Sun Signs Everything Under The Sun!
The Mer-Ka-Ba
The actual application of the Mer-Ka-Ba is considered more fully within Trump 13 and taken to its furthest conclusions within Trump 17 and 19, The Star and The Sun.
The Earth-Moon binary system is receptive. Without the sun’s rays and the sublime, ethereal influxes from outer space, it cannot thrive on its own. Thus, Trump 9 placed on top of the I Ching trigram, beginning with a Yang at Trump 7 and followed by a Yin at Trump 8, should not follow its natural completion towards the sign of Fire: Yang-Yin-Yang.
Yet this is left to the reader’s appreciation, for Fire may well be significant in awakening the snake-like Kundalini power, an aspect of Hindu Shakti, at work within the practicing Yogi or meditating Buddhist. We prefer to deviate from the “perfect order” and turn to the “temporal-dynamic,” significant dynamic flexibility. Placing a second Yin at the top of the trigram composed of Trumps 7, 8, and 9, we arrive at Jen: Thunder, Awakening.
Symbolic of spring, the early awakening of light, this is a proper way to proceed further into the mysteries of the Tarot. The Yin of Trump 8, reflective of the Yang of Trump 1, is adjoined by a second Yin, not reflective of the lower Trumps. This is needed to accede to Trump 10, reflecting the “upward movement,” although it combines all “lower movements” within itself.
Since all things change eternally, this cannot represent a whole, basically static “unity,” closed upon itself. Therefore, Jen, “awakening thunder” and “sprouting life force” will be followed by an active impulse – Yang – at the beginning of the next trigram.
This symbolism should somehow enter the visible card. Not as lightning, though this may be the hidden meaning of some Tarot decks using Yod, Fire, as an apt Hebrew letter. No, it is not Fire in any sense, but the strong impulse of reawakening life. Maybe a gentle spring rain, a rainbow, and a light mist. The central personage’s colors should be light green, and the sun’s light at early dawn should be indicated.
The Trump IX or 9, as already stated concerning Trump 8, is symbolic of total change, fundamental change. It is “the number of Changes.” The triple dynamics of 3 and 3 and 3 are universal. They apply to all of Creation. Therefore, if any card Trump is concerned with physical death and life after death on a different plane, then it is Trump 9. Its change is more fundamental than the change indicated by Trump 13, Death.
The older schools of initiation have always begun their instruction of the neophytes with deep and prolonged contemplation of death. What they intended by this was a meditation on the eternal flux of life, from life to death to life. This basic meaning of the 9 should always be kept in mind when Tarot Trump 9 appears.