Finding our place.
The Suit of Suns show us the key dimension to our spirit.
A change of pace.
My last few posts have been focused on the existential side of things.
Laden with theological, metaphysical, and psychological references. It’s fun to connect to these things…but still, it does get pretty heavy.
Aeonology doesn’t have to be about that. At least as a practice, it’s simple, practical, and immediate. The whole point of the AEON cards was to liberate these powerful ideas from academia and make them accessible and useful to everyone.
So for the next couple of newsletters, I want to explore some of the more practical and interpretative details.
The Suits of AEON
The AEON deck is structured into six suits that mirror the suits I originally identified as part of the Behavioral Archetypes deck. Organizing the Aeons into suits was not part of ancient Gnostic cosmology; this part was my contribution to help us quickly apply them to our day-to-day lives.
There are six suits in total:
Suns/Coins – the suit of spiritual powers. Color orange, symbol of a circle.
Spades – the suit of material complexity. Color blue, symbol of a pentagon.
Hearts – the suit of internality. Color red, symbol of a downward triangle.
Diamonds – the suit of external discovery. Color yellow, symbol of an upward triangle.
Shields – the suit of individual being and self. Color green, symbol of an oval.
Flags – the suit of society and togetherness. Color purple, symbol of a square.
Starting at the top
I’m going to start with the highest order of Aeons, the Suit of Suns, and then next week jump to the opposite end of the spectrum with the most material suit, Spades. Aligning with the text of the Emerald Tablet — As above, so below — these two suits mirror each other in a certain way: the heavenly and the earthly, the divine and the material.
(If you have a deck of cards, it is interesting to lay them out as I have to see, and feel, the patterns and the relationships between cards.)
The Suit of Suns.
The most spiritual suit of the deck starts with the Monad. I’ve talked about the Monad before.
Not a God, and the Aeons are not creations. They are resonances and energies that resonate from the Monad and throughout the universe. Not a singular hum but a multi-dimensional, harmonious chord. A cosmic order of things.
The suit of Suns reminds us that the universe has depth and harmony built into it. A resonance that runs through everything.
As part of the universe, we too have these same depths and dimensions, but sometimes it is hard to hear them because the din of other things drowns them out.
Like the Monad, the Suit of Suns reminds us that we too are not one-dimensional but a multitude of different things that, when considered together, have a wholeness and fullness that are in harmony. The poet Rumi described this as “you are not a drop in the ocean, you are the entire ocean in a drop.”
The Suit of Suns is recognizable by the orange color and the outer circle. A reminder of our natural wholeness, fullness, and completeness. We are part of this balanced, harmonious universe.
It’s hard to “just be.”
We think it must take a lot of effort to uncover our true nature—psycho-therapy, counselling, life coaching. But this effort is the problem.
We think we have to create our lives, our meaning, our purpose. Make something of ourselves. Belong to something. Differentiate ourselves from others. These six cards remind us that we are already different. We already have a place in the universe.
Sometimes, because we can’t see it or don’t know it, we think we need to create anything new. We don’t. Instead, we need to strip away superfluous layers:
The layers of external authority.
The layers of rules.
The layers of expectations.
The layers telling you what you should be rather than finding what you are.
The layers of self-deception.
The layers of material want.
The layers of fear of being true to yourself.
The fear of what others think.
All of this masks the radiance that is within you. That difference in your soul. That unique place in the universe that only you can represent.
If you are honest with yourself, you already know this sense of balance and harmony. It is the resonance that guides you to the places that feel right. If you have felt love (all types, not just romantic love), you know the feeling. If you have felt at one with the natural world—exposed, vulnerable, alone but safe and comforted by a natural environment—then you know this. If you have simultaneously felt the incredible insignificance of humanity in relation to the massive scale of things, yet also felt the potential within yourself to make a dent in the universe, then you too have felt it.
Sun. Power. Radiance.
Your place in the universe is yours to discover, not create. Connecting with the cosmic order is not achieved by striving but by being true to your nature.
The cards of the Suit of Suns
Monad: Universal power. Wholeness. Fullness. Perfection and unity.
This card shows a single symbol: a circle. No beginning, no end. Eternity and completeness. The ancient Egyptian Sun God Ra and the alchemical Ouroboros. God’s eye on fullness. We are whole. Our universe is complete and full—even if we can’t see it.
This card reminds us that the universe has a deep and profound resonance at its core. An underlying truth that is veiled or forgotten but ultimately there to be experienced. Equally, within us there is a forgotten power—our true nature. A deep resounding truth that is obscured and drowned out by other factors.
The Monad card transcends mind, body, and spirit. It reminds us that we are, at our core, the creators of our own reality.
Pneuma and Abraxas: These two cards start to explain how these powers can manifest.
The circle symbol on these cards is joined by a downward-facing arrow for Pneuma and an upward-facing arrow for Abraxas — power directed inwardly and power directed outwardly.
Pneuma is the divine spirit within—our guiding spirit, our moral compass, our character, our psychic familiar. A knowing force that shapes who we are, the decisions we make, and the life we live. It’s the feeling of rightness. Knowing what’s right for us. Feeling in the right place.
Abraxas is that same incredible power projected outward. Magic. The ability to manifest our own reality. To bring about miraculous transformations. Form and formation. Abraxas not only brings us unrealistic dreams and audacious aspirations, it also gives us the power to make them real. This is the power to perform acts of magic—transformative capabilities that many of us fear and that most of society will tell us are not possible.
We are the change that we seek, and the power to change our situation is within all of us. The unlikely future we dared to imagine can be realized.
Bythos and Acinetos: The next two cards in the suit describe the modes of action that are important when we want to tap into these divine powers.
Bythos means depth. Profound depth and meaning. This is the card of going below the surface. Getting deep. Peeling away the superficial layers of illusion and deception (often self-deception) that conceal a deeper truth.
This complexity is represented by the symbol of the pentagon within the circle, which illustrates the multi-faceted and complex nature of our being. Not a single note, but a harmonious chord. This profound personal meaning is sometimes confused with the fashion for finding “purpose,” but this comparison is unhelpful. Bythos is not something you create or decide. It is not a choice. Bythos is related to the ancient Egyptian idea of Ma’at or the ancient Chinese concept of Tao — the sense of finding the balance and harmony of that perfect place in the universe where you belong.
Acinetos is the card of immovability and resilience.
There will be many hurdles, obstacles, and upsets on this journey that will require strength and determination. In a world of deception and disorder, this card also reminds us to be guided by the feeling of permanence and stability we feel when we discover a divine truth. The shield shape in the middle of this card reminds us to focus and defend the things that truly matter.
Pistis: The final card in this suit is Pistis: Faith. Arguably the most tangible and specific card of the set.
Faith is the power to believe. To believe in our own powers and our ability to manifest our own reality.
A faith in magic.
A faith in the ultimate fullness and balance of the universe.
A faith in our inner authority and our ability to nurture and develop it.
And ultimately a faith that there is indeed a unique place in the universe for each of us — a place we do not need to create, only remember and unearth.