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4 of Swords ~ Air
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| 4 of Cups ~ Water
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4 of Wands ~ Fire
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 4 of Disks ~ Earth |
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The fours are the kingdom of the Emperor and
the earthly wheel of Death (1+3 = 4). Thus I chose the 4
elements as they appear to us in the landscape, the 4 corners of
the world, as the subject for the 4s.
The arrangement you see above is how I arrange
the 4 elements around the cardinal directions. What you
see is East at the top, and I know many find this unsettling and
I apologize for that! The reason I have it this way is to
align it to a philosophy which can be seen in the kabbalistic
tree of life or for those versed in tarot you can see it on the
back of the Thoth tarot in the rosy cross. There are
3 main elements, Water/feminine and Fire/masculine and then Air
which is shifting between. The 4th element is Earth which
contains a combination of the other 3 and is shown at the bottom
of the cross or the tree as the roots. You could
liken it to the black and white columns of the High Priestess,
and yellow/air is the soul and brown/green is physical
existence.
In this arrangement East is at the top as the
rising sun, in the west it sets and water and fire are ever at
the poles as the duality of male and female, yin and yang.
If the pattern were laid over a person you would find
Air/Swords/Yellow at the top where the head is, the intellect or
mind. Water/Cups/Blue would be one hand, Fire/Wands/Red
would be the other, opposite hand, and Earth/Disks would be at
the root, either the grounded feet or the reproductive organs
and root chakra.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of what
can be said about the 4s! If you have any questions or
comments about them feel free to email me and let's chat!
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