I truly love this geometry, and every time I am amazed at how differently it reveals itself, each time illuminating new aspects.
This time, it became deeply intertwined with the XXI Arcanum, "The World." At first, I resisted, not understanding what Tarot had to do with it, but the signs kept showing that this was precisely the case.
During the day, I made pencil sketches of the four figures (the angel, the eagle, the lion, and the bull), focusing specifically on the arcanum. That evening, in the book I was reading (Initiation by Elisabeth Haich), I came across the quote from the prophet Ezekiel about these very figures... An entire chapter on the four faces of God was dedicated to them: as zodiac signs, as winds, elements, and directions—everything about the fourfold manifestation of the Divine.
The Lion — The Fiery Face;
The Eagle (Scorpio) — The Watery Face;
The Bull — The Earthly Face;
Aquarius — The Airy Face.
In Tarot, by the way, these figures also appear on the Wheel of Fortune (though there, they hold books and write destiny, rather than bearing witness as they do on The World).
In temples and churches, they can be seen alongside the evangelists, where they symbolize the four apostles themselves, the Tetramorph (the four living creatures surrounding the throne of God), and the words of the liturgy [singing (the eagle), crying out (the ox), calling aloud (the lion), and proclaiming (the human)].
The Ouroboros is one of the most ancient symbols, representing infinity, the cyclical nature of life, and processes that have neither beginning nor end. All of existence is a closed loop. Life gives way to death, which in turn creates new life. And this process is endless.
In general, autumn is a time linked to ancestral remembrance and ancestral work (next week, Autumn Dzyady begins), so I am not surprised that it is precisely now that I have returned once again to the ancestral mandala.