Two to Tango
Since I’ve been playing with threes so much, I decided to branch out today and ask about forming family relationships. Traditionally, this is the domain of the number six in numerology. Which turns out to be…uh…two threes. Lol. My bad.
In all seriousness, though, one of the things that has come to fascinate me about things like numerology is the ways that it is a comprehensive, well-thought-out framework, something that I think it’s easy to lose sight of when it’s taken up willy nilly. It’s one of the reasons that it’s been important to me to try and understand the comprehensive logic of these frameworks and the way that they are, above all, systematic. It’s easy in a culture that rewards snake oil salesmen who literally just invent claims to imagine that all “alternate” systems are made-up bunk, but this would be to ignore the degree to which many of them are thoroughly enmeshed in larger theories, empirical observation, and cultural practices that form extremely rich intellectual tapestries. As opposed to some dude who just decides to declare Ivermectin a cure-all so he can make bank, which is something else entirely.
So. Those two sets of three? Part of the reason the number six is the domain of family is that it seeks to combine the direction and goals (3) of two different people in a way that, ideally, balances both. If those goals are working against one another or point in off-kilter directions, you may run into trouble. That’s why in some sacred geometrical systems that treat 6 as two balanced triangles (e.g. Jewish mysticism & Indian chakra mandalas), one of the triangles represents the masculine and the other the feminine. The two brought together in opposite directions balance one another to draw the heart as a six-sided star. It’s also just one of the reasons 12 is considered a holy number in these same systems — it takes two sixes, or two families, and balances those against one another. This expands harmony up past the single-family unit to become multi-family harmony, or community.
Today’s draw:
Temperance
Strength
Judgment
Eight of Swords
Five of Cups
The Magician
Deck:
Ostara Tarot, by Eden Cooke, Krista Gibbard, Milo Ira, & Julia Iredale
Reading today’s cards as two triangles placed together (with Temperance, the Five of Cups, and Judgment forming one group, and the Eight of Swords, Strength, and The Magician forming the second), it looks like our collective family may be unbalanced. On the one hand, we have a temperate character who has done the work to understand their own role in their problems and has a keen, wise eye for assessment. But this level intuition and insight is fundamentally passive and balanced against a weak active force — one that could easily get itself out of its current predicament if it would just act. Instead, it’s stuck in a spiral of self-doubt, is held back by self-imposed blinders that can’t see the way out of an easily escapable problem, and it suffers from a timid heart. Despite being our “better” half, the temperate partner’s passivity pulls us constantly downward into a resting state. For change to happen, the more active partner needs to pull their weight so the duo can reach new heights. If the first partner’s insight, level-headedness, and steady hand are honored in that action, the second partner has little to fear about success when it comes to moving forward — they just need to do it.
