#androcles

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From Chatterbox, 1890.

Here are collected the best lions I've encountered in my research to date.

       A slave named Androcles once escaped from his master and fled to the forest. As he was wandering about there he came upon a lion lying down moaning and groaning. At first he turned to flee, but finding that the lion did not pursue him, he turned back and went up to him. As he came near, the lion put out his paw, which was all swollen and bleeding, and Androcles found that a huge thorn had got into it, and was causing all the pain. He pulled out the thorn and bound up the paw of the lion, who was soon able to rise and lick the hand of Androcles like a dog. Then the lion took Androcles to his cave, and every day used to bring him meat from which to live.

But shortly afterwards both Androcles and the lion were captured, and the slave was sentenced to be thrown to the lion, after the latter had been kept without food for several days.

The emperor and all his court came to see the spectacle, and Androcles was led out into the middle of the arena. Soon the lion was let loose from his den, and rushed bounding and roaring towards his victim. But as soon as he came near to Androcles he recognized his friend, and fawned upon him, and licked his hands like a friendly dog.

The emperor, surprised at this, summoned Androcles to him, who told him the whole story. Whereupon the slave was pardoned and freed, and the lion let loose to his native forest.

Moral: Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.

The Fables of Æsop

SIX OF PENTACLES Everything You Give Comes Back Around

On the surface level, this card shows give and take, gifts, donations and charity. The giving and receiving that exists between the have's and the have not's. As a pentacles card, this might mean money, but it could also mean resources such as time, energy, experience, ect. It's a hopeful card overall-- hope that we may find a benefactor in our time of need, hope that we can have enough to gift our excess to those less fortunate, hope that society has come far enough that social welfare may be there to fill the gaps so no one may fall.

On a deeper level, the Six of Pentacles card really opened my eyes to the beauty of the numerology and symbology that exists within the tarot. If we look into the images on the Rider Waite's 6 of Pentacles, we can see how the story becomes one of karma, give and take and the blessings of the adage, "To give is to receive and to receive is to give."

Take the number 6 for instance. Sixes in tarot numerology mean harmony, communication and cooperation. They are the start of the healing and solutions to what plague us in the darkest times of the 5s (which are the direct middle of each suit, those darkest times we will experience on our journey directly between beginning [aces] and completion [10s]). Sixes create the solutions, help us get back our balance and move us away from strife to adaptability and healthy change. After coming out of a difficult situation like the poverty shown in the 5 of Pentacles, this card offers hope that we may make it to the rest of the story and find peace in that 9 of Pentacles and 10 of Pentacles. And that peace could very well come from a rebalancing of wealth, redistribution of resources and community that supports each other when we need help and love.

That rebalancing is shown very apparently in the scale of justice that the merchant on this card is holding in his hand. It's the very same that is pictured on the Justice card in the Major Arcana. This scale represents equity, fairness, equality, karma and things ultimately being balanced in a correct and positive manner. This merchant is not just giving charity for the sake of some haughty attitude that he gets to hold over these beggars, but because this is justice. It's not right for one person to have an excess. This merchant is not the miser seen in the 4 of Pentacles, he's not royalty who has never worked for money neither. He's someone who could very well be in the same position of these beggars if the market prices changed at any time in the  future. One bad crop for the merchant would be the only thing it would take to equalize the different social statuses.

In fact, there is a lot of symbolism here that points to the beggars and the merchant being one and the same. This is the only card in the tarot deck that shows two different social statuses on the same card, pointing to the fact that they are very much linked. The figures on the card are all part of the same cycle, they all blend together as one. There is no difference between them, it is an endless cycle that continues to balance as people climb up and down the social ladder. What support you may be able to offer someone someday, you might need the next. One card, one cycle, one society, all supporting and helping under the guide of social welfare. This is the grand balancing out of karma, what you put out into the world is going to come back to you at some point down the line.

This card goes into the economic theory of how when you distribute wealth it actually creates more wealth. That's a big part of what is stimulating the economy with these stimulus checks at the moment in our current political climate. When the rich miser (someone like in the 4 of pentacles) hoards all his wealth, the economy is not stimulated. But when someone like the merchant here comes along to dispense the extra, it actually creates growth and makes sure that the economy flourishes.

Since the beggars have nothing to offer currently, the merchant could be providing aid out of the goodness of his heart, however as a merchant, he's very likely to see that wealth come back to him when the beggars buy what he is selling. What we put out comes back to us ten fold.

Also, let's look at the symbolism of the colors that the merchant wears for a second. The white (innocence, spiritual purity) and blue (piety, wisdom, religion), show that he's not doing this in a haughty way nor maliciously. He was gifted with a good heart and therefore the community was blessed with kindness. The hand signal the merchant makes is also very important-- it's the same hand signal as hierophant - representing the spiritual side of giving, blessing, philanthropy, kindness.

Another number that shows up here is four with the four pieces of gold he offers the beggar. Four in tarot stands for stability and structure. This charity is not going to just throw the beggar breadcrumbs that might topple him later but will provide him with that structure and stability he needs in order to make it through to a point where he might be able to support someone else.

This card is very much about paying it forward, supporting the community and the power of kindness in times of trouble. It shows that there is so much spirituality we can gain when we help those who are the most hopeless and that by giving we can only, in turn, help ourselves. For my version of this card, I wanted to really capture the cyclical nature of giving and show people who have benefitted the most from their philanthropy and seem to have learned that lifting everyone up is the way to lift themselves up as well.

::Who's Who On This Card::

1. MrBeast from the Mr Beast YouTube Channel (Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson made a name for himself on YouTube by giving away more than a million dollars to strangers and friends in bouts of random donations. His whole model is completely cyclical-- the more money he randomly gives away, the more people want to click on it, the more money he makes, the more he can give away and the more of a name he makes for himself, it's actually kind of a fascinating economic model which shows the power of giving to receive)

2. Androcles and The Lion (In this old folktale, Androcles bravely take a spliter from the lion's paw, only to later end up a slave in the Roman Colosseum who is going to be fed to the lions, the same lion he once helped-- proving that the people you meet going up are going to be the same ones you meet going down and how much karma and good will can save you in the end)

3. Trevor McKinney in Pay It Forward (the kid in this movie wants to make a better world, so he envisions a plan where he will help three people and then they'll help three more people and the love and kindness will grow exponentially until everyone gets to live in a better world someday)

4. Angel (from "I'll Cover You" scene in RENT -- with lines like, "Live in my house, I'll be your shelter/Just pay me back/With 1, 000 kisses" because what we give from a place of love comes back to us in more love with this card)

5. Jane Goodall (She spent her whole life working and caring for chimpanzees... and ended up worth $10 million dollars)

mythology aesthetics

ANDROCLES