The Tarot of Eli 2, LLC: Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot-Ace of Pentacles & The Animal Totem Tarot- Ace of Pentacles

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Radiant: Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot- Ace of Pentacles

The Rider-Waite-Smith- Ace of Pentacles, is the equivalent to a seed. Again, Waite chose a more prosaic meaning for his card. Therefore, an Angelic hand supports the Pentacle symbol of earth and the ascended man (pentacle). In the background a rose covered arbor is displayed. The Rose is the symbol of the female aspect of fertile energy and the arbor is a symbol for the Womb that is penetrated by the phallic path or the Masculine aspect of the Divine Creative. The Lilies in the foreground also represent the Female Divine Creative and the fecund power of renewal, resurrection, and growth. All this hints at the power that begins creation. Hence, the fruitful garden on this card and the Animal Totem Tarot-Ace of Pentacles.

The Aces of all Tarot Suits are under the influence of Kether, the first Sephiroth on the Tree of Life (Hebrew God Name-Eheieh: meaning "I Will Be"), whose color is white and is symbolized as the Point, The Crown, and the Swastika. If you have been following the blogs, you know the Point is to imply completeness unto itself, without dimension or external definition.

This is a deeply important and nuanced subject of Aces. The Swastika/Svastika is one of the most ancient and globally persistent sacred symbols known to humanity, and its esoteric significance is profound across many spiritual traditions. Long before its appropriation and distortion by the Nazi regime, the Swastika was a sacred glyph representing cosmic harmony, dynamic balance, the motion of spirit through matter, and the primal act of creation—the "first swirlings," as Crowley so eloquently put it.

Origins & Universal Reach

The Swastika is found across the ancient world—India, Tibet, China, Japan, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. In Sanskrit, svastika means "well-being" or "to be good/lucky." The root su means "good" or "auspicious," and asti means "being." Thus, the Swastika originally denoted a state of spiritual and cosmic auspiciousness.

It appears on artifacts from:

• Indus Valley Civilization (3000 BCE+)

• Neolithic Europe

• Ancient Troy

• Navajo and Hopi tribes in North America

• Celtic and Norse symbols of solar movement

Its visual structure—either right-handed (clockwise) or left-handed (counterclockwise)—evokes rotation, dynamism, and the spiral nature of reality, which is key to its sacred meaning.

Esoteric and Hermetic Perspectives

In Hermetic and Qabalistic terms, the Swastika can be seen as a glyph of Tetragrammatonic motion, expressing the dance of the four elements or the four fixed signs (Leo, Taurus, Scorpio, Aquarius) in the Wheel of the Zodiac—the Chariot of Ezekiel. In this light, it is akin to a dynamic form of the cross, where the horizontal and vertical axes are put into motion, creating a spinning wheel—the Wheel of Life and Becoming.

In the Tarot of Thoth, this symbolism is most directly encountered in cards such as:

• The Magus (Beth): The gesture of weaving elements together—Mercurial movement.

• The Wheel of Fortune (Kaph): The wheel in motion; the cosmic spiral of fate.

• The Universe (Tav): The four kerubic beasts in motion—perpetual regeneration of the cosmos.

The Swastika embodies this idea of dynamic balance—a force ever spiraling outward from the center of creation. It is not a symbol of stasis, but of evolution and return, of the breath of the Logos exhaling and inhaling through the Aeons.

In Eastern Traditions

• Hinduism: The right-facing Swastika symbolizes Surya (the Sun) and prosperity, while the left-facing version is linked with Shakti, the divine feminine and tantric energy.

• Buddhism: The Swastika appears on Buddha's heart center, representing the Wheel of Dharma, eternity, and the infinite unfolding of consciousness.

• Jainism: It marks the seventh Tirthankara and maps out the soul's evolutionary states.

The rotation of the Swastika, in this context, mimics the Samsaric wheel—birth, death, rebirth—but also the turning of the Dharma Wheel—the movement toward Enlightenment.

Spiral as Creation

The term "first Swirlings" is alchemically potent. In many Hermetic traditions, the act of swirling or spiraling is the moment when the Divine Breath (Ruach Elohim) moves over the waters of the Abyss. This is the first motion, the Word (Logos) becoming Light and the first swirlings of life in a child (each of us are the Breath of the body).

In this, the Swastika is akin to the spiral form of the galaxy, the helix of DNA, or the Vortex of the Qabalistic Four Worlds being breathed into manifestation from Kether.

Sacred Geometry and the Solar Centre

As a solar emblem, the Swastika is aligned with Tiphareth—the heart of the Tree of Life, the Sun/Son, the Christed Logos. It is the radiant child born from the spinning forces of Geburah and Chesed, the tension and mercy of the divine. The Swastika can be thought of as a Solar Cross in rotation, representing the ever-becoming balance of opposites.

Contemporary Reclamation

As metaphysicians and Hermetic practitioners, we are tasked with reclaiming sacred symbols whose meanings have been corrupted by time or politics. The Swastika is one such symbol—its desecration in the 20th century is tragic, but its primordial power remains untouched in the Akashic light.

To gaze upon the true Swastika is to remember the primordial spiral, the Aeonic Breath, the Solar wheel turning at the heart of Being.

Ritual of the Solar Swastika: The Dance of the Turning Light can be found on magickeli.mystrikingly.com in the magick blogs.

The rose and lily garden are shown on this Rider-Waite-Smith card. The white lilies symbolize purity, and the Rose Arbor represents love. The world of possibilities is wide open to you now and becomes a promise if you engage it. So do something, take a hike, go on a bike ride, enter a spa, start a new hobby, etc. Begin your first motion. Hence, live your life and let the good things come to you.

The Animal Totem Tarot-Ace of Pentacles is in also coins or disks traditional and esoteric tarot. Here is a card that represents a wonderful windfall of unexpected resources that arrive to help you pursue your dreams. Shown is a Dung Beetle on journey of a great potential for knowledge.

The Dung Beatle (Egyptian Scarab) is an expert in using what looks like waste for other purposes. This image implies that you take a good look around, making sure you are using all that is available to you. We all know the old adage, "One man's trash is another man's wealth".

This very small but busy beetle maybe rolling a ball of dung around for its own purposes; However, this very act disperses seeds that have passed through herbivores digestion and thereby, nurturing the landscape with new flora.

Hence it is implied that this is time to use your knowledge and resources wisely. You will be able to turn knowledge into abundance.

The Scarab, or dung beetle, holds immense symbolic and mystical weight—particularly in Egyptian metaphysics but also as a powerful totem and spirit guide across esoteric and shamanic systems. As a totem animal, the scarab is not only a guide of transformation and regeneration, but also a living embodiment of the alchemical process in miniature.

Let’s explore the Scarab from multiple lenses: Hermetic, Egyptian, shamanic, and Qabalistic.

🌞 The Scarab in Egyptian Mysticism: The God Khephra

In ancient Egypt, the scarab beetle was sacred to Khephra (Khepri)—the solar deity of rebirth, becoming, and the daily resurrection of the Sun. His name means “He Who Becomes” or “He Who Is Coming Into Being,” a divine form of continual creation.

The scarab rolls a ball of dung across the earth, which to the Egyptians mirrored the solar orb being rolled across the sky. Just as the beetle nurtures its young in the dung ball (a hidden life gestating in decay), so too does the soul gestate in matter, waiting to be reborn.

Khephra governed the midnight Sun—the solar current during the underworld phase, unseen yet ever becoming. He is the secret solar force in the hidden chambers of the Duat, akin to Tiphareth in Malkuth or the hidden seed within the earth.

🜍 Totemic and Hermetic Traits of the Scarab Beetle

As a totem or spirit guide, the dung beetle offers guidance on:

1. Self-Transformation through Shadow

The scarab rolls dung—waste, decay, excrement—and transforms it into nourishment and life. As a power animal, it teaches the alchemy of transmutation: how to take the waste and wounds of your past and gestate something new within them.

This is the path of the Hermit or the Death card—retreat into decay to midwife rebirth.

2. Persistence and Focus

The beetle pushes its sphere tirelessly, even uphill. This is will under difficulty, discipline in the dark, and the sacred duty to the inner Sun, even when it cannot yet be seen.

The beetle teaches the lesson of rolling your becoming forward, no matter the terrain.

3. Hidden Gestation & the Mystery of the Egg

The beetle places its egg inside the dung ball—symbolizing concealed gestation. Spiritually, this is the symbol of incubating the Self within the material world (Malkuth), or the seed of the Solar Logos hidden within the excrement of experience.

This aligns with the Fool as the divine spark buried in the world and the Empress as the matrix of fertility.

🜂 Scarab as a Solar Spirit Guide: Pathworkings

In Hermetic ritual or inner journeying, the scarab may appear:

• As a midnight guide in the underworld, rolling the solar orb through hidden chambers

• As a dream-symbol of transformation, signaling that you are in an incubative, alchemical process

• As a guardian of the Heart—in Egyptian burial rites, scarabs were often placed over the heart, to protect and weigh the soul in the Hall of Ma’at

In this way, the scarab becomes an agent of Solar Qabalah: the motion between Yesod and Tiphareth, the journey of the soul from instinct to divine individuality.

🔯 Qabalistic Correspondences

• Sephirah: Tiphareth (Heart, Solar Self, Resurrection)

• Path: The path of Nun (Death) or Samekh (Art)—transformative spiral and the alchemy of becoming

• Elemental Resonance: Earth and Solar Fire—matter being infused with Light

It is also strongly connected to the spiral of the Swastika, symbolizing the dynamic, transformative motion of rebirth.

✨ Affirmation of the Scarab Totem

If you wish to integrate the Scarab into your meditative or magical practice, you might use an invocation like:

“Sacred Khephra, whose limbs roll the Sun through shadow,
Guide me through my becoming.
Let the waste of the world be the womb of my rebirth.
I am the light buried in earth.
I am the egg hidden in dung.
I am the Sun that rises anew.”

🜍 Invocation & Pathworking: The Sacred Scarab of Becoming a Western Hermetic Magick invocation of the Khephra found on website blog of magickeli.mystrikingly.com

The Earth/Erda/Gaea governs the body and our knowledge of it and the instincts and sensations which this knowledge brings about. She'll often visit the seeker, as an animal guide (the Homo Sapiens-Sapiens is also an animal) for her senses are those of manifested beings of her organic material. She also controls the loving relationship with this body, something that our Spirit must learn, as we have been granted by Earth, the freedom to control it with the Macro Cosmic Wisdom of our Solar/Soul inheritance.

We come from stars, and must join the Stellar Intelligence, with that of Earth. "As above, so below". We didn't come here to "ascend"; we are the "descended" masters of the Trinity of Mind who must master form as well (time/space). From the 4 worlds we have progressed to get here. Once again, sometimes going down is up. Yod Heh Vau Heh.

The Astrological meaning of the earth element implies imaginative and productive states of consciousness.

WHEN THE ACE OF PENTACLES or ACE OF AUTUMN IS THROWN DURING A DIVINATION:

It implies:

• Union between the physical and spiritual aspects of the querent.
• Beginning a new pathway in life that will bring satisfaction.
• A new planting of seeds, for a new home, job, career, or some form of security.
• Materialization of ideas brings stability to skills that produce results.
• Could also be a time of meditation, an inward pulling of energy.
• Good beginnings for financial wealth, material gain and worldly status.
• The beginning of any new material form
• A most auspicious card showing the bringing together of internal and external talents and resources. Even if ill dignified it shows a sharing of treasure.
• Also, the Card of a Shaman, or one who is practiced in the arts of Earth Magic (k).

If reversed, it implies:

• Materialism.
• Stinginess.
• The vile side of affluence. 

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