometimes he will be annoyed at not being able to join in conversation about some publication; occasionally he will cause smiles. But soon he will know better and do the smiling himself. And let any man who cannot bring himself to use any other kind of restraint try to make a habit of going to bed at ten o’clock at least once a week. He will be amazed at how richly this small sacrifice of time and pleasure will be rewarded.
Learning this difference between binging on stimulation and savoring enjoyment in small doses, Hesse argues, is what sets part those who live with a sense of fulfillment from those who romp through life perpetually dissatisfied. He writes:
The ability to cherish the “little joy” is intimately connected with the habit of moderation. For this ability, originally natural to every man, presupposes certain things which in modern daily life have largely become obscured or lost, mainly a measure of cheerfulness, of love, and of poesy. These little joys … are so inconspicuous and scattered so liberally throughout our daily lives that the dull minds of countless workers hardly notice them. They are not outstanding, they are not advertised, they cost no money!
He points to the most readily available, most habitually overlooked of those joys — our everyday contact with nature. A century before throngs of screen zombies began swarming the sidewalks of modern cities, Hesse writes:
Our eyes, above all those misused, overstrained eyes of modern man, can be, if only we are willing, an inexhaustible source of pleasure. When I walk to work in the morning I see many workers who have just crawled sleepily out of bed, hurrying in both directions, shivering along the streets. Most of them walk fast and keep their eyes on the pavement, or at most on the clothes and faces of the passers-by. Heads up, dear friends!
Hesse offers his prescription for breaking this trance of busyness and inattention:
Just try it once — a tree, or at least a considerable section of sky, is to be seen anywhere. It does not even have to be blue sky; in some way or another the light of the sun always makes itself felt. Accustom yourself every morning to look for a moment at the sky and suddenly you will be aware of the air around you, the scent of morning freshness that is bestowed on you between sleep and labor. You will find every day that the gable of every house has its own particular look, its own special lighting. Pay it some heed if you will have for the rest of the day a remnant of satisfaction and a touch of coexistence with nature. Gradually and without effort the eye trains itself to transmit many small delights, to contemplate nature and the city streets, to appreciate the inexhaustible fun of daily life. From there on to the fully trained artistic eye is the smaller half of the journey; the principal thing is the beginning, the opening of the eyes.
A stretch of sky, a garden wall overhung by green branches, a strong horse, a handsome dog, a group of children, a beautiful face — why should we be willing to be robbed of all this? Whoever has acquired the knack can in the space of a block see precious things without losing a minute’s time… All things have their vivid aspects, even the uninteresting or ugly; one must only want to see.
And with seeing come cheerfulness and love and poesy. The man who for the first time picks a small flower so that he can have it near him while he works has taken a step toward joy in life.
Illustration by Sydney Smith from Sidewalk Flowers by JonArno Lawson, a wordless ode to living with presence
Noting that these small joys take the form of different things for each of us, Hesse adds:
[There are] many other small joys, perhaps the especially delightful one of smelling a flower or a piece of fruit, of listening to one’s own or others’ voices, of hearkening to the prattle of children. And a tune being hummed or whistled in the distance, and a thousand other tiny things from which one can weave a bright necklace of little pleasures for one’s life.
He ends with an offering of counsel as valid and vitalizing today as it was a century ago, perhaps even more:
My advice to the person suffering from lack of time and from apathy is this: Seek out each day as many as possible of the small joys, and thriftily save up the larger, more demanding pleasures for holidays and appropriate hours. It is the small joys first of all that are granted us for recreation, for daily relief and disburdenment, not the great ones.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Aries poet Anna Kamienska wrote, “I’ve learned to value failed conversations, missed connections, confusions. What remains is what’s unsaid, what’s underneath. Understanding on another level of being.” In the coming weeks, I suggest you adopt her perspective as you evaluate both past and present experiences. You’re likely to find small treasures in what you’d assumed were wastelands. You may uncover inspiring clues in plot twists that initially frustrated you. Upon further examination, interludes you dismissed as unimportant or uninteresting could reveal valuable wrinkles.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): After studying your astrological omens, I’ve decided to offer you inspiration from the ancient Roman poet Catullus. I hope the extravagant spirit of his words will free you to be greedy for the delights of love and affection. Catullus wrote, “Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred; then another thousand, then a second hundred; then yet another thousand.” I’ll add the following to Catullus’ appeal: Seek an abundance of endearing words, sweet favors and gifts, caresses and massages, help with your work, and fabulous orgasms. If there’s no one in your life to provide you with such blessings, give them to yourself.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Gemini author Elif Batuman writes that the Old Uzbek language was rich in expressions about crying. There were “words for wanting to cry and not being able to, for loudly crying like thunder in the clouds, for crying in gasps, for weeping inwardly or secretly, for crying ceaselessly in a high voice, for crying in hiccups, and for crying while uttering the sound ‘hay hay.’” I recommend all of these to you in the coming days, as well as others you might dream up. Why? It’s prime time to seek the invigorating release and renewal that come from shedding tears generated by deep and mysterious feelings.about:blankabout:blank
CANCER (June 21-July 22): A blogger named MythWoven imagines an “alternate universe where I literally go to school forever (for free) so I can learn about art and literature and history and languages for 100 years. No job skills. No credit requirements. No student loans. Just learning.” I have longings like hers. There’s an eternal student within me that wants to be endlessly surprised with exciting information about interesting subjects. I would love to be continually adding fresh skills and aptitudes to my repertoire. In the coming weeks, I will give free rein to that part of me. I recommend you do the same, my fellow Cancerian.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In 2016, the International Garden Photograph of the Year depicted lush lupine flowers in New Zealand. The sea of tall purple, pink and blue blooms was praised as “an elegant symphony” and “a joy to behold.” What the judges didn’t mention is that lupine is an invasive species in New Zealand. It forces native plant species out of their habitat, which in turn drives away native animal species, including birds like the wrybill, black stilt and banded dotterel. Is there a metaphorically comparable phenomenon in your life, Leo? Problematic beauty? Some influence that’s both attractive and prickly? A wonderful thing that can also be troublesome? The coming weeks will be a favorable time to try to heal the predicament.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “I often wonder who I am and where is my country and where do I belong and why was I ever born at all,” wrote Virgo author Jean Rhys (1890–1979). I don’t think you will be agitated by those questions during the next eight weeks, Virgo. In fact, I suspect you will feel as secure in your identity as you have in a long time. You will enjoy prolonged clarity about your role in the world, the nature of your desires, and how you should plan your life for the next two years. If for some inexplicable reason you’re not already enjoying these developments, stop what you’re doing and meditate on the probability that I am telling you the bold truth.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Several states in the U.S. have statutes prohibiting blasphemy. Saying “God damn it” could theoretically get you fined in Massachusetts, South Carolina and Wyoming. In the coming days, it’s best to proceed carefully in places like those, since you’ve been authorized by cosmic forces to curse more often and more forcefully than usual. Why? Because you need to summon vivid and intense protests in the face of influences that may be inhibiting and infringing on your soul’s style. You have a poetic license to rebel against conventions that oppress you.https://b24038525c5c2a97d12eef89197fb444.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Everyone dreams at least three dreams per night. In a year, your subconscious mind generates over 1,100 dreams. About this remarkable fact, novelist Mila Kundera writes, “Dreaming is not merely an act of coded communication. It is also an aesthetic activity, a game that is a value in itself. To dream about things that have not happened is among humanity’s deepest needs.” I bring this to your attention, Scorpio, because September is Honor Your Dreams Month. To celebrate, I suggest the following experiments. 1. Every night before sleep, write down a question you’d like your dreams to respond to. 2. Keep a notebook by your bed and transcribe at least one dream each time you sleep. 3. In the morning, have fun imagining what the previous night’s dreams might be trying to communicate to you. 4. Say prayers of gratitude to your dreams, thanking them for their provocative, entertaining stories.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): In her autobiography “Changing,” Sagittarian actor Liv Ullmann expresses grief about how she and a loved one failed to communicate essential truths to each other. I propose we regard her as your anti-role model for the rest of 2021. Use her error as your inspiration. Make emotionally intelligent efforts to talk about unsaid things that linger like ghostly puzzles between you and those you care about.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): “I could do with a bit more excess,” writes author Joanne Harris. “From now on I’m going to be immoderate—and volatile,” she vows. “I shall enjoy loud music and lurid poetry. I shall be rampant.” Let me be clear, Capricorn: I’m not urging you to be immoderate, volatile, excessive and rampant every day for the rest of your long life. But I think you will generate health benefits and good fortune if you experiment with that approach in the coming weeks. Can you think of relatively sane, sensible ways to give yourself this salubrious luxury?about:blankabout:blank
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): While wading through the internet’s wilder terrain, I found a provocative quote alleged to have been uttered by the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. He supposedly said, “My ultimate goal is to look totally hot, but not be unapproachable.” I confess that in the past I have sometimes been fooled by fake quotes, and I suspect this is one. Still, it’s amusing to entertain the possibility that such an august personage as Socrates, a major influencer of Western culture, might say something so cute and colloquial. Even if he didn’t actually say it, I like the idea of blending ancient wisdom with modern insights, seriousness with silliness, thoughtful analysis with good fun. In accordance with astrological omens, I recommend you experiment with comparable hybrids in the coming weeks. (P.S.: One of your goals should be to look totally hot, but not be unapproachable.)
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “If you don’t know what you want,” writes Piscean novelist Chuck Palahniuk, “you end up with a lot you don’t.” Very true! And right now, it’s extra important to keep that in mind. During the coming weeks, you’ll be at the peak of your ability to attract what you want and need. Wouldn’t you prefer to gather influences you really desire—as opposed to those for which you have mild or zero interest? Define your wants and needs very precisely.
Homework: What’s your greatest blessing? Newsletter@FreeWillAstrology.com.
One of the most common interpretation of this card is that it represents a dangerous or treacherous man – which, IMHO, is a very superficial way of looking at a Court card.
Certainly this Prince can be sly, dishonest and untrustworthy – but only when badly dignified by the cards around him. The card can also sometimes come up to mark a person who is angry, or vengeful.
But the pure Prince of Swords type is a highly intellectual and usually well-educated person, with a rapid fire mind and a great capacity for abstract thinking. He produces ideas with astonishing speed, but often moves on too quickly to follow through or elaborate on them. He can be challenging, entertaining, stimulating – and completely exhausting!
The card represents a private person, who defends his inner space quite determinedly. This is some-one who is hard to get to know – in fact, you’ll probably not succeed entirely no matter how long you know him. He is a thinker, and chooses those he shares his thoughts with carefully. He’s usually also very independent, and often appears unemotional and cold.
Sometimes the Prince of Swords will come up to represent somebody who is embarking on a serious course of occult study – with the Knight indicating the dedicated initiate.
The bad reputation comes from one peculiarity of this card and the Knight of Swords, I think. They both tend to appear when a man is angry, violent or vicious. However this is a function of the Suit – Swords deal with conflict and pain quite extensively. So don’t imagine that every Prince of Swords you see is bad – most of them aren’t.
Since Descartes famously proclaimed, “I think, therefore I am,” science has often overlooked emotions as the source of a person’s true being. Even modern neuroscience has tended, until recently, to concentrate on the cognitive aspects of brain function, disregarding emotions. This attitude began to change with the publication of Descartes’ Error in 1995. Antonio Damasio—”one of the world’s leading neurologists” (The New York Times)—challenged traditional ideas about the connection between emotions and rationality. In this wondrously engaging book, Damasio takes the reader on a journey of scientific discovery through a series of case studies, demonstrating what many of us have long suspected: emotions are not a luxury, they are essential to rational thinking and to normal social behavior.
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, DL, FRS, RA (November 30, 1874 – January 24, 1965) was a British statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Wikipedia
Consciousness, sexuality, androgyny, futurism, space, the arts, science, astrology, democracy, humor, books, movies and more
Great masses of people these days live out their lives in a dull and loveless stupor. Sensitive persons find our inartistic manner of existence oppressive and painful, and they withdraw from sight… I believe what we lack is joy. The ardor that a heightened awareness imparts to life, the conception of life as a happy thing, as a festival… But the high value put upon every minute of time, the idea of hurry-hurry as the most important objective of living, is unquestionably the most dangerous enemy of joy.
