Four of Disks

A square fortress seen from above, with four towers bearing the elemental symbols, a moat and a well-defended gate.

Chesed, Mercy, in Assiah, the world of action. Mercy, the first Sephirah below the Abyss and so the first that can be called a real thing: the solid, the four-square, the king who builds. Chesed is Jupiter, generosity and law. The Fours are Chesed in the four worlds, cards of completion and settled order.

Chesed in the world of Earth: matter made stable, the square, the law. The Sun in the last decan of Capricorn lights the structure and gives it authority.

The Sun in the third decan of Capricorn (20°–30°, about Jan 10–19). The Sun is the centre, the heart, vitality, identity and the light by which everything else is seen. On the Tree it is Tiphareth; among the trumps it is the Sun, the two children dancing in the light of the New Aeon.

Capricorn is cardinal Earth: the goat that climbs, the winter solstice from which the light returns, ambition and structure. Saturn rules it and Mars is exalted here. Its trump is the Devil. The trump of Capricorn is The Devil.

This decan is ruled by the Prince of Swords, whose arc runs from 21° Capricorn to 20° Aquarius. The two Shem angels of the decan are Harahel and Mitzrael.

The Solid: the first number that can enclose a space, and so matter, law and the square. Chesed, Mercy. The Fours are cards of completion and settled order; the Emperor is trump IV.

Sensation secured; the material world held and defended. The Disks are usually read as the sensation function in Jung's typology, an interpretive convention rather than a text of Jung's.

Rider-Waite calls the suit Pentacles or Coins. Its small cards carry scenes; the Thoth small cards carry the suit emblems arranged geometrically, with the keyword printed at the bottom and the colours of their Sephirah and decan. The Golden Dawn title (Lord of Earthly Power) is shared by both traditions.

The Sun at its best gives confidence, generosity, leadership, warmth, integrity. At its worst: egotism, need for validation, tyranny, burnout, a fragile ego hiding behind performance.

Capricorn (“I use / I build”) brings discipline, ambition, responsibility, patience, strategic thinking, dry humour. Its shadow is coldness, workaholism, rigidity, status-obsession, pessimism.

Together: Sun has no essential dignity or debility in Capricorn. Dignity explains part of the title and the Sephirah explains the rest: a planet at home in its sign can still sit in a hard sphere, and a weak planet can be carried by a strong one.

The Sun crosses this decan around Jan 10–19, so it is the decan card of anyone born then; their court card is the Prince of Swords. Find a birthday.