An Explanation of the Above Diagram
Sorry Ms. F. I guess it is a tad cyptic.
I'll leave out "the whys" and stick to 'the whats'.
The elemental symbols (the little triangles) represent the numbers themselves starting with 1 at the top, 4 at the lower left, 7 at the lower right, and back up to 10 at the top again. Numbers, like everything else in creation, may be seen as having the characteristics of the four basic ways energy can manifest. These four behaviors are known by the code words FIRE, AIR, WATER, EARTH. These of course are not actual fire, air, water, or earth, but descriptive allegories for types of behaviors (expanding, contracting, rising, falling, short, long, fast, slow, separating, binding). If you take them too literally, you'll miss the point.
- 1 is Fire
- 2 is Water
- 3 is Air
- 4 is Earth
- 5 is Air
- 6 is Water
- 7 is Fire
- 8 is Water
- 9 is Air
- 10 is Earth
We start at the unity of the 1, which is like the divine source. 1 through 4 show how the divine descends into matter - impulse, separation, completion, consolidation. Here the energies are expansive, and practically we can draw useful parallels to evolution, and to the transpersonal.
7 through 10 show us how matter ascends into the divine, from a higher impulse (7) to a higher consolidation (10). Here the energies are contractive, and can represent involution, and the personal.
4 through 7 shows us the harmony and balancing of the two, containing the 'marriage numbers' 5 and 6. We can say it represents aspects that mix the transpersonal and the personal natures, and balance expansion and contraction.
I chose the triangle shape to emphasis these three separate aspects of the decad, and the importance and interrelation of the 1, 4, 7, and 10 within the decad.
The symbol at the top is SULPHUR, which is the Soul. The symbol on the lower left is SALT, which is the Body, and the symbol on the lower right is MERCURY, which is the Spirit.
The left maintains the general symbolism of the lunar/feminine, and the right maintains the symbolism of solar/masculine.
Whether or not one wishes to apply this model to the use and understanding of tarot is of course another matter, though I believe it is revealing of the properties of the first ten numbers, which are themselves revealing of the nature of all numbers, which are indeed revealing of the very pattern of the whole universe as it exists in the divine mind, and other such mumbo-jumbo.
M