The Annular Omen: Truth in the Third Decan & The Seven of Swords

Dearest Seekers,

I write to you in the midst of great change.

And perhaps some of you may feel that there is always change. That the tides ebb and flow, and that we are forever in a state of metamorphosis.

But great change is enacted differently. Great change is an act of God. It is teleological.

I write to you as we head into the eye of the storm, the lull between eclipses, where magic dissolves form into the primordial soup and rearranges us, our destiny, and our path, while we navigate anxiously inside the chrysalis of Father Time.

The season of eclipses is indeed for change, but not merely direction, favor, or surface truth. It is much deeper. And for some of us, the depth of this inevitable course correction digs into our bones, and we feel it. For others, it is so deep that we cannot see what alchemy is taking place in the dark waters. We only recognize it later, when it rises and bubbles to the surface.

For all of us, the energy of this solar eclipse arriving on February 17th has already begun coursing through, its first stirrings felt around the Third Quarter Moon.

Let us turn to the Tarot associated with the Decan of this upcoming eclipse, and take a moment to contemplate the symbolism and themes of this magnification of divine lunation and illumination.

On February 17th, the Moon and Sun align for an annular solar eclipse at 28 degrees Aquarius, in the Third Decan of this sign. While all eclipses are transformational, the intensity differs. In a total solar eclipse, the Moon fully covers the Sun. Day becomes night. The stars appear. Animals go still. The temperature drops. For a few minutes, the source of life disappears.

In an annular eclipse, the Moon passes before the Sun but is too distant to obscure it completely. What remains is a brilliant ring. A halo of light around darkness. An annular eclipse creates tension rather than total obliteration. It is pressure rather than void. There is no complete reset, only a narrowing, a tightening, a refining within the visible field.

The Tarot card associated with this Decan is the Seven of Swords.

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In Hermetic thought, seven is the number of equilibrium, mastery, and victory. It corresponds to the seventh sephirah, the sphere of Venus. Seven appears wherever completion has occurred: the seven chakras, the seven colors of the rainbow, the seven classical planets. It is a veil number. It suggests something complete yet hidden, cyclical but subtle, visible yet symbolic.

When we meditate upon the imagery of the Seven of Swords, we see a man bathed in solar illumination. Red, Martian energy accents his hat and feet as he tiptoes away from the encampment…five swords in his arms, two left behind. What are his intentions? His faint smile suggests satisfaction in subversion.

Let us first turn our attention to swords, the suit of intellect, air, choice, decision, and the electrical impulses that fire synapses in the mind. The man carries five swords. Five is the number of mediation, adaptation, justice, and reconciliation. It appears in roses, in the appendages of the human body, in the five senses through which we engage the world. The five swords represent the digestion of evidence gathered through the skin, the senses, the lived experience of reality as it is before us. As we take it without philosophy, without higher mind, and forming opinion from that data alone.

Yet two swords remain behind him. He glances over his left shoulder, the receptive, feminine side. The subconscious. His gaze suggests longing, even as his arms are full. He is encumbered, yet tempted to return. Should he retrieve the two?

The occult sciences teach us that two signifies polarity, duplication, extremity: beginning and end, wisdom and science, thesis and antithesis. It is secondary reflection. It is scholarship. It is the study of sacred text. It is evaluation beyond impulse.

So what do these swords, and this furtive character, tell us?

This is a card about choosing a path steeped in the density of immediate reality. It is the decision born of sensory overwhelm: the flood of news, the cascade of images, the undertow of darkness tugging at your ankles. It whispers: follow. Submit. Care. Pay the toll with your attention. Resign yourself to sides and succumb to the anxiety of manufactured crisis.

This moment reminds me of the Chariot Allegory from the Katha Upanishad:

“Know the Self (Atman) as the lord of the chariot,

The body as the chariot,Intellect (buddhi) as the charioteer,

And the mind (manas) as the reins.

The senses are the horses,

The sense objects are the roads.”

If the intellect is awake and the mind steady (the two swords left behind) the charioteer can guide the horses properly, and the Self reaches its destination: liberation, wisdom, peace.

But if the mind is erratic and intellect dormant, the horses (the senses, the five swords clutched in his arms) run wild. The chariot veers. The Self is lost in confusion and bondage.

Often this card is reduced to deception in tarot readings. But it is far more nuanced. It warns of the becoming of the perfidious self. It speaks to reckless disengagement from actual truth. The figure in this card knows that enlightenment exists above the miasma, yet chooses to wade in the dark current, perhaps because it is easier. Perhaps because hiding feels safer than reckoning.

And yet the solar light, the bright yellow saturation of this card, reveals that there is no hiding. Truth blazes as reliably as dawn will come. What is done in darkness will eventually come to light. And so under the veil of this eclipse, our own self-deceptions, the stories we have crafted to cushion reality, may be singed at the edges and tested against timeless verity.

Aquarius is the Water Bearer, the one who pours knowledge, insight, and innovation for the collective. It is an air sign, not water; it governs the mind, communication, higher vision. It seeks objective, revolutionary truth, not only for the self, but for all. It is the rebel prophet. The decentralizer. The displacer of singular authority.

And so, as we approach this eclipse, consider:

• What truths have I accepted without investigation?

• Where must I reevaluate my boundaries? My desires? What I call acceptable?

• Where have I permitted self-deception? What did it teach me? What must now change?

  
  

For those who feel called to work consciously with this eclipse, I am available for bespoke ritual consultation and tarot spreads.

You may learn more and book time with me at www.rinamagia.com

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