The first part of the notes of an extended conversation that took place over the course of March 18 through March 30, 2021
Natalia had a dream connected to Templar caves in Majorca, the death of Valentin Tomberg, and the new Footwashing Ritual which she performed in Capri in August 2020. At the end of this dream, Phillip came to her and said, “Now the adventure can begin! We just need someone who speaks Russian.” Amongst other speculations, Joel mentioned that maybe this means Sabrina, who is the first person who comes to mind for him from our Sophia community who speaks Russian. They began to talk about how she spoke the Our Mother prayer in Russian, and how this would be the “right” way to speak it for the Footwashing Ritual. Natalia shared this dream on March 18th or so.
Then the next day, Sabrina got in touch with Joel out of the blue—they had not spoken for almost two months, whereas before that they had been in touch regularly. It seemed like a synchronicity. It also was exactly the time when Natalia, Phillip, and Joel had decided to have a “trans-Atlantic” Tarot conversation one Sunday per month. And so Joel told Sabrina that her ears must have been burning, as we had just been talking about her speaking Russian, and starting this regular trans-Atlantic conversation—perhaps she would like to join us? And she very enthusiastically agreed, as did Natalia and Phillip when Joel brought this up to them during the first Sunday conversation on March 21st.
So Sabrina was added to the Finnish Tarot Signal group…and the conversation from March 21 carried on into the Finnish Tarot chat group over the course of the next days…
March 22:
Natalia was reading the Letter-Meditation on The Lover, inspired by the conversation on the Six of Cups, and found a page detailing three different types of disciples: Disciples of the Day, of the Night, and of both Day and Night. This reminded her of the picture we came to at the end, of three pairs of different types of caretakers of this Body of Christ in the Six of Cups.
We had been bringing the Major Arcana into relation with the Suit of Cups by moving through the following sequence:
Force and Ace of Cups
Wheel of Fortune and Two of Cups
The Hermit and Three of Cups
Justice and Four of Cups
Chariot and Five of Cups
The correspondence is then meant to go the other way for a time: Six of Cups again with Justice, Seven of Cups again with The Hermit, Eight of Cups again with Wheel of Fortune, Nine of Cups with Force. There is a kind of “mirror image” pivoting around the Five of Cups, which was very clear to us in this formal relationship between Four and Six of Cups. And so, in the conversation on March 21, we a bit unintentionally moved away from our system of correspondences by bringing the Six of Cups into relation with The Lover rather than moving back to Justice. But there is still a resonance there, as we noted during the conversation, that the Lover is the sixth Major Arcanum, and this aligns with the Six of any of the four Suits. Eventually, though, using our system, the Suit of Cups does culminate in the Lover: Wheel of Fortune with Ten of Cups; Hermit with Knave of Cups; Justice with Knight of Cups; Chariot with Queen of Cups; and Lover with the King of Cups (as well as the Ace of Batons—it transitions us into the next Suit).
Sabrina then shared a tetragrammaton she discovered from recently taking up the study of Hebrew: a panel painting for Shalom (Shin—Lamed—Vau—Mem), where each letter is the initial letter for powerful images such as Fire—Heart—Rose—Water
Natalia then shared some images of disciples/Holy Women at the foot of the Cross from Tissot
Joel then shared the Tarot representation of Shalom: Fool (Shin) Hanged Man (Lamed) Lover (Vau) Death (Mem):
March 23:
Natalia shared the sequence from the second part of the Inner Radiance sequence, which associates Entombment with the Sacral Chakra, and the Resurrection with the Root Chakra:
And then a page from Christ and Sophia, where Tomberg characterises the stage of Entombment as a higher octave of the Bearing of the Cross, Cross-Bearing on a higher level:
The Bearing of the Cross would be expressed in the Four of Cups as the 4th stage of the Passion, and already in that conversation we brought these two into connection, with the Five of Cups as a kind of turning point. Both Four and Six of Cups are Justice while the Five of Cups is the Chariot, acting as a kind of pivot. She says it is interesting if the Sacral Chakra is already the Entombment (horizontal) and the Root Chakra the Resurrection (grace from above). Then the Cross is there again, but not quite yet, like in the lower part of the Six of Cups. The yellow portion somehow.
March 24:
Joel expresses how fresh Christ and Sophia is for him every time, to a much greater degree than Steiner’s books—that this is a living book that is totally new every time he opens it. So thanks to Natalia for refreshing this image of the Entombment as a Cross-Bearing on a macrocosmic level, on behalf of Nature and not only Humanity. That weaves so well into this picture we’re getting from the Suit of Cups as a journey through the stages of Christian Initiation. This made Joel think about the nature of the Six. Phillip had brought up the six jars of water from the first healing miracle—that Karen brings them into relationship with the six basic exercises for the heart chakra. The Bearing of the Cross is related to the heart chakra, whereas the Entombment is related to the Sacral Chakra. And the sacral chakra in its fullness has six petals, and the heart chakra in its fullness has twelve, but it’s a six-fold path to awaken those that are dormant. So there is some relation of the six between those two, connecting them.
And the Six as Vau, as the 6th letter of the Hebrew Alphabet. Weinreb talks of Six as a hook, as a connector. It’s even shaped like a hook. Something that bridges a gap from one thing to another, like the word “and”, that’s the spiritual function it has. He speaks of this particularly in terms of the name of God: Yod He Vau He. Yod is the Ten, it’s the Decad, the fullness of the ten Names of God. And then He is Five. So in Yod He Vau He you have Ten; and then Five-Six-Five. And the Five-Six-Five means “Five and Five.” What it expresses is the Ten is the fullness of God that still dwells in this realm of the primal unity and the “Five and Five” expresses the dual nature of the material plane, divided between inner/outer, male/female, etc. And the “Five and Five” expresses the development or expression over time through the reuniting of what’s been divided on the part of the human being to express the Ten, the transcendent and eternal, within the material world. So Yod He Vau He is the like saying “As Above, So Below” but it’s the Vau that plays this crucial role of uniting the polarities/binaries, what’s been divided.
Weinreb uses the example of the six days of Creation as the highest example of this as the bridge from the Spirit of God hovering over the face of the deep (which precedes the six days), and the Sabbath (which comes after the sixth day). So the six days of Creation are just a bridge from what preceded Creation to the Sabbath.
And then thinking more of this other Tetragrammaton that Sabrina offered of Shalom. How the Vau is in there too. And he thinks—well, he could go further into the way Weinreb might interpret the essence or magic of the word Shalom—but he thinks it has something to do with the Vau being in there…something is expressed that is whole and eternal with the Shin. Then two polarities are there with the Hanged Man…or rather Lamed, and Mem. And the Vau brings Lamed and Mem together. He thinks the same process is at work. The Fool as Shin is the transcendent or full reality. And he is split into two parts, into Hanged Man and Death, and it’s the deed of the Lover as Vau that brings them back together. So there’s a particular form you could give that name, where the Fool is like the Angel in the Lover; and Death and the Hanged Man are the two figures flanking the central one, and The Lover as a whole represents the central figure, The Lover himself, bringing these two polarities together and returning them to their origin, the Angel/Fool above:
That was a bit of digression…then something struck him coincidentally yesterday, that he was trying to work on a liturgy for the Footwashing service. Going through the Gospel of John trying to find the readings that really hit on the essence of this Footwashing. And what he came to was the 6th Chapter (Walking on Water), 12th Chapter (Magdalene anointing Christ’s feet with oil); 13th Chapter (Footwashing); and 21st Chapter (Miraculous catch of Fish). He was working with those, trying to plug them into different parts and find the right rhythm. Then he noticed which chapters these different passages are in—6, 12, 13, 21…those are the four number/letters that make up the word Shalom! So…it may be that in its final form, this Service has the word Shalom embedded into it. That really struck him yesterday as a powerful synchronicity.
Joel just finished uploading the conversations of the Queen of Swords, and the first one really struck him as so interrelated to our conversation on the Six of Cups. What’s interesting is that is the first time in the Tarot Conversations that Natalia’s input makes a concrete appearance. And around that time she was having these dreams of going to a Chymical Wedding or something? And there’s so much talk of the Wedding at Cana in this conversation on the Queen of Swords, and also that was the main topic this past Sunday as well. There must have been some premonition in that dream of Natalia’s regarding the context in which she would begin her involvement with the Tarot Conversations.
Natalia lays out the cards from the dream: Fool, Death, Queen of Swords, Ten of Swords:
She affirms that the beginning for her with the Tarot Conversations was the Queen of Swords, and had been preceded by this intense period talking about the Mother Ritual or Footwashing, trying it out for the first time, and somehow it wove into it. And now again it’s coming up quite a bit. Also this wish for Sabrina to record and maybe help to instruct us in saying the Our Mother in Russian for this service. So it’s interesting that there’s this strong image from Sabrina for this Peace coming in along with her, this probably has an important message as well. When she reflects back to this dream, a strong one with these cards, she was told in words in that dream “There are already some people to whom you are connected, who you are working with, and they will be in your Chemical Wedding” whatever that means! That was a bit of a mystery which she asked Joel about back then, what could be opened up from that image? She was just thinking when Sabrina came in, the main image was the Queen of Swords, with four swords growing out of each corner. And she thought it must mean these four people (herself included) with whom she is already connected, already working. And in the last card, in the Five of Cups, we were also talking about the Ten of Swords, that was also in the dream somehow. Maybe it was the mood that she related it all to. It was said in the dream “Schythe will definitely be there” and the spelling with CH was connected somehow with Christian Rosenkreuz. And the dog was present, like in the Fool, representing the karmic double, who is being slain or healed in the Queen of Swords as well. That was in November, she thinks. And that was just something she thought “….well, I have no idea what that will really be…” but all this work was not yet there. This may be very important for her somehow—so thank you to Sabrina for being the missing 4th sword!
Joel sees there was a lot of “Shalom” in that dream back then! Because even with the Queen of Swords, we were looking at her in relation to the Hanged Man. So there was Death/Schythe and the Dog/Fool, and Queen of Swords/Hanged Man. So, that’s really fascinating that we’re the four swords at the Chemical Wedding. And so much came out of that…the dog maybe being related to Sirius and Zarathustra. And the schythe with Skythianos. All kinds of things came out of the dream.
March 25:
There still seems to be some link between the Ace of Swords and Six of Cups for Natalia. Notice the yellow eye in the crown of the Ace aligns with the eye at the base of the Six of Cups. And the middle red flower transforms there still she thinks.
Joel totally missed that—the fact that really the first place we see the weird eye ball is on the Ace of Swords! Good catch.
Natalia was thinking about this “Shalom” from the point of view of Fire—Heart—Rose—Water. So there is this alchemic Fire and Water, and then together in the midst of them the Heart and Rose appear. That is very beautiful. That made her think of the Beatitudes of “Blessed are the Peacemakers.” She thought there was something Tomberg was saying which could be connected to the Six. He speaks of this birth from above, and the higher and lower in the human being….the rainbow of peace. This cup which is formed by the Consciousness Soul receiving the Manas, the Spirit Self. The rainbow as reconciliation between two worlds. Page 220 of Christ and Sophia. Maybe that rings some bells as well.
Hebrew is so alchemical, and that really comes out in the Tarot language! And the wedding theme of Cana in the Six of Cups. Peace as bringing something together, union, rainbow of reconciliation. It’s all so beautiful. Tomberg writes on page 220 regarding “Blessed are the Peacemakers”, that the consciousness soul is filled with the needs of earthly life, becoming a cup, then Manas comes down to meet that. It feels in the Footwashing ritual that it has something of this rainbow of peace.
Joel thinks that sounds right, it rings true because the dedication to the different kingdoms of nature in the Footwashing ritual comes from the section of Lord’s Prayer Course on the sixth beatitude, Blessed are the Pure in Heart for they will See God. That’s the consciousness soul, the creation of this cup, that’s looking for its fulfilment in the seventh beatitude on the peacemakers. There’s something there. That’s a theme that Joel and Natalia have circled back to, before we spoke a lot of the six and then the fulfilment in the seven. The six Solar Elohim and then the seventh as YHVH.
Phillip wishes to hear more about this dream. Has Natalia told it to the whole group before?
He feels that this sequence that Joel laid out for Shalom is like…the first form sentence in a way…everything else was learning sound combinations, and this is a little phrase like “See…Jack…Run.” But quite significant. A lot of the other snippets about the Ace of Swords and the Six of Cups…it needs to be part of a discussion. There are a number of significant details that we shouldn’t lose track of, we should bring them into conversation.
March 26:
Natalia and Joel had more conversation around how the Suit of Coins’ “Mystical Hermeticism” culminated in the Santa Fe retreat, and these clear levels of Hermetic Conversation. Then maybe the Suit of Swords’ “Gnostic Magic” culminated in the inspiration to the Mother Ritual. A deed of magic, but not really with the full understanding why. Then maybe the Suit of Cups brings with it an understanding of where this comes from, a “Magical Gnosis.”
And since doing the Mother Ritual last August, many of Natalia’s dreams came to life, gave hints or intimations, maybe five or six dreams and often something about the Mother Ritual was present. But a bit like in a Tarot mood, strong experience but still a lot that was clearly powerfully spiritual but difficult to understand/interpret. So she described these dreams to Joel and together they were able to interpret them a bit more.
The one dream in particular revolved around the Queen of Swords. Joel and Natalia had been talking quite a bit about the karmic double, and so that was very present as well. For Natalia, when there is a clear speaking in the dream, those are the highest dreams she has—a clear voice, that she cannot see but can hear. Proclaiming or pronouncing a truth, sounding very strong in the dream. Then something simple usually shown with it. An everyday thing, but with a strong mood or intensity around it. This was one of the strongest dreams. And the first to have Tarot cards in that way.
So she was seeing those cards…she wasn’t so sure about the Sword cards, they were a bit blurry…because she also hadn’t observed the Sword cards so much yet…but there was one of the Numbered Swords, maybe the Ten of Swords. The Queen of Swords was there, and from the corners of this card swords were kind of growing out, at 45° angles, forming like a St. Andrew’s cross in a way. That was very particular in that dream. Then this voice she heard was saying “There already exist some people with whom you are connected, with whom you work. They will be in your Chemical Wedding. And Schythe will definitely be present there, and the Dog.” Those were the words that were told.
Phillip asks when she says “Schythe” (pronounced a bit like ski-theh), does Natalia mean scythe, like the implement that Death has? Yes, but in the dream it was specifically spelled with a ch instead of a c, and pronounced with a hard c. The CH Made one think of the CH in Christian Rosenkreuz, and also this type of pronunciation made us think of Skythianos.
So what Joel and Natalia tried to open from that, she had the feeling that something was already prepared or there was already collaboration with the people who were meant, but she wasn’t sure who they would be. She thought maybe it meant Joel and Phillip, but no idea if there was more. She would maybe think that these four swords would mean four people. It was very “Tarot language” in a way. Then she asked Joel what is a Chemical Wedding all about? And talking about the CH…we started to gets some context, or maybe some premonition that one would have to wait a couple of months for that to happen…but things started to go that direction, because she was more and more interested and involved in the Tarot conversations since then. But it was not so obvious or clear what will be coming up…now maybe Joel was thinking this wedding theme is coming up now in the Six of Cups. She doesn’t know if this is her Chemical Wedding, because that’s kind of a big thing! Or if it’s the overall process, and we’re all involved in this…that’s up to interpretation, what one finds out of that.
That ended up leading to a long conversation about different Masters and Europe and cultural ages…and somehow this Mother Ritual was also tied up with this, what is it meant for? How is it connected to the future and Finland? There was a lot of that still as well.
Phillip finds it interesting that it was spelled Schythe. Reminiscent of the Finnish spelling or pronunciation. So it was the Queen of Swords, and the implement of Death, and the dog from The Fool? Yes. And when she says that the Queen of Swords had swords coming out of the card, was this dream as though she was in normal everyday life just looking at a card she was holding, or somehow that the card was at the center of the experience? And then with the swords coming out of the card, was that a vertical sword with two horizontal swords? Or is St Andrew’s Cross an X?
She shows an image. The cards weren’t really in an everyday situation. They were kind of hovering somewhere that was a bit empty…a space, the “space of Tarot Cards” or something. No table or anything. Not absolutely clear…the uppermost part of the swords was a bit moving, not totally static in some parts. It’s not exactly right to just put the cards there and say “it’s exactly like this.” She was just recalling that the Fool was there. They were in a bit of a line. Fool was a bit down, Death was a bit in the center. Also the Queen of Swords. Those two were the main characters, so to speak. Then some other cards below the Queen of Swords. Probably the Ten of Swords or so. Maybe Nine. But what was special was that there were these lines emanating out from the Queen that were becoming sword-like. Natalia was interpreting them to be swords, they were in that form coming out of the corners. She felt there was some kind of connection with these Four. Maybe she interpreted it later, she can’t really recall or sequence it. It was all at once—the cards, the voice, and what she was able to understand. Then later we added more understanding, maybe that remembrance has taken influence from the later conversation. So she can’t recall exactly.
The thought that comes to mind for Phillip, is it’s related a bit to the structure of The World. But kind of inside out or an inversion. In the World, the almond shape, with circles at four corners. Whereas here it’s straight lines instead of corners. She’s holding the sword and her belly, associated to the two objects/items akin to the World (the philtre and baton) but different.
[Joel found this original dream. From October 28/29. She shared a few dreams: one where she got married to Markku again, a lot of people there unlike their own wedding. The next day, there was a dream she was wearing very orthodox, ornamented priestly garment and stole. She had her hands crossed, Rosicrucian gesture. Walking towards an altar, many priests around it. Like Lutherans and other priests, with different stoles. Aware they were waiting for her…then realised “I”m a woman, they’re all men. They expect me to wed a couple! But I’m not a priest, I don’t even know what word to use…can I make up my own word? But then they will see that I’m not a real priest. Should I still ask for some kind of a blessing from one of them?” She starts to explain to one who looks like her childhood Lutheran priest. “Can you bless me?”
Then the Queen appeared in the third dream. And there were other Tarot cards, but she was the main focus. It was as if lines or something like swords were coming from all the corners of that card. It was…difficult to explain…not exactly like that….there were other cards. Like the Ten of Swords, that image was somehow hovering there. Maybe in a way the Nine of Swords? Somehow she feels very connected with those. There was a spiritual voice and these four swords or connections it was said “There are already a few people who are connected to you, with whom you work, they will be in your Chemical Wedding.” It was very matter of fact, a bit like in the future. Just told, that’s how it’s going to be. And it was also said that “Schythe (the Death card) will definitely be present as well” and some other character from the Tarot. The CH of Chemical and Schythe were strongly connected. They belonged to each other as words. That part was partly in English. “And definitely there is some Dog who also belongs to come to this wedding.” The Swords in Ten, it felt like they were opened somewhat.]
The Unknown Friends 