The Major Arcana and the Hero’s Journey: Temperance, Part III

Samekh is the Hebrew letter associated with Temperance. Most sources say that its original meaning is tent peg, or support. But the letter itself is round, in fact the cursive figure for samekh is a circle.

It looks nothing like a tent peg.The Wikipedia article on Samekh points out that the Phonecian pictograph for Samekh looks a

bit more like a tent peg and is probably derived from the Egyptian djed, the pillar shaped hieroglyph that means stability.

So how is a circle like a tent peg? They didn’t just make this stuff up. Well, yeah, they did, but what was the method in their divine madness? The mystic interpretation of the letter samekh given by most sources is “the endless cycle”, which does match the shape of the letter. The endless cycle is something my pagan brain can grab onto. Pagans and Hebrews both see the universe as moving in circles. Black Elk, Oglala Lakota, 1863-1950 said it best:

Everything the power of the world does,
is done in a circle.

The sky is round
and I have heard that the earth
is round like a ball,
and so are all the stars.

The wind in its’ greatest power whirls.
Birds make their nests in circles;
for their’s is the same religion as ours.

The sun comes forth and
goes down again in a circle.
The moon does the same
and both are round.

Even the seasons form a great circle
in their changing
and always come back
to where they were.

The life of a man is a circle,
from childhood to childhood.
and so it is with everything
where power moves.

Our bodies and psyches are exquisitely in sync with these cycles. They resonate deep inside us and lay down a set of reference points to guide us and reassure us that everything is proceeding according to precedent. Like the lesson of Temperance, they help us equilibrate and balance our lives with what is happening around us. In other words, they support us, like that tent peg.

Sagittarius, the fiery, mutable astrological sign that rules the thighs and hips that support our bodies, also corresponds to Temperance. Like the tarot card, the centaur is balancing two extremes, the animal nature of a horse and the intelligence and spirituality of a man. In Greek mythology, centaurs were adventurous, brave, and wise; they were also given to brawling and uncivilized behavior. And, like the card, the centaur is combining those extremes to take aim at and achieve higher goals. Sagittarius is the sign of religion, faith, and philosophy, the only things that will support us when we are trapped between Death and the Devil.
To be continued…