The second set of notes of an extended Signal conversation amongst Joel, Natalia, Phillip, and Sabrina, which lasted from March 18-30, 2021
Yes, Phillip is right, it’s very much in the corners but also coming out in the World. If there were Swords in the corners of the Queen of Swords, would it make it look more like the center of something like The World, which gives you the impression that those four are looking at it, expecting something, or holding it? It makes a different question for the whole card in a way. Actually Joel and Natalia didn’t go so much into these four corners. She doesn’t recall. She was counting that a little bit somehow when Joel brought this in again a few days ago. Somehow it felt like we became a four-person group and that was somehow there as an answer about who are those people? But of course it could be something else or that could make some kind of connection to something similar like in The World that there are four different cardinal points, axes of the Zodiac. Four worlds, four dimensions. What could this four be about? If it’s all swords?
Now that she’s saying it, now the Sword has been coming up…when she was pointing it out in the Five of Cups a few weeks ago, and now she brought it again. And then Joel having this strong image of the sword being pushed down into the Earth as part of the Mother Ritual. But only that the Sword is the opposite direction for us now. If one thinks about those swords coming from the corners, they aren’t in a position that a sword would normally be in. Some would be up and some down. This up and down comes to her mind too somehow. Maybe if it’s brought up now, maybe it has something to say. And Joel brought up again his own dream of planting the sword in the ground, which inspired him to this gesture in the Mother Ritual. So again the sword coming in.
Maybe if the Mother Ritual is the fruit of the work with the Suit of Swords, then the planting of that sword in the ground is quite a symbol for what we’ve gone through in that Suit. And isn’t it the Queen of Swords which starts a very different phase? The King of Swords is already releasing there.
During the last conversation on the Five of Cups, Phillip and Joel had talked about the Six of Coins, the Ace of Swords, and the Ten of Swords a lot. The last two as “bringing two wills back together,” creating something new, two flowers, in the Five of Cups. Reading that makes one think of the Swords as different wills? If that would be in connection with the World and the Queen of Swords, with four corners full of swords, what could it be?
And something she just read in The Zelator was very interesting. Maybe connected to this theme of wills somehow? That there is feminine and masculine Salt (thinking), and feminine and masculine Mercury (feeling). But only the Sulphur is one, not feminine or masculine. There are refinements of the Sulphur—white, red, black, gold etc.—but they are refinements of Will, not having a masculine/feminine differentiation. She was really interested in such a picture…She doesn’t understand but still, it came to her mind now in this context again…
Joel is now remembering how far and wide he and Natalia went after this dream…talking about different Masters and their relation to different chakras, etc. We talked of the dog from the Fool as Sirius and therefore representing Zarathustra. Schythe in relation to Skythianos, and the CH in relation to Christian Rosenrkreuz. And that these three had a conference with Mani by the Black Sea or something in the 4th century. Robert brings them into relation with the lower four chakras: Zarathustra with heart, CR with solar plexus, Mani with sacral, and Skythianos with root chakra. That was the discussion, are these four Masters all working together somehow? And their relationship to Europe, America, Russia, all these things. Big conversation.
One thing Joel realises re-listening to all of these dream images of Natalia’s is…if we have the Fool and his dog as Zarathustra, and we have Death and his scythe as Skythianos…and then we have the Queen of Swords whom we had brought into relationship with the Hanged Man…maybe we can bring her into relationship with Christian Rosenkreuz. So the missing 4th element would be Mani. Mani is aligned with the Sacral Chakra, the Venus Chakra—and Venus is represented in the Tarot by the Lover. So when we put these four together we have Shalom. We have Zarathustra as Fool, Shin (Heart Chakra); Christian Rosenkreuz as Hanged Man/Queen of Swords, Lamed (Solar Plexus); Mani as the mysterious 4th as The Lover, Vau, Venus (Sacral Chakra); and Skythianos as Death, Mem (Root Chakra)—and altogether that spells Shalom.
Joel is also remembering something from back when we were discussing Natalia’s dream, we were talking about the Masters (Skythianos, Mani, etc). And she spoke of Judith von Halle’s research, which indicates there being Masters of the South, East and West, and Rudolf Steiner who works in all directions—but no Master for the North. And in the Esoteric Lessons, Rudolf Steiner describes the setting for the Masonic rituals—three altars, one in the East, West and South, but the North has no altar—instead it has the two pillars of Jachin and Boaz. At one of the altars the Bible is there open to John 13—which is the foot washing. And Joel only discovered this after he had already decided on John 13 as the main reading and inspiration for the ritual.
But in the 3rd (highest) degree of Masonic Ritual, there is an altar in the North, with a coffin. Joel wonders whether there was something in Natalia’s dream that there were four swords emanating out of the Queen of Swords, and three were clear and one was in the becoming, or something like that? So now with the Shalom, it’s a bit like Zarathustra, Christian Rosenkreuz and Skythianos (Shin, Lamed and Mem) are clear, but Mani (Vau) is the question mark. Was Joel misremembering that, was one more unclear than the other three, or in another dream? Or is Joel just making something up? But that’s interesting that there were just the three—Natalia, Phillip, Joel—and then Sabrina is the developing 4th. [Edit: Joel went back and re-listened to the original chat with Natalia. There is nothing in her dream about a developing 4th, with the other three clear. This is the origin of that imagery: we discussed the different Masters or Boddhisatvas in relation to the images in her dream. This led Natalia to think of the work of Judith von Halle on the Masters, and this reminded Joel of the relevant section of the Esoteric Lessons. It reminded them of this time period we’re in, after Three Teachers and three Days of Temptation, and Three Miracles of the Etheric Christ, that we are looking for the 4th—maybe the time is here that we are building the 4th altar in the North. This would be the altar of Archangel Uriel, who guards the Social/Religious/Moral impulse. As in Harrie Salman’s Social World as Mystery Center. As though we are in a time when we must rise from the second degree to the third].
“Vau” is the link that joins one thing to another…and so that missing 4th is the missing “link”, like the 4th King in the Fairy Tale of the Green Snake.
Joel also recounts a dream of his from that time period, which inspired recently an additional element of the Mother Ritual…he was a knight, and Estelle Isaacson was a maiden. He had to rescue her from some evil lord, an evil knight who had her in his power. After many struggles and confrontation, he rescues her and they ride away. Then they come to this field…and this field has, all in a line, these swords that are buried point-down, all the way up to the handguard of the hilt, so that only the hilt is still showing above ground. It is like a cemetery in a way. And Joel knows that these are the swords that have been buried by knights who have accomplished their missions, and have now moved on to a life of penance and inner work, like Kyot. And he takes his sword out of his sheath to bury it with the others. As he plunges it in, Estelle becomes very angry, and tries to stop him from doing it. They struggle over the sword, and as she tries to pull it up by the hilt, Joel grabs it by the blade and it cuts his hands. She screams at him, “No, you can’t quit yet! I still need you to protect me! How dare you!” And she begins to beat him forcefully with her own hands. And all the while, all Joel can think, partly shocked and overwhelmed and saddened, but partly bemused, is “Why on Earth do you need me to protect you??? You are quite clearly much stronger than I am!” And that is when he awoke. This dream seemed related to another dream of Natalia’s, where there was a banner or flag with a Red Cross on a white field, but only an online of red created by red stitching. And the image that came to them from that dream was that the Magdelene/Abel stream of purity (white cross) is always there, but it is hidden or obscured in a general field of white. It requires the individual red stitchings of the Rosicrucian/Cain/Lazarus stream to make this white cross evident and honoured—and that is the point of Rosicrucianism, is to draw the gaze back to the Lily, the Church, to Mary and Tradition. These individual swords in the field could be like the individual stitches of red demarcating the white cross.
Sabrina is very grateful for witnessing this flow of hermetic thought that was inspired by her bringing the Shalom—in turn it gave her many new things to ponder. She offered it because, with her Rosicrucian teacher, she is performing peace meditations, which is really structured into a few steps, and they perform these peace meditations with different groups of people and it’s such an intense experience every time. So she’s thinking a lot about that. And then connected to this Hebrew impulse…it just showed up online, this image and she thought well, it too is a tetragrammaton—she thinks a very important one as well (in addition to YHVH).
Another thing that really made her ponder was Joel talking about “Vau” and the Lover. And she is a “language geek” and the sound-visual of “Vau” makes her think of “to make a vow”, as a play on words. The third priestly vow of Chastity sums up all three vows, so to speak, and it’s also the connector to make this transition…mastering the six makes the link to the seventh, The Chariot, which is Mastery.
Sabrina feels she has made a transition from the spiritual exercise of the Lover to the Chariot during this last period…in terms of the Lover, that period began around August 2019, when she was randomly handed a flier in the street advertising some kind of party, but using the image of The Lover as the ad—and soon after she went through some life events related to the lessons of The Lover that were like “a tightrope walk on the blade of a knife.” Then more recently, meeting the Chariot in a more literal way, so to speak, in terms of getting her license—which required overcoming a great fear, instilled karmically so to speak. In her dream life during that time there were many dolphins. Suddenly she had the impulse to look at the signature of her personality, Sabrina, and look up the meaning of her name—one aspect of her name is a water nymph, and she comes in a Chariot that is accompanied by dolphins. This was such an important and valuable piece of information for her—in mastering the skill of driving.
Joel had never thought of it as a pun before—Vau as Hebrew letter, Vow as a wedding vow, a marriage taking place, Vow as a promise (which always links two people together), and then these three priestly vows of obedience, poverty and chastity—this being the third vow which contains the previous two so to speak, and creates the link or transition to the Mastery of the Chariot.
There’s also the thought of this again…Sabrina had taken a screen capture of just the bottom part of the Lover…and in the original French Marseilles deck, there are inconsistencies in the lettering. Like “Le Bateleur” has a “u” in it, and it looks like a “u.” But then in other Arcana—for example here, with the Lover (La Moureux spelt La Movrevx), there are two letters “u” in the words, but they are printed as “v.” Supposedly this is akin to the hold Hebrew texts, which had apparent errors in spelling or size of letters and punctuation, but all these seeming “errors” were of great spiritual significance and symbolism. And for there to be two v’s instead of u’s in the Lover is significant, as the letter Vau is the letter V, but also the letter W in some cases. So this too points to Vau in the French Lover (La Movrevx).
We also recently had dolphins quite a bit in our Tarot conversations (amongst Natalia, Joel and Phillip) back in January when we were discussing the Two of Cups—quite close to Sabrina’s Saturn return actually!
Sabrina thanks Natalia and Joel for sharing their dream images…she too was immediately struck with the image of The World when Natalia spoke of the four swords emanating out of the Queen of Swords. It’s been a while since she read the Letter-Meditation on the World…she doesn’t remember if Tomberg speaks of the naked woman in the center as Sophia so explicitly, but in the light of these conversations it became so clear, this image of her as the first created being playing in front of God.
And what struck her about Joel’s dream was the ending statement, and the image of the cemetery of swords, and the accomplished task of knighthood. It made her think of the only sword that is there nowadays for Grail Knights which is a sword of light, the healing word. Just as in the spiritual world, the swords stand for the tongue, that is the word. And then, in Italian, there is another word for the Arcana, the playing cards, and it is literally “blade”, these are the blades. So it’s quite interesting that former Grail Knights like to heal with the blades and through conversation, i.e. through the healing word and so in this regard also what comes to mind is the part of the Catholic Mass: “Lord, I’m not worthy to receive thee under my roof, but only say the word and my soul will be healed.”
She points out that Sword bearer = s.word bearer = word bearer. Etymologically, “sword” and “word” are related to each other, too. In German one can observe the kinship too: “SchWert” und “Wort.”
Joel then shares the etymology of “blade” and “blood” from http://www.etymonline.com. They have the same root, “bhel” – to thrive, to bloom.
Natalia shares with us a sequence of connections to the Sacral Chakra from Robert’s Inner Radiance Sequence:
Joel thought more of this blade/blood connection. Calling the different Arcana “blades”—with a relationship between blade and blood it makes each Arcanum a drop of blood. In The Empress, VT talks of the voice becoming full of blood, and that’s when Sacred Magic can occur. Similarly in The Judgement he speaks of the voice being condensed to single drop of blood—that’s the trumpet of the Angel. Blade/Blood/Voice/Larynx, it all gets tied together there. He woke up remembering that in the Queen of Swords conversations, we began to see the sword she’s holding as a sword made of blood, and that is pouring out blood. Of all of the many swords throughout the whole Suit of Swords, the sword held by the Queen is the blade of blood. If you were to read the 2nd and/or 3rd conversation, you’ll see what larger context that ends up fitting into, and the role that the Queen of Swords plays there, and who the blade of blood is.
Phillip responds to Sabrina wondering whether Tomberg refers to the woman in the middle of The World as Sophia. He obviously refers to her as a dancer…but then there is that phrase from maybe the Psalms…”I was there by his side…” that moment of the dancer or Sophia there at the first moment of Creation. There dancing, or delighting in all of his works. In the sense that the delight and joy experienced by the first created being is like a dancer, and could be similar to the woman in the middle of The World. Then in the Letter-Meditation on The Emperor, he talks about the tsim-tsum, that the first act of Creation by God is to withdraw from a part of himself, leaving a void. It made him wonder if there isn’t a relationship between the first created being of Sophia and the void that is created through the absence of God. What he says in that part is amazing, that human freedom arises out of the eternal lighting up in the emptiness of the void giving rise to Creation. Sophia is the manifestation of the Void somehow; maybe this ties into the Swords, and the Queen of Swords represents this. This is the negative nature of the Swords—it’s the fullness in the Coins, then the withdrawal of the fullness, leaving behind a space. Not just a void—it’s void of the Presence, but there is still something there, and it’s perhaps Sophia, that we recognise Sophia in the Virgin Mary or Goddess form or Queen of Heaven. But that’s the nature of the void somehow.
Natalia is reminded of the side of the Sophia that is often there, mentioned by Estelle quite a bit, which is the Silence. Could that be a part of that void? Silence which is the space that is needed for Sophia to work in us.
Natalia will read throughout Holy Week the Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreuz, and invites us all to join her.
And yes, she loves how these themes are handled in the Queen of Swords conversations…the past karma and the wrong use of the Sword, transformed into a different orientation of larynx-healing word…somehow we have talked a lot about Taurus (it was prominent in Five of Cups, then in our synastry, then also in the sky above us with a crescent Moon as horns over Mars and Aldebaran as two eyes of the Bull…Also Sabrina lives in Vienna which is Aldebaran’s current astrogeographical projection on the Earth. A very musical city, and we are all very musical—maybe a destination for a retreat someday when travel is possible again! But also according to Robert, different Boddhisatvas or Masters are related to different Signs of the Zodiac, and Maitreya is related to Taurus. The larynx/eustacian tubes are related to Taurus and he brings the Good through the Word. We also spoke of it in regards to the word Maitreya coming from the Sanskrit Mitre which means “friend.” This is also the root word of Mithras, which is a bull cult and a Mother cult)…anyway, we have talked a lot about Taurus and the four swords emanating out of the Queen of Swords…this makes Natalia think each of us with our own swords are trying to go through that process of “transforming the sword”, learning to use the Word for healing?
What was interesting in the notes on the Queen of Swords, was also how this healing is happening. How the karmic past is almost like this sword which needs to bleed, and behold. But Joel and Phillip went around this theme of healing—could one’s own word heal oneself? Or is it the words of others? It isn’t so obvious for Natalia, she has an intuitive feeling about it, but it feels like we also have to learn to put things into words, and that is also a kind of healing process to be done. She has the feeling that when we talk to each other, the way we try to formulate things, that is a process where it feels important…she doesn’t quite know how to explain it…but also the way the other is forming their words makes one feel more complete—that one is always trying to capture something difficult in words and when that happens, then it is deeply satisfying for speaker or listener. Perhaps one feels that as a completion or healing in oneself.
Natalia shares an imagination of what is happening behind the Queen of Swords, of what cannot be clearly seen:
Joel points out that the dancer in the World dances in a Vesica Piscis, which could be seen as a wound and/or a void. Vesica Piscis means “fish bladder”, which is the air sac in a fish that gives it mobility and buoyancy in the water. The void that makes movement (dancing) possible.
Natalia points out that on pages 84-85 of the Letter-Meditation on The Emperor, it is about this void. She liked this: “They carry in themselves a ‘drop’ of the void and a ‘spark’ of God…their Freedom is the void within them.”
Natalia shows another metamorphosis of the four swords to sword-wounds…maybe a freedom-void in the middle:
The above quote made Sabrina think of water (drop) and fire (spark).
She then spoke about wound—void—sword—blood:
This is a sequence that is quite important for her she feels. This is a sequence that describes her steps of development in the recent past. These four words are like symbols.
A relationship brought clarity to physical ailments related to old wounds from a previous life. This was a long and painful process. This brought about forgiveness (including the difficult task of forgiving herself) and healing, culminating at Christmas time with a singular experience—of feeling contractions in her larynx during meditation, and inwardly perceiving a sword inside of her body. And at a certain point, in conversation with Joel, this sword disappeared. In her meditative life she was told this was the sword of Michael, but also Excalibur…she had the strong impulse to read the conversations on the Ace of Swords, and suddenly the sword wasn’t there anymore, the contractions stopped. But she had a new kind of faculty of talking. And this is where the “blood” comes into play, after the wound, void, and sword. She feels as though her power of word and speech has gotten an update or something…”to speak with blood in the voice.” Her story with those swords in general is that she receives a sword—in meditation, or in her dreams, without thinking about it—every time she takes a step forward in her self-development. She regards it as a very important symbol for herself—and it really has to do with the faculty of speech, talking, the tongue.
So: wound—void—sword—blood: She had to bear the wound for some time and through the capacity to forgive it transformed into a Vesica Piscis (void) out of which a Sword was born, which then culminated in a new Word (blood).
Sabrina’s work is, in a way, in this realm of the void, of working to be a bridge between the development of consciousness in the realm of quantum physics (in which she has participated for some years), with the development of consciousness along the Rosicrucian Path. People who have worked with, for example, Dr. Jody Spencer, who had such transformative experiences, stick to this work and would not discover anthroposophy, just because anthroposophy (as for example Harrie Salman has written in The Rising of the Inner Sun), has not effectively helped people transform the soul. So there are many other paths by which people can transform their souls in order to be able to receive the spirit. But Sabrina’s dream for many years has been to weave these disparate realms together. That is her current project, it seems the time has come. And together with this new Sword, her life has changed as well. She is in a kind of expansion phase of her life, as she works once a week with two different groups in Germany. She also meets with a group in Vienna, and they do transformative work that she is leading. She uses many tools, and one could say that she is teaching—she would say she is midwifing. It’s all really exciting—also because she has no idea where it is all leading in these very interesting times, but she is open to whatever will come.
Ultimately, her work is all about being a link, a bridge.
It is a touching story for Natalia to hear, great to hear these deeper stories. With the Sword, one can really relate to this process—and happy that Sabrina can now work with all of that. And Sabrina’s description about the Ace of Swords made Natalia want to read it—she’s in the Coins right now, but it was cool to jump in at that part. At the end of the second conversation, there was this discussion about the different Suits, and the Sword as the word or speech, and this question came up for Joel and Phillip if the Suit of Cups is opening up something for the speech—so that sounds like very much the theme.
The next portions of conversation focus on the Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreuz, and will be included with the notes for the conversation on April 1…
The Unknown Friends 