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new orleans voodoo tarot- 3 of Rada (air) guedeh
The New Orleans Voodoo Tarot- 3 of Rada-Air-Guedeh, is often called Papa Guedeh. There is a voodoo verse that states:
Papa Guedeh
He is a fine fellow
Papa Guedeh
With top hat, tails and one dark eye.
Top hat tails, and eye patch or one smoked lense on his glasses, are Papa Guedeh's typical attire. This smoked lense and clear lense, illustrate his ability to look with one eye into the visible world and with one eye focused on the invisible world. It is said that Guedeh's love of vigor makes him rushforth where angels and demons fear to tread. When invoked, he is apt to bring laughter while revealing things of a personal and often embarrassing nature.
Guedeh's saturnian nature is revealed in the art of this Voodoo Tarot Card. For Saturn is "Grand Father Time", which is the measurement given all physical things. Pompous and reserved, with arms crossed, in a gesture of self containment, Guedeh (also spelled Gede) sits in introspection. Before him is some of the divine food. His solitary companion are the Scarab beetles, reminiscent of the Egyptian sun- god-Khepri, and of the Sun at midnight, that crawl in the foreground. Guedeh is the loa of both death and sexuality.
One calls on Guedeh, when there is a life threatening illness that needs healing. Also, he is called on when one has difficult questions that need sound, reliable and honest answers. When help is needed with grief, call on Guedeh. Guedeh welcomes the dead to the Waters of the Abyss. When there is a want to enhance sexual potency, or heal sexual repression, call on Guedeh. He is also called on to protect young children.
When thrown in Divination, the 3 of Rada- implies:
- Sorrow of a deep and brooding nature.
- The joy and gaiety that attends the release from 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 Understanding- Will to Form, and your body is the "church" of your spirit; a "church" you wouldn't have without the Trinity Creatrix-Binah who is Maid-Mother-Crone.
thoth- 3 of swords-sorrow
You may ask, "What has this to do with sorrow?" To make this simple, she is the Crone in this Thoth 3 of Swords card, and the Crone is the death of the “you” that you think you are.
As the concept of Virgin, we have Binah as Priestess, as concept of Mother we have Binah as Empress and here, as Sorrow- She is as the beginning of Crone which forms in Geburah.
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, so it also comes with sorrow. As Spirit, we just Are, there is no up, no down, no in and no out; we just are Pure Photon Energy. But as a Spirit -bio-photons-who runs a material body, we have the freedom to choose up, down, in or out and we are therefore, intimate with creation and Self. This freedom of psyche and the ability to be intimate, is really free-doom (Anglo-Saxon root word of freedom meaning,” I choose my own death”) for we "Spirits" are the life of the body; also get to choose our body-death. Be it ignorant or intelligent choice, it is still the Soul/psyche’s choice. Therefore, freedom of choice also brings great sorrow and great joy, love and sadness etc. With the God-Mind of Imagination, this freedom also contains the burden of insanity. Another aspect of Sorrow is to create is also to destroy.
Again, we have bodies so that we may form the necessary "software", that is a discriminating and/or discerning personality. Spirit doesn't discern-----it just is the Fire that moves in all things! I AM Spirit, and this is my body made of the Soul's in-form-ation. The Soul, is the Collective of the Microcosmic Self, my Akashic records, made of discerning personalities (past lives), while the Collective of the Universal Unconscious-The Greater Self, is the ONE who is the Trinity of the Supernal Triangle on top of the Qabalistic Tree of Life. The Great Work is to be a personality connected to the Soul collective (Sun/Son of Goddess/God) and thereby, connect the physical body to the Whole Self and/or be wholly Spirit and/or Adam Kadmon.
As the Sufi Master Jahaladine Rumi, the twelfth century Sufi 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” and the Understanding of the difference creates the "Me". Therefore, a great sorrow of loneliness was realized before the WILL TO FORM (“Am”-Binah who is understanding) was thought of and thus creating the existence of Individuality as Form and/or In Form Action.
This card is a Crone card-an aspect of the Trinity Goddess, the number of the major arcana--key 3- The Empress and to her the great Sorrow of the Grandmother is felt. For as Mother, 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 and she owns their ending. 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. 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.
THE 3 OF SWORDS-SORROW:
Is also called the Lord of Sorrow, so once again we get confused by sexual connotations. But energy is male in expression and female 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”; Time eats its own children. But as we may know, hardship and suffering are often where we learn life's greatest lessons. So the Dark Sterile Mother, is not evil, she is a Sanctifying Intelligence. In the 3 of Swords, Saturn disturbs the Scales of Libra, in order that they may be rebalanced in an improved way. Hence it is said that the Crone is the perpetrator of "Tough Love, "and for a Mother having to use tough love to teach her beautiful vulnerable children, 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 three swords. This card suggests the Dark Sea of Binah, a Womb of chaos, where things are deconstructed to be reconstructed.
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.
When ill defined by the surrounding cards:
- Disruption.
- Separation.
- Estrangement.
- Self-delusion.
Thank you for your interest, comments and supportive donations. May you live long and prosper.
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