The Noble Lie

Leave me alone, stop it, just stop doggin' me around
- Michael Jackson

The dog days of summer are upon us. With July comes the conjunction of our sun with nearby binary star Sirius, the l'etoile flamboyante (blazing star), also known as the Dog Star.

In ancient Rome, the dies caniculares (dog days) were a bad omen, "when the seas boiled, wine turned sour, dogs grew mad, and all creatures became languid, causing to man burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies." In ancient Egypt, the conjunction of Sirius and the sun was much welcome, as it marked the time of the annual Nile inundation.

The Nile inundation is probably alluded to in Waite's depiction above. As it heralds the flood of the Nile, Sirius is believed by some to flood our solar system with cosmic/divine energy.

To quote from Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot:

A great, radiant star of eight rays, surrounded by seven lesser stars--also of eight rays. The female figure in the foreground is entirely naked. Her left knee is on the land and her right foot upon the water. She pours Water of Life from two great ewers, irrigating sea and land. Behind her is rising ground and on the right a shrub or tree, whereon a bird alights. The figure expresses eternal youth and beauty. The star is l'étoile flamboyante, which appears in Masonic symbolism, but has been confused therein. That which the figure communicates to the living scene is the substance of the heavens and the elements. It has been said truly that the mottoes of this card are "Waters of Life freely" and "Gifts of the Spirit."

The summary of several tawdry explanations says that it is a card of hope. On other planes it has been certified as immortality and interior light. For the majority of prepared minds, the figure will appear as the type of Truth unveiled, glorious in undying beauty, pouring on the waters of the soul some part and measure of her priceless possession. But she is in reality the Great Mother in the Kabalistic Sephira Binah, which is supernal Understanding, who communicates to the Sephiroth that are below in the measure that they can receive her influx.

Sirius is also the star of Isis (the divine mother who tricked her way into divinity, with the help of a serpent). It is a symbol of transcendence and liberation. All in all, not an inappropriate time for a Declaration of Independence and a bunch of burning, blazing fireworks.