TEMPLE artefact #18
#7 The CHARIOT final version, art by Rian Hughes
SUMMER SOLSTICE SALUTATIONS!
VII. CHARIOT
KEY WORDS – DETERMINATION, WILL, AMBITION, TRIUMPH
The Hebrew letter attributed to this card is Cheth, the fence.
For this one I thought we could go a bit more sci-fi, with a little Jack Kirby, a hint of Alex Grey in the mix.
Traditional depictions of the Chariot show a proud and triumphant figure in the titular chariot led by two spirited horses, or sometimes a brace of lively sphinxes.
We don’t have horses or sphinxes. Our Chariot takes a different approach, which connects it also to Ezekiel’s Chariot from the Bible – the prophet’s vision of God’s personal spectacular transport/Mobius Chair.
Central to the image is a MERKABA – the word means Chariot. New Agey esoteric circles frame the merkaba as the materialized UFO that alchemists and Terence McKenna called the lapis, the Philospher’s Stone or Grail. Mastery of the merkaba requires complete mental control of matter.
The Merkaba is generally represented as a geometrical solid comprising two three sided pyramids fused through one another to make a complex star shape.
Our Charioteer is a cosmic KNIGHT in a cross-legged lotus position. The knight is of ambiguous gender.
Their GOLDEN armor has a gleaming sci-fi finish with plated, segmented design inspired by the shells of crustaceans with ornate flourishes reminiscent of one of Jack Kirby’s celestials voyaging through hyperspace.
Their seven chakra centres in descending order are lit with different colored light:
The UV light floats above the Charioteer’s head. The other six are integrated into their dimension suit.
An INDIGO light in the 3rd eye position
BLUE at the throat
GREEN at the heart
YELLOW at the solar plexus
ORANGE at the sacrum
RED at the perineum
There are three more lights – two on each shoulder and a smaller one at the centre of the red square on the knight’s beastplate. These lights are colored as though we can see the swimming pool background through three circular holes – or perhaps reflected on mirror panels - adding up to ten lights altogether.
The zodiac sign associated with the card is CANCER so the knight’s helmet has a CRAB motif with the crab shell doubling as a closed VISOR (no-one may look upon the face of the Charioteer and live). The upraised claws creating a crescent shaped crown.
The Charioteer has two horns rising at each shoulder as if a big crescent moon has been fastened to their back.
On their breastplate is a SQUARE WITHIN SQUARE motif – four squares of decreasing size superimposed on one another, representing the material world. Each of the squares has one of the four elemental colours – a red square at the centre, then yellow behind, blue behind that, and framed by the big black square’s border.
Using both hands but without actually touching, the Charioteer carefully manipulates a SILVER BOWL with red liquid inside, tilting it this way and that as it floats in free space between their palms.
This bowl – the Holy Grail in another form - is the Merkaba steering apparatus!
It takes supreme concentration and a delicate co-ordination to pilot this thundering soul machine through the cosmos! Never spilling a drop of the living blood of compassion, while accelerating or decelerating between realities.
At four points are the ‘wheels’ of the chariot – there are spinning ‘atomic orbit’ wheels with spokes a little like the one in the top corner of the famous ‘Flammarion Engraving’ of a cosmic seeker. Or like the image of a neutrino detector from this week’s ‘New Scientist’!
Four elemental heads of the Kerubim sit at the centre of each wheel, angled toward the centre like radiant petals on a flower –MAN on the top (our) left, EAGLE on top right. BULL bottom left. LION bottom right.
Traditional Chariots have a blue howdah-like canopy with stars, here that motif appears as four ‘whirlpools’ descending from the cosmic geometry of the background, like those wireframe images of black holes, draining down into silver lines that enclose the merkaba.
The canopy or ‘four pillars’ effect is created by these four mathematical vortices, whirlpools descending like wireframe stalactites from an overhead surface layer of the hyper ‘pool’ – these whirlpools attenuate into dead straight silver lines then fan out at the bottom again. Similar to drawings of a wormhole – or in this case four wormholes!
The background is suggestive of hyperspace – rendered in Empyrean blue and silver, like reflections on liquid mercury or the rippling light in a swimming pool – giving the impression that our voyager is travelling through an eerie underwater space whose limits can’t be determined.
For the majestic feel of this card, I am reminded of ‘O Worship the King’ the nigh-on Lovecraftian imperial hymn from 1833 by Sir Robert Grant which we used to have to sing at school. The first two verses induced in me a reliable sense of the all-consuming sublime.
O worship the King
All-glorious above,
And gratefully sing
His power and his love:
Our Shield and Defender
The Ancient of Days,
Pavilioned in splendor
And girded with praise!
O tell of His might
O sing of His grace,
Whose robe is the light,
Whose canopy space.
Whose chariots of wrath
The deep thunderclouds form,
And dark is His path
On the wings of the storm…
Happy Summer Solstice Grant! Wow... I'm really floored by how gorgeous and detailed these are coming out. Thanks so much for your efforts!
happy solstice from the both of us! i just woke from a strange dream with you and You in it, which has only happened a few times - and always without my intention- so go figure it happened after i rededicated a new space for Hypnos yesterday in our new hole we call home.
love this card!! the warrior feels remincent of evangelions in their armor from neon genesis- weve been watching it inbetween job interviews and its a bit scary how an entire show was in our heads before we decided to give it a watch...
edit: we BOTH had the same kind of dream with both of yinz in it. in our nearly 6 years together we've only had a total now of 3 dreams that were the same and happened on the same night. take that with whatever you Will.