“The Chariot represents the power of control of the mind, symbolized by a team of horses or sphinxes in harness. Controlling the mind means not allowing it to be excessively disturbed by emotions such as anger, greed, fear, worry, jealousy, etc. Even such apparently good emotions as joy and love can be harmful in excess (traditional Chinese medicine regards excessive joy as one of the causes of heart disease.) The Golden Dawn deck shows the image of two horses - one white and one black - pulling a chariot through the air. This image is probably based on the image in Plato’s Phaedrus, of the soul being like a chariot pulled by a pair of winged horses, one of which “soars naturally upwards into the heavens, there to behold beauty, wisdom, goodness, and the other things of God by which the soul is nourished, while the other tends to sink towards the earth and besot itself there with brutish pleasures.” Some people are born with the noble horse naturally stronger than the base horse, in other people the opposite is true. Even if the base horse is naturally stronger, it is still possible for the chariot as a whole to rise, provided the charioteer, which represents the mind, restrains the base horse and allows the noble horse to take control. In the Rider-Waite deck, the alternation of black and white stripes in the manes of the sphinxes represents the idea that dualisms, such as good versus evil, or love versus hate, are misleading, since, in the real world, the components of any dualism tend to be intermixed and difficult to separate. A better moral code requires that our thinking move beyond over-simplified dualisms. We are now ready to formulate the new moral code.”
(brahyd-l)
- noun
1. part of the tack or harness of a horse, consisting usually of a headstall, bit, and reins.
2. anything that restrains or curbs;
3. (Machinery) a link, flange, or other attachment for limiting the movement of any part of a machine.
4. (Nautical) a rope or chain secured at both ends to an object to be held, lifted, or towed, and itself held or lifted by a rope or chain secured at its center.
5. a raising up of the head, as in disdain.
- verb (used with object), bridled, bridling;
6. to put a bridle on.
7. to control or hold back; restrain; curb.
- verb (used without object), bridled, bridling;
8. to draw up the head and draw in the chin, as in disdain or resentment.
Each person is made of five different elements, she told me. Too much fire and you had a bad temper. That was like my father, whom my mother always criticized for his cigarette habit and who always shouted back that she should feel guilty that he didn’t let my mother speak her mind. Too little wood and you bent too quickly to listen to other people’s ideas, unable to stand on your own. This was like my Auntie An-Mei. Too much water and you flowed in too many different directions, like myself.
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen were at my house party and all they did was stand in the corner and blink in sync with each other. At one point I saw Mary-Kate put a cigarette to her mouth and take a long drag, then Ashley blew out the smoke.
“Ultimately, there can be no complete healing until we have restored our primal trust in life.”
― Georg Feuerstein
“We do not eliminate transference; we decant it. We do not kill it as David killed Goliath. We wrestle with it respectfully as did Jacob with the angel, until it yields its blessing. The blessing is the revelation of what we missed or lost and the grace to grieve it rather than transfer it. We feel a momentum to mourn all those who did not make time for us, to let go of their importance to us, to go on with life no longer determined or unduly influenced by what others choose to do. We then find satisfying sources of need-fulfillment in ourselves and in other humans who can be there for us most of the time and not there sometimes. And in a yes to that, we have all we need.”
― David Richo, When the Past Is Present: Healing the Emotional Wounds That Sabotage Our Relationships
“The Empress, like all the cards of the third level, signifies a bursting without experience. My mind never rests: a word, a shout, and I engender a world. I am the creative spirit. Listen to me and allow me to act within you, for I bring healing: Every problem and all suffering comes from an ego that has become fixed by the inability to create. Your feelings are also marvelous. All, without exception. What a beautiful jealousy! What a powerful rage! What wonderful sorrow! Do not remain caged up in your fortified castle! Make it a temple with all its doors and windows open: all emotions are at your disposal, like a rainbow of subtleties. All your desires are respectable. Allow yourself to be permeated by desire; everything in your body is in harmony.”
– Alejandro Jodorowsky, Marianne Costa, [The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards]
