ARCANUM 3

LIBRA -I Balance 

ISIS UNVEILED   -   CROWN OF STARS - 3. The Empress

THE MINOR CONSTELLATIONS

THE 30 DEGREES

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PANOFSKY

Two Venuses, one celestial;, one profane, derived from PLATO, Symposium. In Renaissance, and association of Lower Venus with flowers:

See: Edgar Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance, Peregrine, 1967.

Flowers = Goddess FLORA.

ARCANUM III. (G = 3.) IRIS-URANIA

ARCANUM 3 - ISIS UNVEILED

"This is the ancient idea of Nature.It is represented by a woman seated upon a cube covered with eyes, the emblem of the visions of the famous seer, Hermes. .1. .1.Note that Hermes\Mercury is connected to Argus, the Many-eyed. See EYES elsewhere?

Her feet rest upon a crescent of the moon, the emblem of matter subjected to mind. She is crowned with twelve stars representing the twelve months and the Sun serves her as a Nimbus, thus symbolizing the creative power of intelligence. In one hand she holds a sceptre tipped with a globe, the emblem of her despotic action over the world; on her other hand is poised an eagle, its head turned toward her; thus signifies the flight of the human soul returning to its initial principle: God.

This Arcane, III., means: That to wish for things possible is equivalent to creating them. To wish for things impossible is to prepare one's own ruin."

This beautiful image from Egypt has full correspondences with Isis Unveiled:

"Every morning the creative process is repeated when the sun - symbolized as a bird bursting forth from its egg - soars up into the air of Shu upon the ways of Order." Rundle Clark, p. 47.

To the right is Arcana 3 of The Sacred Tarot, which is called ISIS UNVEILED. This picture is desceribed in the Book of Revelations, 12:2. The Virgin within the flames and with the Moon beneath her feet is repeated in the Isis Unveiled and the Revelations image.

SOLAR GODDESSES & SOLAR SYMBOLISM

virgin and child in sun… three suns

 Beside the star three suns arose that day at equal distances apart and then united in token of the Trinity; and Octavianus, emperor of the Romans, saw the Virgin holding the Child in the centre of the sun’s disk. [1] 

C.C.Zain: 

Arcanum III is figured by a woman Seated within a radiant sun. The rays from this sun number thirty, the number of degrees in one zodiacal Sign. The woman is crowned with twelve stars, to represent the twelve signs through which the sun passes each year. Her feet rest upon the moon, symbol of the feminine in nature. And the cube upon which she sits represents the cross of matter, where rays of sun and moon meet, and so signifies the union of male and female forces.

Arcanum 3 introduces a subject very often considered, which is, that Solar Goddesses also exist.

KERENYI; NEAERA, mother of PHAETHUSA and LAMPETIE. ISIS UNVEILED is clothed with the Sun. She therefore shares the Golden Attributes of the Daughters of the Sun, so beautifully described by Kerenyi. This clashes with our cliched attribution of the Goddesses with the Moon. A Solar Feminine is not permitted in the patriarchal re-programming of the past two millennia. See: Kerenyi, K, Goddesses of Sun and Moon.

Lempriere: NEAERA, a nymph, mother of PHAETUSA and LAPETIA by the Sun, i.e. APOLLO.

NOTES

Star Lore of the Constellations: Libra

The Stories of the Constellations  - Libra

A.E. WAITE: ARCANUM 3