XIV - Art

Titles: The Daughter of the Reconcilers, The Bringer forth of Life; Temperance
Hebrew letter: ס (Samekh = prop = 60) [Single Letter = Zodiacal Trump]
Element: Fire
Astrology: Sagittarius ♐ - Mutable Fire - The archer (ruler: Jupiter, exaltation: South Node; detriment: Mercury, fall: North Node)
Time: 22 November - 21 December
Path on the Tree of Life: 25th Path (Tiphareth ↔ Yesod; 6 ↔ 9)

Symbols/Colours:

this card is the complement and the fulfilment of Atu VI, Gemini;
Sagittarius means the Archer; and the card is (in its simplest and most primitive form) a picture of Diana the Huntress;
the connection between the Moon and the Huntress is shewn by the shape of the bow, and the occult significance of Sagittarius is the arrow piercing the rainbow;
this card represents the Consummation of the Royal Marriage which took place in Atu VI; the black and white personages are now united in a single androgyne figure; Even the Bees and the Serpents on their robes have made an alliance; the Red Lion has become white, and increased in size and importance, while the White Eagle, similarly expanded, has become red (he has exchanged his red blood for her white gluten);
the equilibrium and counter-change are carried out completely in the figure itself; the white woman has now a black bead; the black king, a white one; she wears the golden crown with a silver band, he, the silver crown with a golden fillet; but the white head on the right is extended in action by a white arm on the left which holds the cup of the white gluten, while the black head on the left has the black arm on the right, holding the lance which has become a torch and pours forth its burning blood;
the fire burns up the water; the water extinguishes the fire;
the robe of the figure is green, which symbolizes vegetable growth: this is an alchemical allegory;
at the bottom of this card, for example, are seen Fire and Water harmoniously mingled; but this is only a crude symbol of the spiritual idea, which is the satisfaction of the desire of the incomplete element of one kind to satisfy its formula by assimilation of its equal and opposite;
this state of the great Work therefore consisted in the mingling of the contradictory elements in a cauldron; this is here represented as golden or solar, because the Sun is the Father of all Life, and (in particular) presides over distillation;
the fertility of the Earth is maintained by rain and sun; the rain is formed by a slow and gentle process, and is rendered effective by the co-operation of air, which is itself alchemically the result of the Marriage of Fire and Water; so also the formula of continued life is death, or putrefaction; here it is symbolized by the caput mortuum on the cauldron, a raven perched upon a skull;
behind the figure, its edges tinged with the rainbow, which has now arisen from the twin rainbows forming the cape of the figure, is a glory bearing an inscription VISITA INTERIORA TERRAE RECTIFICANDO INVENIES OCCULTUM LAPIDEM; "Visit the interior parts of the earth: by rectification thou shalt find the hidden stone" (V.I.T.R.I.O.L., the Universal Solvent);
the Arrow, both in this card and in Atu VI, is of supreme importance; the Arrow is, in fact, the simplest and purest glyph of Mercury, being the symbol of directed Will.