Hannah Peel Playlist

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Mercury Prize, Ivor Novello and Emmy-nominated, RTS and Music Producers Guild winning composer, with a flow of solo albums and collaborative releases, Hannah Peel joins the dots between science, nature and the creative arts, through her explorative approach to electronic, classical and traditional music.

Film

A Story of Three Bones

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Vestal Malone April 4, 2024

In a sacred moment, 3 friends begin an epic journey. Manifesting from the primordial ooze, they float together. Their innate destiny is a collaborative effort of strength, support and love. They protect and nurture the pulse of their own existence and grow into being.

Mandible, Sacrum and Sphenoid. Three bones together with the heart and the nervous system are the start and core of our physical being. More than 200 bones join the team as the body grows in a glorious journey to last a lifetime.

Mandible, the jaw bone, takes its duty seriously. It protects the heart with honor and has the strength and courage to do it well. When you try to avoid feeling a heartache, the jaw clenches and the tail tightens in an attempt to stop the 'flow 'of emotions. A newborn baby's lip quivers before the audible cry releases the tension. Adults tend to “keep a stiff upper lip” and not express their fear, anger or sadness. The heart does not forget how the mandible protected it, the two are connected from utero and for the rest of their lives together. Mandible has help in its task from Sacrum, the pelvis, and his little buddy Coccyx, the tailbone. They exist in a synchronistic dance and sway, the three together are the physical guardians encasing the developing heart, and then the emotional guardians as they grow solid and emerge into gravity. The sacrum looks after the cerebral spinal fluid, the flow of this nectar controlling our physical health and emotional well being. As our tail wags, it pumps this life juice up the spine to bathe our brain with nutrients. Remaining in lockdown in response to the travesties  of life leads to physical duress. A relaxed body is truly a relaxed mind. Muscle tension and physical injury stop Sacrum from wagging, impeding the flow of our perfect divinely designed system. 

Sphenoid, the bone of all bones, is fragile and shy. The keeper of the pituitary gland and the nervous system, it takes the brunt of our existence. Without the pulse of life moving through our body, all systems stagnate, especially little Sphenoid. Its shape resembles a butterfly, with bony wings just as delicate. It lives just behind the eyes and in front of our gray matter, hovering and swaying in harmony with the sacrum like a hammock to distribute “food” for the brain and body. Sacrum handles the cerebral spinal fluid while the Sphenoid handles the self regulating chemicals produced in house. It is a pharmacy with a remedy for each challenge, and a nutritionist chef to serve the perfect meals for growth and vitality. If Sphenoid can't dance and sway, the party's over.

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“They exist in a synchronistic dance and sway, the three together are the physical guardians encasing the developing heart, and then the emotional guardians as they grow solid and emerge into gravity.”

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After her University education (BA in English Literature and philosophy, minor in music),  Vestal Malone followed the call to study her hobbies of yoga and therapeutic touch a the Pacific School of Healing Arts and continued in the Master's program of Transformational Bodywork  with her mentors, Fred and Cheryl Mitouer, and assisting with their teaching. She went on to teach her own Therapeutic Touch workshops in Japan,  hatha yoga in America, and study Cranial Sacral Therapy with Hugh Milne and John Upledger. She has had the honor of doing bodywork with professional athletes, laymen and nobility for over 25 years. Vestal is a mom, a backyard organic gardener, and sings soprano in her church choir on a little island in the middle Pacific ocean. She hails from Colorado and Wyoming and migrates every summer to her family ranch to ground in the dust of her roots.

Chris Dixon

Film

Playing Games with Ludwig Wittgenstein

Nicko Mroczkowski April 2nd, 2024

What is the meaning of a word? When we talk about what words mean, we usually imagine something like a dictionary, which pairs up words with the things they stand for. So, somewhere in our heads, we’ve stored the sound corresponding to the word ‘apple’, and this entry is linked with our idea of the sweet fruit of certain trees. We are English speakers to the extent that we have a large repository of knowledge of this type, a dictionary in our minds that pairs sound to meaning.

According to the German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, this picture of the way language works is an illusion that has a sinister hold on us. It forms the basis of most theories in linguistics, it governs the way we navigate the law, it has come to define the architecture of AI language models, as well as our approaches to understanding literature, our common sense thinking about language itself, and how we learn and use it. Perhaps we don’t notice, then, that it rests on a principle of constant deciphering, or translation: it treats words as strings of code that must be translated into the concepts that we’re bringing to the listener’s attention. Just as a novice French learner will read une pomme and connect this with the English word ‘apple’, so will they hear the word ‘apple’ in their native language and ‘translate’ it into the image or concept of an apple. 

The problem, as Wittgenstein points out, is that this ‘translation’ doesn’t actually seem to occur in real time; this notion is not faithful to the genuine experience of using language. If I’m at the shop, and I ask the attendant for three red apples, do they first count up to three, retrieve the colour red in their minds, and call up an image of an apple? Surely not – they just grab the things! Maybe, you could say, these processes do occur, but so quickly, due to training and habit, that it is imperceptible. Suppose, then, that I ask the attendant to work faster – do they think up an abstract representation of speed, and communicate it to their body? And should they, unimpressed with this request, utter a single expletive – how should I translate it? What ‘concepts’ do swear words used in this way, or other expressions like ‘ouch’, correspond to? In a living context, believing that meaning is all about translation leads to some absurd consequences.

In fact, in this regard, living contexts tend to be stranger than we initially realise. When among very close friends, we use words and names in ways that might be unintelligible to other listeners, even though we’re still using plain English. Our shared history, memories, and inside jokes imbue our conversations with meanings that go far beyond the dictionary definitions of the words we’re using. Or, to take a more famous case: if I were to ask you, reader, what colour Wednesday is, you would most likely have an answer that we could discuss, and agree or disagree upon. Where, in the normal concept of ‘Wednesday’, is there anything to do with its colour? Is there a separate mental dictionary for cases like this?

The fact is, when it comes to language, context is everything; it accounts for much more than whatever could be written down in a dictionary. This is the core of Wittgenstein’s argument. Language, he observes, is like a box of tools, each with different uses that can be adapted to any purpose. There is no one theme that unites each of these things as tools – the hammer is for striking, the tape for measuring, the nails for fastening – except that they are there, at the ready, in the same place. If it has a use, it could find its way in there, and there is no principle that determines what belongs. In just the same way, there is no general theory of language or what we can do with it.

Le Centre de l’Amour (ca. 1687), Peter Rollos

Instead, we can speak of what Wittgenstein calls ‘language-games’: distinct but loosely defined activities that make use of the spoken or written word. Requesting and retrieving items at a shop is one example. Wittgenstein himself offers some other notable ones – telling a joke, reporting an event, asking, thanking – but really, there are as many language-games as there are things that human beings do with each other. This is the point: language is not separate from action, but belongs to it, and develops alongside it. ‘In the beginning was the deed,’ writes Wittgenstein, citing Goethe’s Faust; in other words, human activity exists before language, which forms just a part of it. We don’t speak first and act after.

Our modern scientific disposition, it seems, has made us believe that the main function of language is to sit outside the world, describe it, and state facts – to communicate knowledge. But this is just one of the things we do with it, and we don’t even do it that often. We do so many other things with each other; we eat, love, play, build, teach, inspire. These are real grounds of language. Wittgenstein calls them ‘forms of life’; what he means by this, in an intentionally loose way, is whatever a community of language-users does as part of its way of living. Forms of life are the smaller elements that make up a way of life; for example, a fishing community has customs and practices relating to different ways of catching fish, cleaning and preparing them, building and maintaining boats, trading, et cetera, each with their corresponding language-games. These things are ultimately cultural. So asking about the language of a community is like asking about its cuisine – what’s available, and what do they do with it?

When we think about the meaning of a word, then, this is the real question – what do we do with it? After all, recalling our shop attendant from earlier, just having a mental picture of three red apples is not enough to do their job; they need to know where the apples are, what to do with them, and how much to charge. If they stand there thinking about apples, they haven’t understood me; translation is not enough for meaning. And meaning counts for more than the ability to translate – it goes the other way, too. Learning what a word means is also learning about the form of life it belongs to. If I tell you that ‘deglazing’ means using liquid to dissolve the caramelised bits left over from frying something in a pan, I haven’t just told you the name of a technique – I’ve also taught you how to do a little bit of cooking, and how to follow a recipe that calls for it.

Like his predecessor Kant, Wittgenstein sought to shift our philosophical priorities away from the single-minded pursuit of total knowledge, towards an appreciation of the humble beauty of everyday life and thinking. He recognised that a perfect theory of language would get us no closer to illuminating the other mysteries of human experience; each of these things is ‘just there, like our lives’. The point is to live. 

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Nicko Mroczkowski

Tyler Cowen Playlist

Tyler Cowen April 1, 2024

These are pieces originally composed for one instrument, but now played on another instrument. Some of them you could call “transcriptions.” Some you could call confirmatory, others rebellions or perhaps even admissions of defeat.

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Tyler Cowen is Holbert L. Harris Chair of Economics at George Mason University and serves as chairman and general director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. With colleague Alex Tabarrok, Cowen is coauthor of the popular economics blog Marginal Revolution and cofounder of the online educational platform Marginal Revolution University.

Japanese Gardens

The Five of Wands (Tarot Triptych)

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Name: Strife, the Five of Wands
Number: 5
Astrology: Fire, Saturn in Leo
Qabalah: Gevurah of Yod י

Chris Gabriel March 30, 2024

The Five of Wands is the very middle of Fire’s descent from Heaven to Earth, a place Fire does not want to go. It’s becoming heavy, and what was once pleasantly organized is starting to fracture. It is a card of conflict and annoyance, of too much weight on an already fragile situation.

When this card appears in a reading one can expect a situation will be brought to breaking point. Annoyances will reach “critical mass”, and the conflict that results from this will bring new weight.

In Thoth, we find four wands beneath one great leaden wand. The “Completion” of the four wands is being crushed by the fifth. Atop is Saturn, and beneath is Leo, Saturn is the lead wand, which forces too much weight on the four beneath it creating Strife. Two of the wands bear the head of a Phoenix, the other two Lotuses. We see the sunny yellow of Leo, and the indigo of Saturn clash.

In Rider, we find a depiction of five young men fighting one another with sticks. There are no apparent “sides”, no serious division along the lines of color. This is certainly not a life or death conflict, but a feud among family or friends, no one will die by the wand, but they may well take a beating.

In Marseille, we are given the same formation as Thoth, but lacking intentional esoteric symbolism. To grasp its symbolic significance we must look to the Qabalah. 

As a five the card belongs to the fifth Sephiroth on the Tree of Life, Gevurah, which is severity or anger. Being Wands, or Fire, it belongs to Yod, the King. Thus it is “The Anger of the King”

We see this anger in Richard IV, for whom Shakespeare writes “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” which we oft paraphrase as heavy is the head. Great weight brings about unbearable internal pressure and conflict. Kingly anger puts so much force on what’s beneath it, it becomes volcanic and ready to blow up. Even in our best case, an absolute monarchy is fragile. 

Kingly anger sinks down to those who serve the king, causing infighting and chaos where there was peace and order. 

In our lives, we can see this as a source of pressure and strain, something that throws our insides into turmoil. Or outside ourselves in dysfunctional families, a parent who puts many demands on their children and spouse.

The Five of Wands is a card of conflict within structure, a “heavy heart”. When we are dealt this card we are asked to consider what is weighing heavy upon us and how we can get out from under it before we’re crushed.

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Chris Gabriel is a twenty four year old wizard and poet who runs the YouTube channel MemeAnalysis.

CHANNEL, SOCIAL, CARDS

Hannah Peel Playlist

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Mercury Prize, Ivor Novello and Emmy-nominated, RTS and Music Producers Guild winning composer, with a flow of solo albums and collaborative releases, Hannah Peel joins the dots between science, nature and the creative arts, through her explorative approach to electronic, classical and traditional music.

Film

Degree Astrology: An Introduction

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John Sandbach March 28, 2024

The wheel of the zodiac breaks down into twelve signs; within each of those signs, there are thirty degrees. Degree astrology ascribes a verbal picture to each one of those degrees as a means of characterising the hidden essence of the forces that affect us. When we move in harmony with these evolutionary forces, we are more likely to achieve success. 

The verbal pictures are received and interpreted by an individual astrologer; therefore, every set of degree symbols is highly subjective. Some sets feel weak or murky to me, or not quite on the mark. Others are clear, vivid depictions of the energy that each degree carries. 

When I began practicing astrology in the 1960s, there were two available sets of degree symbols that had been channeled in the 19th century: the Sepharial and the Charubel Symbols. To me, neither set is helpful for astrological interpretation. I know of no astrologers who use them. These sets lack charisma; they don’t speak to me. They aren’t vivid, so they don’t spark my imagination, and imagination is essential to the highly subjective work of degree symbol interpretation. 

In the 1920s, a set of degree symbols was channeled by the psychic Elsie Wheeler under the direction of the illustrious astrologer Marc Jones. This set became known as the Sabian Symbols and is the most widely used set to this day. There are several books you can buy which interpret these symbols, the most famous being Dane Rudhyar’s An Astrological Mandala. 

On April 4th, 1984, at 8:04 AM, in Kansas City, Missouri, I channeled a set of degree symbols now known as The Chandra Symbols, with my friend, the astrologer Lisa Leopold. We began by labeling 360 index cards with the numbers one to thirty for each sign, then mixed them up and placed them face down on a table. Lisa would then pick up a card, and I would tell her what I saw; she would write that on the card then select the next. The process had an intense psychedelic momentum, and each image passed through my mind with great vividness. 

Channeling the symbols felt like tuning a radio, and when I found the wavelength where reception was clear, I stayed there, listening to the information that came to me, and repeating it to Lisa. 

One image I saw was a bull stung by a scorpion. This is the image for the 20th degree of Gemini. I had seen a sculpture at the Vatican Museum, depicting this very thing, and felt suspicious that I was simply recalling a memory (as opposed to finding the correct image for this degree). Then I heard a voice that squashed my suspicions: a consortium of spirits had been showing me, for many years, a catalogue of images that I could draw upon, that would eventually become these degree symbols. 

I channeled the Chandra Symbols to achieve new insights into the degrees of the Zodiac. When astrologers compare different symbols from different sets, it can reveal new layers of information to us. The pictures from different sets often amplify, extend, and explain one another. 

An example: The Chandra symbol for the 6th degree of Taurus is “a pink diamond”. When I read this symbol, I think of the hardness and brightness of the diamond as signifying power and potency, and the color pink as a sign of spiritual love. Together, the diamond and its pinkness can mean the power to repel discord and negativity, and to imbue people, or situations, with gentleness and love. 

The Sabian symbol for the 6th degree of Taurus is “a bridge being built across a gorge”. As I see it, the bridge connects land that is kept apart. Love—signified by the pink in the Chandra symbol for this same degree—also has great power to connect. A good bridge needs strength and durability, inherent qualities of the Chandra diamond. 

My reading of the symbols together is that although the building of a bridge may be difficult, by approaching the task with diamond-like strength and willpower, one can accomplish the great work of bringing harmony into the world—with the power of love. This, of course, is not the only possible reading. The verbal pictures found in degree astrology are meant to stimulate an astrologer’s intuition, so their meaning is not necessarily the same in all contexts. “Diamond” and “pink” could be interpreted in many other ways—like images in poetry, they can have a host of different layers of meaning and implication. 

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“I think of the use of degree symbols in reading a chart as astrological poetry.”

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This is the very reason that a group of astrologers oppose degree astrology: for having no limits or clear definitions. Some consider it a kind of astrological free-for-all in which astrologers might read anything and everything into any symbol anyone can come up with. The manner in which some astrologers approach degree astrology can indeed be confusing or misleading, but when degree interpretation is done by an astrologer with clear intuition (ample experience helps), new forces that might otherwise remain hidden within a chart can be brought to light. Degree astrology is an immensely powerful tool; it can be wielded with adeptness and creativity, but it can also be misused. 

I have great respect for an organized, logical approach to astrology. I have spent many years learning this approach to chart analysis and use it still when I read for people. It’s a more masculine approach, while Degree astrology feels more feminine to me; together, the two have the power to potently enrich and inform each other. 

I think of the use of degree symbols in reading a chart as astrological poetry. I have found that when individuals are told of the degree symbols in their chart, they are touched in inexplicable ways. Often, they feel a deep relationship to the images, and over time these images can work on them therapeutically, bringing a clearer understanding of who they are. 

Years after channeling the Chandra Symbols, I channeled three other sets of degree symbols. When we look through a telescope at the degrees, we see that each one is filled with billions of galaxies, and that each one of these galaxies is filled with many millions of stars. With each set of symbols channeled, I am reminded that we have not even begun to scratch the surface of what is here: both in the sky and in ourselves.

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John Sandbach is an astrology and Tarot researcher who has been working professionally in these fields for more than 50 years. He is the visionary behind the Chandra Symbols of the 360 degrees of the zodiac system, and he offers private astrology and Tarot readings online. The author of several books, including The Circular Temple and Astrology, Alchemy, and the Tarot, he lives in Kansas City, Missouri.

Nicole Shanahan

Film

Maeshowe, Sound, and Viking Runes (Artefact II)

WUNDERKAMMER #2

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Artefact No: 2
Location: Maeshow, Orkney Islands, Scotland
Age: 5,000 years 

Ben Timberlake March 27, 2024

Maeshowe is a Neolithic chambered burial complex on the Orkney Islands, an archipelago to the north of Scotland that is a floating world of midnight suns and brutal, dark winters. The tomb overlooks the Lochs of Harry and Stenness. On the narrow spit of land that separates the two lochs is The Ring of Brodgar, an ancient stone circle. It is nothing to look at from the outside - bored sheep munching salty grass on a small mound — but inside is one of the finest prehistoric monuments in the world. 

The tomb’s structure is cruciform: a long passageway some 15m long, a central chamber, with  three side-chambers. The main passageway is orientated to the southwest. Building began on the  site around 2800BC. It is a work of monumental perfection: each wall of the long passageway is  formed of single slabs up to three tons in weight; each corner of the main chamber has four vast  standing stones; and the floors, walls and ceilings of the side-chambers are made from single  stones. Smaller, long, thin slabs make up the rest of the masonry. They are fitted with unfussy but  masterful precision in the local sandstone. It is even more impressive when you realize that these  stones were cut and shaped thousands of years before the invention of metal tools. It is estimated  to have taken 100,000 hours of labor to construct.  

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The interior chamber of Maeshowe, illuminated by the sun of the Winter Solstice.

Maeshowe sits within one of the richest prehistoric landscapes in Europe. The four principal sites  are two stone circles - the Ring of Brodgar and the Stones of Stenness - Maeshowe and the  perfectly preserved Neolithic village of Skara Brae. These sites are within a further constellation of  a dozen Neolithic and Bronze Age mounds, and other solitary standing stones.  

Aligned within this landscape like a vast sundial, Maeshowe is sighted so as to tell the time just once a year, at midwinter. For a couple of weeks at either side of the winter solstice the sun sets to the southwest and the rays of the run enter down the long passage and illuminate the wall at  the back of the end chamber. And this midwinter sun, at the zenith of its year, sets perfectly above the Barnhouse Stone some 700m away. The spectacle can be viewed live online every year.

Maeshowe and its sister sites are open to the public and well worth a visit. Because of their  remote location they get a fraction of the visitor numbers similar sites receive. There is something  deeply penitential about a visit there. The long passage is only a meter and a half tall and  archaeologists believe it was designed this way to force people to bow and submit as they walked  towards the center of the complex. 

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The Barnhouse Stone, on the left, aligns perfectly with the entrance to Maeshow, the mound on the right, so that on the day of midwinter, the sun sets above the stone and into the entrance to Maestowe.

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“The frequency for Maeshowe was a drum being beaten at 2hz creating an infrasonic frequency that, although  inaudible to us, could be felt as a physical or psychological sensations such as dizziness, raised heartbeat, and flying sensations. And that’s before we factor in the drugs.”

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As much as Maeshowe is a place of the dead, it is also a temple to sound. Dr Aaron Watson, an  honorary fellow from Exeter University, spent a number of years researching the effects of sound  at different prehistoric sites. He found that specific pitches of vocal chants and different types of drumming could produce strange, amplified sound effects known as ‘standing waves’. These are very distinct areas of high and low intensity which seem to bear no relation to the source of the  sound. In the case of Maeshowe, a drummer in the central chamber could be muted to those  standing nearby but the sound would be vastly magnified in the side chambers. The acoustics are  so powerful that the Neolithic builders must have known what they were doing when they built the structure. A recessed niche in one of the tunnel walls allowed a large stone to be dragged into the passageway blocking the passage and amplifying the sound.  

Even more impressively was the possibility that Maeshowe displayed elements of the Helmholtz  Effect - a phenomenon of air resonance in a cavity - but on a much larger scale. The frequency for Maeshowe was a drum being beaten at 2hz creating an infrasonic frequency that, although  inaudible to us, could be felt as a physical or psychological sensations such as dizziness, raised heartbeat, and flying sensations. And that’s before we factor in the drugs. These European  prehistoric societies made ample use of regular magic mushrooms and the red-and-white spotted  Fly Agaric. To the Neolithic visitors the acoustics effects of Maeshowe alone must have been  powerful but to combined with hallucinations it must have been one of the most profound and life changing experiences of their lives. 

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Viking runes carved into the walls of Maeshowe.

The tomb was rediscovered in 1861. I write ‘rediscovered’ because when the Victorian antiquarians began to clear soil and debris from the inner chambers, they came across evidence that they were not the first ones there since prehistoric times: the walls were adorned with Viking runes.  

We have a very good idea who these Vikings were thanks to the Orkneyinga Saga, a medieval  narrative history document woven through and embellished with myths. There appear to be two  sets of culprits. Firstly, in 1151, a group of Viking Crusaders led by Earl Rognvald on their way to the Holy Land. Then, a couple years later - Christmas 1153 to be precise - a band of Viking  looters on a raid led by Earl Harald.  

The Norse traditionally held such ancient places with dread and it is not known what drove them to risk their mortal souls and enter the mound: a terrible storm is mentioned, but it may have been the legends of treasure too. The saga records that two of the Earl Rognvald’s men went mad with fear of the mythical Hogboon, from Old Norse hiagbui, or mound-dweller. 

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There are some 30 runes in Maeshowe, the largest collection outside Scandinavia. Here is a  sample:  

Crusaders broke into Maeshowe. Lif the earl's cook carved these runes. To the north-west is a great treasure hidden. It was long ago that a great treasure was hidden here. Happy is he that might find that great treasure.  

Ofram, the son of Sigurd carved these runes.  

Haermund Hardaxe carved these runes.  

Thatir the weary Viking came here.  

Ingigerth is the most beautiful of all women (carved beside a picture of a slavering dog). 

Thorni fucked. Helgi carved.  

All too often historians and archaeologists concern themselves with official inscriptions left by kings and emperors and other fevered egos but I don’t think that anything quite says ‘Look on my works ye mighty and despair’ than a Viking warrior getting laid and then recording it on the rock of ages with his axe.

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Ben Timberlake is an archaeologist who works in Iraq and Syria. His writing has appeared in Esquire, the Financial Times and the Economist. He is the author of 'High Risk: A True Story of the SAS, Drugs and other Bad Behaviour'.

Iggy Pop Playlist

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Iggy Pop is an American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, and actor. Since forming The Stooges in 1967, Iggy’s career has spanned decades and genres. Having paved the way for ‘70’s punk and ‘90’s grunge, he is often considered “The Godfather of Punk.”

All Good Things

The Three of Wands (Tarot Triptych)

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Name: The Three of Wands
Number: 3
Astrology: Fire, the Sun in Aries
Qabalah: Binah of Yod י

Chris Gabriel March 6, 2024

The Three of Wands is a fiery card, but being a low number, it is still close to its divine source. It is a card of daily activity. When this card comes up in a reading, one thinks of the daily routine, of positive actions that one can undertake.

In Thoth, we are given a very simple image of three flowery wands. Two of them cross the central wand, and flames emanate from the center. Atop is the Sun, and beneath is Aries, the astrological placement of this card, and the second decan of Aries.

The Sun in Aries is a joyous placement, as it is the first in the zodiac. It is the bright beginning of a new astrological year. It is a daily cycle, and the bright morning of a new day. The title of “Virtue” puts one to mind of Benjamin Franklin’s morningly question of “What good shall I do this day?” This is the card of Daily Virtue.

In Rider, we are given the image of Franklin’s question. A man holding a wand, beside two wands. He looks upon the rising Sun. He is preparing himself for the day. He has a brilliant view, overlooking a bay, the ships within it, and the mountains. He can foresee the actions he must undertake.

In Marseille, as it is not an esoteric deck, but one that was used to gamble and play, we are given no esoteric imagery, simply three wands. It is the same formation as Thoth, but without distinct coloring. Here we must utilize the Qabalah to decipher the message.

Being a three, it belongs to the Sephirothic sphere of Binah, or Understanding. Being Wands, or Fire, it is of Yod, the King, and the first letter of the Tetragrammaton. Thus it is “the Understanding of the King”.

And just what is that understanding?

Let us look to poetry, and the I Ching. In Ezra Pound’s Cantos, he famously wrote “Day by day make it new”, which is an ideogrammic translation of the Chinese characters featured in the poem.

新日日新

New Sun Sun New

Sun doubles as “Day” , a deeply poetic character!

In Richard Wilhelm’s I Ching we find Tching’s wisdom mirrored perfectly in the commentary on Hexagram 26. “Only through such daily self-renewal can a man continue at the height of his powers.”

It makes sense as Tching, first emperor of the Shang dynasty, and “Tang the Perfect” was thought to have written much of the I Ching’s text. His wisdom is the very nature of the Three of Wands, daily virtue, daily self renewal.

“Day by day make it new.”

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Chris Gabriel is a twenty four year old wizard and poet who runs the YouTube channel MemeAnalysis.

CHANNEL, SOCIAL, CARDS

Questlove Playlist

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Questlove has been the drummer and co-frontman for the original all-live, all-the-time Grammy Award-winning hip-hop group The Roots since 1987. Questlove is also a music history professor, a best-selling author and the Academy Award-winning director of the 2021 documentary Summer of Soul.

Film