#lemniscate

[vedalkensamurai]

Lemniscate II

[stardroidstan]

My friend Merry asked me to draw this while we were playing through AI the Somnium Files. And I finally found some time after working six days straight at work. 

[persnickety-doodles]

It’s really late, but I wanted to sketch this. This one is a bit repetitive but I’d been thinking about it all day. esp the second part 😏

Might finish later… if my brain is still here after my final final exam 🫠

[reno-matagot]

New Feri altar, January 10th, 24

Cum hoc Munere Vos Honoro, o Vos Feri Lemniscate Numina!

[priestess-of-the-north-west]

By Edmund Dulac (1882 - 1953)

I'm not sure Dulac intended this to become a tarot card (he was friends with known mystic W. B. Yeats though), but it does seem like a nice version of 'Strength' to me.

However, there is always that issue with the number 8.

Left: Number 36 in the Mantegna Tarocchi (ca. 1465) (Explanation of the structure of that deck here.) Right: Number 11 in the Marseille deck by Jean Dodal (ca. 1701-1715)

Number 8 is rooted in the work done by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (GD). They switched the position of two cards, numbers 8 and 11, to make them a better fit with the astrological correspondences they worked out. According to the GD, the eighth card is associated with Leo and the eleventh is with Libra.

This switch was 'suggested' in the (rather controversial) Cipher Manuscripts (check the arrows):

(Source)

There is an incredible lot of GD symbolism in the different Waite decks, and to me, seeing the number 8 for Strength is always a signal that the designers looked at Waite, and thus (quite often unknowingly) the GD, for inspiration.

I cannot tell if the switch the GD made makes sense, nor can I judge the quality or validity of the Cipher Manuscripts. It looks as simple as putting a card with a feline in the illustration in correspondence with Leo and a card with a figure holding scales with Libra. But there may be a lot more to it 🤔🧐🤷‍♀️.

Since Leo is, in occult Kabbalah as practiced by the GD, linked to the 19th path (between Gevurah -GD says Geburah- and Chesed) one could build argumentation for both cards for that path.

[ducissatenebrarum]

The #lemniscate, or infinity symbol as many of us know it, is a sideways 8 that we see appear in a few cards of the Rider Waite Smith Tarot. It is commonly seen as symbolizing infinity, eternity or anything that increases without limitations.  There is also a natural flowing aesthetic of ups and downs which makes it easy to connect to the ever changing nature or life with all its unexpected twists and turns. From a central point, the lemniscate divergences into the four directions and then an ultimate looping back around and converging again in the centre. This could represent the many paths one can take in life but remembering we all ultimately return to the essence; the manifesting for the four elements and their ultimate dissolution back into oneness. ‘All things issue from it; all things return to it.’ -Tao Teh Ching ‘And to It shall we return’ - Quran In the Magician, a card of initiative and potential in itself, this symbol appears alongside his ouroboros belt 🐍 a symbol with very similar meanings of infinity / death and rebirth. We see the lemniscate above the head of the young maiden in the Strength card; perhaps suggesting the unlimited potential of gentleness in comparison to force. We also see it in the World, looped as red ribbons around the laurel wreath. This is appropriate because the word lemniscate comes from the Greek ‘lemniscatus’ meaning, ‘decorated by ribbons’. The symbol makes sense in this card as it is the culmination of the Fool’s journey that comes with a sense of completion and wholeness, and another new beginning. Perhaps the lemniscate’s most interesting placement is on the Two of Pentacles. Here, it is clearly a symbol of finding balance in the ups and downs life throws at us. It has also opened this card up to encouraging interpretations for me. Brining in the symbols sense of potential and limitlessness, the Two of Pentacles indicates something is ‘challenging but possible.’

[jadeseadragon]

📷 Wojtek Rychlik

Summary author: Wojtek Rychlik

"The analemma above was made from my home in Cascade, Colorado (near Colorado Springs). Because we had approximately 300 mostly sunny days here in 2004, it was possible to portray the Sun's motion during the course of a year - each image was taken at 2:28:00 PM. Three hundred sixty-five photos were used between December 4, 2003 and December 4, 2004. The image of the Sun for December 5, 2003 nearly perfectly overlaps the image for December 4, 2004. When a day was cloudy, an extrapolation was made."

Autumn Equinox 2023:

Saturday, September 23, 12:50 AM Mountain Time / 2:50 AM Eastern Time

[everyendeavor]