Today's card is interesting in terms of the overall arc of events.
Elvish Harbinger - Green - Elf Druid
Again, an interesting "portentous" card which suggests a more feminine outlook than her Giant companion, which has come up a couple of times in the past. She is also quite seductive looking, which may suggest more sleaze (which is what I'm getting from Deep Throat).
Speaking of Deep Throat: A card pulled yesterday in a general off-line spread sets an important date as being Lammastide - August 1; there is an eclipse on August 5 which ties in to this too. While this is during the recess, Deep Throat suggests that Nick Clegg is not the only one - see posts passim - who wants Parliament to continue over the summer this year to sort this constitutional-ish crisis out. Although the initial chaos has abated, we are in to the period in which the party leaders seek to manipulate the mood for their own interests.
Given the card for the Situation is so interesting, let's have a look at the events surrounding August 1-5.
Situation
Lammastide Weave - Green - Instant
Lammastide is at the time of a neo-pagan festival, and both derive partly from Lughnasadh, one of the four mediaeval Irish festivals which come from the original Celtic pagan practice. It is traditionally connected with the harvest and its name refers to the Christian tradition of the "loaf-mass" or bringing for blessing the first crop of wheat and the bread made from it. Thus the metaphorical connection with harvest here holds the connotation of those under scrutiny beginning to reap what they have sown during the spring - and beforehand.
Occurrences
Elvish Branchbender - Green - Elf Druid
"How do the vinebred feel? Fah! We do not ask the puppet how it feels when the puppeteer bids it dance."
The public witness - and understand - what is really going on here. After a couple of months where both parties have striven to lessen the impact and redirect the agenda away from the recent scandals, another event or series of events occurs to shake down those trying to manipulate the common good for their own ends. Either the public feel they are the puppets manhandled by their rulers, or our rulers themselves begin to feel like mere pawns in a much bigger gain. Although columnists on astrology seem to be left-wing and swayed by the apparent innocence of anti-capitalism and anti-financialism, and towards charismatic figures like Barack Obama, here I feel the pendulum will go in the opposite way to reveal charlatans and reveal which ideologies or issues have been manipulating us for the ends of people more powerful - or just with that appearance - than ourselves.
By the way, to those who say Obama can solve the world's problems - not many now, I suspect - the eclipse at his inauguration and the stumble he made part way through may hold longer-lasting clues to his fate than we may assume here.
Underlying currents
Thorn Thallid - Green - Fungus
"The cooling climate forced the Elves to experiment with new food sources." - Sarpadian Empires, vol. 1
Now I get why in the last explanation I felt climate change had something to do with this, though at an oblique and possibly metaphorical level. With this week forecast to be one of the hottest this year, that seems nonsense. However the cooling climate and the fungus here relate to a slow and steady decay in the processes that govern us. The underlying element is that the attempts to bull-sh*t their way out of trouble are beginning to turn sour and manifest themselves in ways which would have been unthinkable under normal Pluto in Sagittarius rules. It no longer holds together because of the power of the last few months to jolt a society out of complacent inertia and into a situation which is different and uncomfortable. Pluto in Capricorn last time destroyed Britain's empire in North America, at least in the southern half. Now it's our turn to feel political revolution because of a changing - political - climate.
Obstacles to this change
Scuttling Death - Black - Spirit
This card involves the "sacrifice" of a creature - the death of a creature you control in the game to pay for some other effect which would bring you good fortune. In a way, politics tries to surrender something up so that the continued gravy train can roll on. (I'm not necessarily talking about expenses, I'm more talking about the status quo which is comfortable both for New Labour as a whole and their Tory clones.) It is as if here one era - both astrologically and politically speaking - is struggling to hold back another. Neil Giles notes that the last 14 years have been largely about discussion and debate, with words speaking louder than actions and communications being used to control. Now, finally we get to have those words manifest in concrete possibilities - but the old era, knowing that these manifestations will undoubtedly lead to much less power for their chosen communication barrage, is fighting to hold it back. Why else would David Cameron - arch Pluto-in-Sagittarian - want a general election so quickly on his terms if he did not want the summer to subject him to the rigorous scrutiny he demands of Labour? And yet he has the bigger bill than the Prime Minister to pay back.
Manipulation and communication is given one last throw of the dice here to try and hold things back from physical and administrative destruction.
Overcoming this obstacle
Oakgnarl Warrior - Green - Treefolk Warrior
"Roam as you will, your roots remain in the strong earth of your Rising."
Again, the momentum here is far too strong for the efforts above to hold it back. History never stays still. Governments can never wholly manipulate themselves, nor can Oppositions, even ones ahead in the polls on paper. (Janet Daly cautioned a while ago that this support was as soft as, oh, Lancashire cheese.) The direction now is too pressing to hold anything back, even with another scapegoat to throw on the altar.
Directions afterward
Nightshade Assassin - Black - Human Assassin
A swift and brutal end to the situation with what is achieved at Lughnasa (funny, I'd always thought Dancing At Lughnasa referred to a place until I read the article on it today) being a finality for someone or something (hedging my bets here but Deep Throat believes it's the former). The idea of madness - a mechanic on the card allowing you to play the card if you would otherwise have to discard it - is something else to take into account - what happens will obviously happen for a reason, but the finality of it all will seem as if the party which effects this change will have gone loopy.
Deep Throat is telling me which one, but I would prefer to meditate on that a bit later and close off this reading now.
