The Tarot of Eli, LLC- Minor Arcana: Thoth- 3 of Swords-Sorrow & Tarot Illuminati- 3 of Swords

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Lord of Sorrow

The 3's of Tarot belong to Binah who is the 3rd Sephiroth called Understanding,she is also named the Sanctifying Intelligence and the Parent of Faith. Here is the implication that any religion of any sect, could not have a "church" without this underlying structure of Sanctifying Intelligence. As Mary is the Church, in Catholic doctrine, so is Binah the Parent of Faith, not the faith itself, but its parental intelligence that is the foundation of organization, structure and sanctity. She is the Will to Form, and your Malkuthian body is the "church" fulfillment of your spirit; a "church" you wouldn't have without the Creatrix-Binah.Because the 3's reside in the Supernal Triangle, above the Abyss, along with the Aces and 2's, all are happy places. However, Sorrow, just doesn't sound happy. But then "Happy" is also a sensation and so is Sorrow. Swords all represent Yetzirah, the formative world; oh pshaw, there are no forms above the abyss! Then there is the fact that swords represent the Rauch, the human intellect (psyche), oh sorry! Intellect and reason (measurement ) can't exist above the abyss! Therefore, without intellect or reason the mind must give way to a consciousness higher than itself.

You may ask, "What has happiness to do with sorrow?" To make this simple, she is the Crone in this card, and the Crone is the death of the “you”; all that you think you are. As the concept of Virgin, we have Binah as Ice cold Priestess, as concept of Mother we have Binah as nurturing Mother Empress and here She is as the beginning of Crone, the putrefaction of things, which later forms into the tough love of o Geburah. But this doesn't explain a 3 as sorrow, sorrow is a human word and also because it is very difficult to understand the consciousness above the abyss, as it is all potential with no form or actuality of things. We, who use senses to get intimate understanding of a thing, have no measurement to get sensual with in the Supernal Trinity. The Sorrow term of this card is very misleading, as "sorrow" here is not the same as an sorrow over loss of a loved one. This is a Universal Melancholy that comes before Creation of Self-Identity as Mind/ a "Me".

Let me explain : many of us think that “freedom of choice" is happiness, but we forget that in order to have "freedom of choice", we must have a beginning and an end, separation and estrangement. As Spirit, we just Are, there is no up, no down, no in and no out; we just are (I). But as a Spirit who runs a mind, we have the freedom to choose up, down, in or out as an I AM but this is just existence and not a sense of Self. Sensual Self is I AM Me, and is an ternary action of freedom of Identity. This freedom of psyche is really free-doom (Anglo-Saxon root word of freedom meaning,” I choose my own death”) for we also get to choose our body beginnings and its endings-death and/or measurement. Be it ignorant or intelligent choice, it is still our Sou/Psyche’s choice. Therefore, freedom of choice also brings great sorrow and great joy, love and sadness etc. With the God (dess) and/or Divine Creative's consciousness that is Imagination, this freedom also contains the burden of insanity for we can imagine ourselves as monster or saint. One can imagine a certain sorrow for a Mother, who loves her golden children but watches them have become self-satisfied, self-absorbed and often monsters/sinners in their own "I's". There is also a deep sorrow felt when one realizes the futility of self-absorbed indoctrinated thinking and finds that they haven't achieved any spiritual goal in their time enclosed life, for one can't live in yesterday's emotion and expect a different future. Hence, Sorrow to human is a realization of something not achieve, something lost, or something broken. Sorrow to the Abyss is I and no other. ..for other hasn't formed yet. I and Am, love and most beloved, require 0=2. And the ability to be 2, forms in the Soul, Tiphareth, the 6th Sephiroth below the Abyss. This ability of the One to Become Two, also builds separation and estrangement, both sorrowful feelings that stimulate us towards reunion, by "knowing ourselves" as a wholeness.

As Master Jahaladine Rumi, the twelfth century Sufi master and poet said about sorrow; "Sorrow prepares you for joy, it violently sweeps everything out of your house, so new joy can find a space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place."

What many of us forget, to be the Only One creates a process of awareness that One is all there is and One is alone, unable to share, to express to itself as “another”, or in any way able to define existence. The “I” needs the “Am”. Therefore, we may imagine a great sorrow of loneliness was realized before the WILL TO FORM (“Am”-Binah who is understanding) was thought of and thus creating EXISTENCE. But again this is a man made idea of Sorrow and just can't "cut the mustard" .

Therefore, to get any simple understanding of the Universal Melancholy that accompanies creation; this card is a 3, the number of the major arcana--key 3- The Empress and to her the great Sorrow of the Mother -Creatrix is felt for all birthed Self-Identities must end. She has given birth to Beautiful Children who often think themselves into acting as Monsters. This hurts a loving mother. Also the fact that those beautiful children must end because to begin is to end. Because of the need to transform we know that sorrow arrives with every loving attachment in this world of matter. To receive is to lose. To begin is to end. To love is to expand and liberate the mind from the body, yet needing a body to be felt; the mind must return to sensuality in order to develop discerning thought. To create is to give birth, and the pains thereof.

Many of us know that to love is to end in loss...but we will love after loss anyway. Love is our nature and loss, is the beginning of a new gain. This understanding, doesn't lessen sorrow, it just helps us move forward with tears running down our face. Therefore, there is strength gained in understanding sorrow, whereas, fear of sorrow weakens us.

Since the 3 of Swords also called the Lord of Sorrow, so once again we get confused by sexual connotations. But energy is male in expression/electric and female/magnetic in reception. The Planet attributed to the 3 of Swords is Saturn in the sign of Libra. The Angels of the Decan are Hayayel and Hoquiam.

Here we have the influence of Binah in the Astral World of Yetzirah. The Power of Saturn is destructive and initiatory bringing a presence of pain and hardship as Saturn is also Chronos, “Grandfather Time”. But as we may know, hardship and suffering are often where we learn life's greatest lessons. So the Dark Sterile Grandmother, is not evil, she is a Sanctifying Intelligence. In the 3 of Swords, Saturn's heaviness unbalances the Scales of Libra, in order that they may be rebalanced in an improved transformational way.

One might say that the Crone is the perpetrator of "Tough Love, "and for a Mother having to use tough love to teach her beautiful vulnerable children discerning thought, brings a sorrow as well. This is implied as the Rose of 5 Petals illustrated in the Thoth Card. Her heart, if you will, is torn apart by the piercing of the 3 swords. This card suggests the Dark Sea of Binah, a Womb of chaos, where things are deconstructed to be reconstructed. One could say the same actions apply to Sorrow, as it deconstructs in order to reconstruct.

The existential sorrowing.

The Tarot Illuminati-3 of Swords, keeps to the Traditional theme of a heart pierced by 3 Swords. Again we use "shock images" to try an imagine the Universal Melancholy of the Creatrix. To explain this card, the Author of the Tarot Illuminati-Kim Huggens writes, "At the dawn of mankind, there was suffering. The moment that life began so did pain. Even the universe cried out in the throes of birth to bring the earth, sun and moon into existence. This is the nature of things: to hurt and be hurt."

Discernment requires pain and pleasure. In other words, sensation, and before sensation, discernment didn't exist. Creation was an explosion of possibilities, that must be refined into ruled measurement and measurement requires a beginning and end. For thoughts to become information, they must be understood and assembled into a harmony of ideas, that then must become in-form-action to intimately "know" these ideas. Wisdom comes from 50% error, and correcting that error is the other 50% ...error is a dysfunctional measurement, while a correct measure of a thing is Knowledge ; Wisdom tells us if that knowledge is worth the effort of suffering necessary to make it happen as a self-awareness and/or in-form-action. There is no other way to learn but to feel pain. Just remember the pain just tell us that something is wrong, so fix it! We call this "fix it" action -Healing. Thank the Goddess for her love, for she has given us the power to fix it, that is why we feel it. Wisdom is simple, fix it if it is broke, don't fix what isn't broke. Pain/suffering tells us what's broke and often we find out it is our "self-identity" that is broken. Instead of being a master of our own presence (I AM Me), we are mastered by presence. ..fix that for it is broken. We can only move in the world by acting.

When the 3 of Swords-Sorrow is thrown during a reading:

• The querent is experiencing thoughts of sorrow.
• Recurring thoughts of sorrowful past events.
• The sorrow of a triangular relationship that is out of balance.
• Disappointment and heartbreak.
•  A type of recognition where one must give up one thing to gain another.
• Releasing; a gift of sorrow, allowing the querent to release and let out the pent up stress of feared emotions.
• Here difficulty precedes power.
• Also, for initiates, who travel to the abyss, this sorrow is soul deep, for it is of the Sorrow of the Creatrix, who has to destroy her precious forms to rebuild, which will also happen to the personality that succeeds in traversing the Abyss.

If ill defined by the surrounding cards:

• Disruption.
• Separation.
• Estrangement.
• Self-delusion. 

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