A New Face

This week I'll be using the Alchemical Tarot Renewed along with the book Alchemy and the Tarot, both created by Robert M. Place and published by Hermes Publications. Paired with it will be the Oracle of the Radiant Sun deck and book set, created by Caroline Smith and John Astrop and published through Eddison-Sadd Editions. The draws for today are Death and Generosity:

Alchemists often used skeletons to signify putrefaction, a complete breaking down of matter into a black ash. It was considered the first step on the pathway to the philosophers' stone. Symbolically, it is a clearing away to make room for something else. Humans experience it when careers are ended, family and friendships disappear, or our beliefs and ideals are turned upside down. We rarely welcome such a clean sweep. Yet the Generosity card (Saturn in Leo) suggests it offers an opportunity, a chance to use this new space to grow something good that will be useful to others.

In spite of all similarities, every living situation has, like a newborn child, a new face, that has never been before and will never come again. It demands of you a reaction that cannot be prepared beforehand. It demands nothing of what is past. It demands presence, responsibility; it demands you.

―Martin Buber