Flaming Altar

What this is

An altar with the sacred fire burning upon it, set at the head of the eighteenth folio. It is the emblem of devotion, sacrifice, and the offering that rises as flame. Its verses speak of faith, of what is given up to gain something higher, and of the matter consecrated.

What it governs

Presides over devotion, sacrifice, faith, and the offering made. Folio 18. It rules the fire of the heart turned upward and the thing surrendered to gain the greater.

Its properties

Its colour is the gold and crimson of living flame; its number eighteen; its element fire turned to worship. The quality is devotion, the readiness to give up the lesser for the greater, the warmth of a faith that costs something. In shadow it is fanaticism, sacrifice demanded of others, the fire that consumes rather than warms, zeal without mercy.

Where else it appears

The same note is the altar-fire kept burning in every temple from Vesta's hearth to the perpetual lamp; the burnt offering whose smoke ascends; the fire on the altar of the heart that the mystics tend; the alchemists' calcining flame that purifies by burning away the dross. One sacred fire, many altars holding it.

Where you meet it on the Oracle

It surfaces as the Folio of the Day and as a closing folio, and it is the natural folio for questions of faith, of devotion, and of what you must give up to gain. When it heads your day, give the offering the matter asks of you; the day rewards sincere sacrifice over half-measures. In a reading it counsels that something must be surrendered for the wish to be granted, and asks whether you will let it burn.

Why it matters

It stands eighteenth because no high thing is gained without an offering, and the Flaming Altar is the oracle's emblem of devotion that costs. It asks you what you are willing to give up for what you truly want.

Correspondences

planet

Sun, Mars

element

Fire

zodiac

Leo

number

18

day

Sunday

colour

Gold, crimson

metal

Gold