#pythagoreanism

Tau, Tarot and the Metonic Cycle

The letter Tau (Τ) occupies the nineteenth place in the Greek alphabet and contains one of the most ancient seals of consecration in the sapiential tradition. From the prophets to the initiates, its cross-shaped form is a sign of election, boundary, and passage. Tau is the invisible mark of the righteous, the emblem of the soul preserved amid judgement, a sign of recognition among the children of light

In the Tarot, nineteen corresponds to the Sun in the Major Arcana, a Divine card that represents the active and emissive principle of י (Yod) in the seventh and final ternary. It forms the upper vertex of that concluding triangle, whose base is completed by Judgement (Arcana XX), the receptive principle of ה (He) and the Fire of ש (Shin), and consummated in the World (Arcana XXI), where Spirit stands at the centre surrounded by the four elements, the image of universal reintegration.

The same number can be found in the Metonic cycle, in which the Sun and the Moon, seemingly irreconcilable in their motions, find their point of harmony. Discovered by the Chaldeans and formalised by Meton of Athens in the fifth century BCE, the cycle reveals that, after nineteen solar years, corresponding to 235 lunar synodic months, the two luminaries return almost exactly to the same position in the zodiac. This coincidence reconciles solar time (linear, extroverted, awake) with lunar time (cyclical, introverted, mnemonic).

More at The Mirror of Sienna.

"Pythagorean Temptations" [Digital Collage; 2020]