“Mars goes out and gets what Venus wants.” – Attributed to astrologer Isabel Hickey

AUTHOR’S NOTE: One of my favorite ways to translate tarot cards into a compelling narrative is to apply their planetary energies across the board, whether they are assigned through direct correspondence or extrapolated from sign rulership. Here I’m going just a little farther outside the box (or out on a limb) with the trump-card placements on the Cube of Space.

In doing so, I made the following assumptions about the planetary attributes using traditional rulerships where applicable:

Sun relates to Strength (aka Lust) and the Sun
Moon relates to the High Priestess and the Chariot
Mercury relates to the Magician (aka Magus), the Lovers and the Hermit
Venus relates to the Empress, the Hierophant and Justice (aka Adjustment)
Mars relates to the Emperor, the Tower and Death
Jupiter relates to the Wheel of Fortune, Temperance (aka Art) and the Moon
Saturn relates to the Devil, the Star and the World (aka the Universe)

Although the creators of the Cube of Space did not employ the three modern (or “trans-Saturnian”) planets in its design, some occult thinkers have applied them to the “Primal Element” trump cards as follows. I used them (along with Saturn as the foundation) to define the dimensions of the “Higher Self” complex in my model.

Uranus relates to the Fool and Air
Neptune relates to the Hanged Man and Water
Pluto relates to Judgement (aka the Aeon) and Fire

It’s also intriguing to note that Neptune (signifying the Hanged Man of the tarot) is the modern astrological ruler of Pisces, which was traditionally ruled by Jupiter, the “Greater Benefic” (Wheel of Fortune), and was the sign of exaltation for Venus, the “Lesser Benefic” (Empress), all three of which are horizontally linked here. Pluto, as the Aeon joining the Tower (ruled by Mars) to the Sun, was viewed in one occult theory of the spiritual Universe as the “dark Sun” behind and concealed by the “bright Sun.” It is connected with volcanism and earthquakes, which have more than a nodding acquaintance with the Tower. The Fool, symbolized here by Uranus and otherwise by Air, occupies one of the three descending paths of the Supernal Triad on the Tree of Life along with the Magus and the Priestess. Just a bunch of random observations that seem to support my “Higher Consciousness” premise.

This is what the Cube looks like when populated accordingly:

Although there are quadrant emphases to consider in keeping with the assumptions of “New Age” psychological astrology, I’ve established the Eastern half of the pattern as representing personal development and the Western half as reflecting social evolution. As in the classical Cube of Space, Saturn sits at the center and the other six Ptolemaic planets define the directions of Above/Below (Mercury and Moon, respectively); East and West (Venus and Jupiter); and North and South (Mars and Sun).

The most striking thing about this reformulation is that Venus and Mars energies preside at the four vertical edges comprising the “ordinal” compass points between the “cardinal” faces: Northeast (Mars, ruler of Aries, as the Emperor); Northwest (Venus, ruler of Libra, as Adjustment); Southwest (Mars, ruler of Scorpio, as Death); and Southeast (Venus, ruler of Taurus, as the Hierophant). In astrology the 90-degree or right-angle aspects are considered to be the most “action-oriented,” so the four vertical “angles” of the Cube as expressions of Venus and Mars led me to the conclusion that the cubic structure can be viewed as the “Crucible of Desire” (“Mars goes out and gets what Venus wants”).

Furthermore, I defined the two Eastern (personal) angles occupied by the Aries and Taurus trumps as the “primary” Mars and Venus complexes (including the planets corresponding to the cards at the upper and lower edges of their adjoining faces), and the two Western (social) angles occupied by the Libra and Scorpio trumps as the “secondary” complexes. As might be expected, the two angular Mars arrays seem to be the most intense because they involve a “doubling” of the planetary powers of some of the bounding upper and lower cards.

Because the six “faces” of the Cube are its key features, I’m bringing the “trans-Saturnian” planets to bear on the three trump cards that define them, with Saturn at the nexus of the complex. In esoteric astrology, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are described as the “higher octaves” of Mercury, Venus and Mars, so conceptually they can be treated as the sublimated mode of consciousness that transcends the “desire” nature of Venus and Mars, with the Uranian Fool and the Mercurial Magus (architects of the “Above”) in the intellectual “driver’s seat” while the Moon of the Priestess grounds the Fool in the instinctual “Below” of the Subconscious.