Temperance

Published on 28 June 2024 at 11:59

Every astrological sign has a Major Arcana Tarot card that represents it. You can easily look up what yours is. Just search "astrological signs tarot cards" and you'll see a list, plus explanations.


My sun sign is Aries, so my card is "The Emperor." My partner was a Sagittarius, one of my favorite signs, so his card was "Temperance," which pretty much means moderation, balance, and harmony.


I once pointed out the irony of this card symbolizing my partner's sign, because my partner was an over-indulgent addict with any vice he picked up in life, and also diagnosed as bipolar, which is characterized by extreme emotional highs (mania) and lows (depression). Not a very harmonious thing to live with. My partner laughed at this remark, as his sense of humor ran towards the dark and ironic.


My partner, Dennis, died by suicide because of his mental illness. One of the things that keeps coming to mind is how I always believed that some day he would learn to find his balance, his harmony. I believed he would get better. Now I've been wondering "If he never discovered his destiny in Temperance, what hope do I have of ever embodying The Emperor?"

 

This is a photo I took of my Everyday Witch Tarot cards, created by Elisabeth Alba & Deborah Blake

 

The Emperor represents everything I hope to be. He rules his own life with authority. He knows his place in the world, both the physical and mystical world, and that place is to guide and help others. He is allowed to do this because he is respected, but not out of fear. He is respected because he is wise and fair. His actions benefit others, as any ruler's should. I'm not saying I want to rule others. I don't. I want to manifest my life with intention and surety, and I want that life to benefit others. I've always felt a bit displaced, my head in the clouds, not a leader nor a follower. A dreamer. That's not what I am meant to settle for though. If it was, it wouldn't come so easily to me.


At my partner's memorial service, his best friend talked about how Dennis embodied chaos. He was always partying, or getting people worked up, carrying out hilarious pranks, and always goofing off. He talked about how, as teens, Dennis always had little fireworks or even half-sticks of dynamite on him for some reason. He'd carry around those poppers and snap them at the ground when no one was paying attention, firing up his friends who were on their last frayed nerves. By the time I met Dennis, he was experiencing worsening issues with chronic pain, so his wild side was tempered a bit. But I still remember how chaotic he was. Part of me found it exhausting, like his friends. But, also like them, I loved and envied that about him. I admired how free he was. He didn't have a single care what other people thought of him. He wanted to have fun. He was my big, silly goof.


That part of our friend's speech at the memorial service brought to mind, again, the Temperance card. Had Dennis really EVER had any real chance of being a harmonious, balanced person? More than most people, I think there was a wild man just beneath his surface. But it wasn't all about having fun to him. He was also deeply philosophical at times. He consumed large amounts of information. He was always, always reading. He had a very spiritual side. (He's the one who helped me onto the path into occultism.) He would get lost in visions. He knew how to meditate anywhere at any time, how to astral travel and astral project. His intuition was often scarily accurate. Most people are not so in touch with their psychic senses. But Dennis knew his abilities and he was confident in them and their use.


I was looking through one of my tarot decks recently, The Everyday Witch Tarot, and I pulled the Temperance card. I always smile when I see it, reminded of Dennis. And while I was reading points about this card, I was struck by the sentence "Everything in moderation... including moderation." And like a lightbulb flicked on above my head, I suddenly realized just how well Dennis had truly embodied this card.


Dennis was always up high or down low, with very little balance in between. He was a storm of chaos, or a tranquil pool of psychic energy. He could tear someone to pieces with his words, or heal them with rare insight. He could be so insensitive to others at times, because his own pain was all he could see. And other times, he felt the crushing weight of the world's pain and tried fruitlessly to carry it on his own two shoulders. Dennis was always one extreme or the other. There was no moderation on either end of it. He could NOT stand in the middle and hold equal weight on both sides. No, he had to run from one end of the teeter-totter to the other to keep it going. That's the only way he knew how to create balance in his life; with far-reaching extremities.


How exhausting that must have been for him to keep up for 32 years. As much as I miss him, I'm glad he gets to rest and heal now. That harmony he was missing from his balancing act is in his reach now.


By the end of his life, he was no longer at the mercy of his vices. He'd overcome many habits. And he did that by the strength of his own will. He showed as much self-restraint and moderation as an agent of chaos can. Did he represent Temperance/Balance in the way people expect? No, not at all. He was extreme. But life is full of extremes, the pendulum swaying forcefully between entropy and order. When I look back on the life I had with him, I see a balance of casualties and creation, of destruction and restoration.


And how does this tie into my own destiny? Well, the Emperor isn't born that way. He reaches that status by holding onto his power through adversity. If I can survive and see Eden at the end of the maelstrom that was my disordered relationship with a chaos entity, I can survive anything.

 

What Tarot card represents your Sun sign? I'd love to know your thoughts on it.

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