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

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Above all things, know thyself!

#3. Filled with understanding of its perfect law, I am guided, moment by moment along the path of liberation.

The 3's of Tarot belong to Binah the 3rd Sephiroth who is 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. In this aspect of Mind, what we love becomes sacred. THE 3 OF SWORDS-SORROW is also called the Lord of Sorrow, by Crowley, so once again we get confused by sexual connotations. But energy is male in expression and female in reception and emotion (energy-in-motion) is no exception. The Planet attributed to the 3 of Swords is Saturn in the sign of Libra. The Angels of the Decan are Hayayel and Hoquiam. To sanctify, is an important concept here, since you are the "image of Goddess/God", you are blessed/loved into manifestation. You are a "church" built to sanctify the Tree of Life.

Dictionary

sanctify

[ˈsaNG(k)təˌfī]

VERB

1. set apart as or declare holy; consecrate.

   "a small shrine was built to sanctify the site"

   synonyms:

   consecrate · make holy · make sacred · bless · hallow · set apart · dedicate to God · anoint · ordain · canonize · beatify

   • make legitimate or binding by religious sanction.

     "they see their love sanctified by the sacrament of marriage"

     synonyms:

     approve · sanction · give the stamp of approval to · underwrite · condone · justify · vindicate · endorse · support · back · ratify · confirm · warrant · permit · allow · accredit · authorize · legitimize · legitimizean

   • free from sin; purify.

     "may God sanctify his soul"

     synonyms:

     purify · cleanse · free from sin · absolve · unburden · redeem · exculpate · wash someone's sins away · lustrate

   • cause to be or seem morally right or acceptable.

     "ancient customs that are sanctified by tradition"

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 body is the "church" of your spirit/soul; a "church" you wouldn't have without the Creatrix-Binah. You may ask, "What has this to do with sorrow?" To make this simple, she is the Crone in this card, and the Crone is the death of the “you” that you think you are. For to think, you must already have been created and thoughts are your creation. Hence, your thoughts of yourself are not "you", merely assumptions. You are the I AM (existence), before you come up with "what you think you are".

As the concept of the Trinity Goddess begins with Virgin, we have Binah as Priestess who symbolizes the concept of Virgin-Maid, we then have Mother Binah as Empress a concept of Motherhood, and on the 3 of swords, She represents the beginning of Crone which forms in Geburah, and what one would call Grandmother. Hence, we have Binah representing the Trinity Goddess of Maid, Mother, and Crone. We are trying to establish, what Sorrow is to the Supernal Mother (Upper Triangle) where there is no form, no image, non-space, no words, is really a futile endeavor. From my "below the abyss" point of view, I can only attempt to describe this profound state of consciousness that is beyond the measurement of image or time. Every "form" that the Creatrix understands into being, is made of Her, and is a part of Her. Much like an Earth Mothers' baby. All children are made of mother's blood, as they are nurtured by her blood and created out of it in the Womb of Mom. They become an integral part of Mother's body. When they are born, there is a body trama not only of pain, but of a senses of loss; a part of herself removed. There is a physical, emotional and mental sorrow felt at birth. Therefore, the understanding midwife would wrap the baby in a blanket and give it to the mother immediately, to lessen the inner pain of loss for both mother and child. Personally, In this mortal world, to love is to lose and therefore, to know sorrow as all that begins must end. Love and Sorrow are two sides of one coin. Therefore, it takes a undeniable knowledge to Create for knowledge transforms and therefore, it also Destroys that which was previously created.

Sorrow also comes from having  "freedom of choice", the ability to change fate granted to every "child of the Divine Creative". 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. This was known to the Anglo Saxon people, as "free-doom", which is where our English word originated. Free-doom, means ", I choose my own death", which a slave cannot do. Hence, freedom became a slogan against slavery. Free people know they die, and understand to live life to its fullest is to die well. They also know that fate can be changed by action, and that Destiny (a word that describes a planetary orbit) is unchangeable.

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." 

Also, there is the Understanding that the "World of Man" is imperfect, as it must be for perfection is the static end of motion and to be "alive" is to move. The Great Mother, views her children and understands and love's them into existence, knowing that because of the necessity of measurement to create a form, there is always a beginning and end to this form. Hence, the Creatrix must watch her children die. This was/is known in German as Weltschmerz, the Universal Melancholy. Which can also arguably be stated that the Divine She, loves her Children into being and sees us as her "Golden Child" (Sun/Son of God-dess) but we have thought ourselves into becoming monsters and live a profaned image of self. This would cause any mother a great sorrow. We are not bodies. We operate them in the name of "I AM". From "above" we came to the "below" and did so knowingly. Because without a physical sensual being, we cannot become intimate with creation and Self. Intimacy breeds empathy and knowledge. Immortality, that is Soul, has no empathy, and since it is without measurement, can't turn information into experience; thereby, producing knowledge. Those Soul's seeking knowledge, will always manifest an image of Self and operate it in their name. Sacrificing insensitivity for sensuality, means to "begin and end" as a Form of Self Awareness. Form is measured.

Therefore, this card is a 3, the number of the major arcana--key 3- The Empress and to her the great Sorrow of the Mother is felt when the children leave home. For she has given birth to Beautiful Children who often think themselves into acting as less than Divine and become slaves to outside authority, and therefore, become lost to her. We are the Authority of ourselves, and belong only to the Spirit that I AM. This parodical journey hurts a loving mother. Also the fact that those beautiful children must end because to begin is to end. The imagery of the The Golden Tarot Card illustrates the Renaissance Art of the Visconti Sforza Tarot. To lose a loved one is not shown here. Rather, 2 swords pointing downward, crossing one sword pointed upward are shown as an artistic demonstration of disorder. The banner bearing the Visconti motto of à bon droyt

( French for, "with good [there is] right") is shown wrapped around the 3 swords. Although this card doesn't really illustrate "sorrow", it is defined as disappointment, heart ache, desolation, despair and sorrow.

Because of the need to transform, from one state of knowledge to another, 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 love needs a body to be sensually intimate and one's soul loves the body it operates in its name. After the transformation of death the Psyche (Soul) must return to sensuality in order to develop discerning thought through the joy and sorrow of intimacy; this return is called "reincarnation". 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. Thus there is strength gained in understanding sorrow, whereas, fear of sorrow weakens us.

In the 3 of Swords, we have the influence of Binah, the Creatrix, in the Astral World of Yetzirah; the Formative world. Yet there is no form beyond the Abyss. Therefore, the Soul, the "child of Binah" must create its own form of Self-Awareness and experience that "Self", through the process of experienced information and/or in-form-action as "Self" . The Power of Saturn is also Chronos, who is Grandfather Time, and Time is destructive and initiatory, bringing a presence of pain and hardship as well as joy and happiness to form and/or self-measurement. 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 other words, she gives us back our Sacred Divinity by baptizing us in her sacred abyssal womb and/or receives our souls after death and makes them pure again by removing all the false identity of words.

However, there I go trying to legitimize an exercise in futility. Individual Intellect and reason do not exist above the abyss in the Supernal Consciousness of Kether, Chokmah and Binah. As I reason, I know that forms, or ratioation/measurement (rationality) does not exist in the Higher 3 of the Supernal as measurement begins in Chessed the 4th Sephiroth who is known as the "Architect of form". Hence, the individual "Mind" must give away to something higher than itself. Some call this state of Higher Consciousness, "The Great Sea of Binah", and other's, Samahdi, as yet an Ocean of "no-thing" , an amniotic fluid of warm-welcoming darkness, which would also be a sorrow to one who understands themselves to be "something".

Most likely, this 3 of Swords also represents the wondrous trance of sorrow that first enlightened Buddha, but of this I couldn't say. However, when I left the eternal Bliss of No-Thing, after achieving a state of Sacred Self-Introspection where there was no attachment to anything, not even thought; after which arriving into the waking consciousness, I felt a deep and profound sorrow that I never felt before. One might call this "home sickness", as once again I left immortality to become sensually mortal.

When the 3 of Swords 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 Understanding,  which will also happen to the personality that succeeds in traversing the Abyss.

If ill dignified by surrounding cards (Thoth) or reversed (The Golden Tarot) it implies:

• Disruption. 
• Separation.
• Entanglement.
• Self-delusion.

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