Currently I am enrolled in Archetypal Tarot School with Marianna Louis, I decided to use the technique my teacher has us currently doing for weekly pulls. The first card represents the conscious material and the second card that crosses represents the unconscious orientation, or repressed wisdom. I applied this pull in honor of the upcoming Autumn Equinox and the Sun’s ingress into Libra, the first card representing the collective consciousness orientation to this equinox and the second represents the collective unconsciousness orientation to the equinox. How are we moving as a collective into autumn consciously, and as a collective, where is the deeper repressed wisdom lie with how we should approach the changing seasons here in the northern hemisphere. Oddly, but not surprising, it aligns with my initial write up of the Autumn Equinox, which can be found here Autumn Equinox.

The first card, representing the Collective Consciousness is 8 of Wands. 8 is a number attributed to movement, fortune and prosperity. We all know fortune itself is never stagnant and has a lot of built in momentum, up or down, look at the stock market as a perfect image of an 8. With it being wands, this is more in the realm of our creative movement, what inspires us, gets us moving. The wands are flying through the crisp, blue air, possibly in a rapid descent. The weather here in the midwest has been bluebird sunny, inticing us to keep on playing. I see this in the collective as moving with purpose and haste, completing the final summer tasks that were put off, recalibrating to school and work schedules, winterizing boats and gardens, painting outdoor trim, setting up halloween decorations. We are not very different than the bees who are busy buzzing back and forth through late summer blooms gathering last drops of nectar, we too are soaking up final summer rays that burn bright and strong but leave us much quicker as the darkness is clearly triumphing. We are all trying to store up the waning nutrients of summer, and like the wands and summer blooms falling to the ground, eventually our reserves go dry as well. Underneath all of our external activity, no matter how fast we move, we all know we will loose this race to the fading days.

The Collective Unconscious is represented by the 4 of Swords. Swords relate to our mental processes, how we interpret and perceive the world, how we speak and relate to others. The 4 is card that provides structure and stability, there is no movement in the 4, unlike the busy bee activity of the 8. 4 is half of 8, so we see this descent into our own frenziness of our mind into stillness. 4 of Swords unconsciously speaks to all of us that once we are done running mad around the clock, organizing schedules and garages, the world will demand us to downshift, and rest. Recalibrate our mind and how we perceive the coming days and what is possible. This card is similar to hibernation, but for that of the mind. As a collective, in the Northern Hemisphere, we are moving into a state of rest and restoration. Unconsciouslly, fall and winter stirs images of warm fires, bears hibernating, hot cups of tea or cocoa, and fuzzy blankets. Outwardly, it looks like a phase of little activity, near sleeping, but internally all of our energy is beginning to regenerate for the next cycle, the spring equinox.

Etymology of the equinox is “aequal” equal “nox-noct”night. The Sun and the Moon both get equal time in the sky on the 23rd. The equinox is a pivot point of balance, the Libran scales, and this is also represented by both the 8 of Wands moving hastily by day and divided by 2, 4 of swords directs us to intentionally halt and rest, like night. Day and night. Light and dark. The scales. The equinox.