August 17, 2016: Separation, filtration and setlling

August 17, 2016: 

My Wild Unknown Tarot card today is the Seven of Wands.  This one is a bit less threatening than the Six of Wands, which I threw exactly one week ago, on August 10^th.  The image on the Seven of Wands shows one wand, emanating a flame that lights up the surrounding darkness, surrounded by six other wands that are leaning against each other, as if spent.  There is interesting symbolism here, for in the Tarot the number 6 represents vertical and horizontal harmony, and yet the Seven of Wands, the next step from the Six card, has a solitary feel about it.  Harmony has weight to it, and thus its nature is to become degeneration; the Seven of Wands tells us to look around and decide if this is what we want.  If this is what we want, we need to actively stake a claim, draw a line in the sand and insist that the boundary is valid.  It is only by actively and deliberately owning whatever we want that we actually achieve it.

More on the Separation stage of the Great Work.  In an alchemic laboratory, this process of Separation happens by “inhibition” or “holding back,” or filtration.  A settling process could also be seen as Separation; after all, what does not dissolve into water will settle to the bottom of the container. 

The processes of Nigredo (Calcination and Dissolution) are meant to be unsettling.  This is how we break through the walls we’ve constructed in order to hide who we really are.  Needless to say, examining the pieces of the broken walls involves putting aside the ego; that is the only way to decide what is really worth saving.  The process isn’t over yet, not by far, so I need to choose carefully.