The lotus imagery

I see the lutus coming into the cards many times and I wonder what this might symbolize. I recently started studying the Thoth so this is a fairly new symbol to me. I read in a previous post that it might be synonymous with the cups (thanks to similia) and thats a good start to something I think can be delved into deeply.

I ask this because my daily card today was the 6 of cups and I wonder what the lotus's are doing, and what they are filling the cups with (OK, thats a little more obvious in tarot terms).

Within the context of Tarot the Lotus is the eastern symbol of the receptive, feminine powers. In the west the Rose is used to symbolise the feminine.
There's also the link with the Chakra's. The receptive energy centre's within the body which are usually described as various Lotuses.

The Lotus is also an ancient symbol of the soul and rebirth, especially in Egypt and India. Since the Lotus rises and falls each day with the sun, it mirrors the regenerative life cycle. In rising above the waters it creates itself anew, only to sink beneath the surface again.

Giant lotuses figure in creation myths for both regions. It also appears as an ornament in ornamentation, religious and secular, throughout Asia and Asia Minor. The multipetalled structure also speaks to its complexity and multifaceted beauty.

There's a terrific essay about its ubiquity here: http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sunrise/49-99-0/ge-mrook.htm

And from Helena Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine:
"THERE are no ancient symbols, without a deep and philosophical meaning attached to them; their importance and significance increasing with their antiquity. Such is the LOTUS. It is the flower sacred to nature and her Gods, and represents the abstract and the Concrete Universes, standing as the emblem of the productive powers of both spiritual and physical nature. It was held sacred from the remotest antiquity by the Aryan Hindus, the Egyptians, and the Buddhists after them; revered in China and Japan, and adopted as a Christian emblem by the Greek and Latin Churches, who made of it a messenger as the Christians do now, who replace it with the water lily.* It had, and still has, its mystic meaning which is identical with every nation on the earth. We refer the reader to Sir William Jones.** With the Hindus, the lotus is the emblem of the productive power of nature, through the agency of fire and water (spirit and matter). "Eternal!" says a verse in the Bhagavad Gita, "I see Brahm the creator enthroned in thee above the lotus!"; and Sir W. Jones shows, as noted in the Stanzas, that the seeds of the lotus contain, even before they germinate, perfectly-formed leaves, the miniature shapes of what one day, as perfected plants, they will become. The lotus, in India, is the symbol of prolific earth, and what is more, of Mount Meru. The four angels or genii of the four quarters of Heaven (the Maharajahs, see Stanzas) stand each on a lotus. The lotus is the two-fold type of the Divine and human hermaphrodite, being of dual sex, so to say."

Akhnaton.

I have been researching the Amarna period of Egypt lately and it is proving most interesting. It is during this time that the idea of the Aten is introduced. It is not the same a Amon ( an anthropomorphic deity) as the Aten represents the source of energy that we all draw from and that resides in the hearts of each of us. At one point, Akhnaton closed all the temples of the other anthropomorphic Egyptian gods and sent their priesthoods home. He seemed to feel strongly that we all have an intimate and direct connection to the source if we cultivate it. We do not need to give our energy and belief over to someone more powerful than us for them to use our energy for us.

The lotus figures very prominently in the imagery from this time. They seem to be shown as cups of a type, and I believe they have a strong connection to the chakras (as has been said here) but also the human heart in particular.

Here is an example of art from this time showing Akhnaton and his queen lifting their cups to the Aten and lotus are outlined standing in cups at the bottom.


http://img391.imageshack.us/img391/3645/akhnatonlotus0da.jpg

RViewer said:

He seemed to feel strongly that we all have an intimate and direct connection to the source if we cultivate it. We do not need to give our energy and belief over to someone more powerful than us for them to use our energy for us.

Click to expand...

I also have a fascination with the Armarna period, and I have to say that I have never seen it discribed like this.

I have always felt that Akenaton was an egomaniac.
He destroyed the other gods and their priesthoods because they had more power than the monarchy.

So he destroyed them, making the Aten the only god.

Then, in the worship of the Aten, the only way for people to connect to that god was through Akenaten himself.

In effect he was the only way to the only god, and every one worshipped him.

Note that on all the reliefs the sun disc, (the aten) only holds the life giving ankhs to the faces of the royal family, never to anyone else.
It was also Akenaten himself who devised the new worship of the Aten, and he himself that conducted it, replacing the priesthood and combining that office with the monarchy into one person, himself.

It is Akenaten who is carved onto the tombs of all the courtiers, replacing the older gods and their priests with himself.

I could go on. I could go on for ages about the Armarna period. It has always fascinated me.
But I think that everyone sees in it what they want.
Freud saw Moses in the monotheistic aspects of Atenism.
Velicovsky saw Oedipus.
I see an egomaniac.
You see someone who seems quite altruistic.

If I had a time machine I'd go back and find out what he was really like...

Back to the topic...

Lotus.
I always thought it was a yoni (for want of a better word).

Guess that answers my questions!

Thanks everyone. I just received Keywords for the Thoth Tarot in the mail and what a great book for trying to understand the Thoth! I wish there was a book like this for every deck.

However there is no interpretation like the ones mentioned above so thanks everyone