Temperance

Moderation for its own sake is a fairly new meaning for Temperance, and abstinence is an incorrect one. Temperance (Sōphrosynē), as one of four cardinal virtues, has always involved restraint and self-control or self-management, but this is not for the purpose of muting or damping down our experience. Rather, we are optimizing our lives by learning to combine life’s various elements in better, more effective propor- tions. Temperance is a Middle Path, not unlike the Buddha’s majjimha patipada, or Middle Way, between the extremes of self-mortification and sensual gratification, or nihilism and eternalism. It’s a search for the golden mean, ne nimium, not too much, of any one side. There exists an etymological connection to the word temperament, which back in the Renaissance times concerned balancing the four humors. There is also an earlier, less clear etymological root in the word tempus, or time, which might suggest that proper timing, with both patience and readiness, or synching our operations up with the rhythms that be. Doing things in their due season is also an important side of this virtue. Taken together, these aspects seem to imply a looking ahead to better outcomes than might be had if absent this virtue, and the requisite learning and techniques involved in directing such improved outcomes. This in turn implies a kind of science. Higher aims, higher purposes, transcendence of the current conditions, or sublimation of baser or coarser forces, may also be implied. We take charge of preconditions and raise ourselves on purpose. The list of ingredients or properties which might be combined or better combined with this card is long. It would have to include such complements as head and heart, light and force, yin and yang, sanguine and melancholy, image and energetics, angels and demons, fire and water, electricity and magnetism, physical and spiritual, flex- ibility and firmness, male and female, thesis and antithesis, and perhaps even wine and water. The important thing to remember is that the desired outcome is not the enhance- ment of either side of the pair at the expense of the other, nor something so simple as compromise or conciliation, but a tertium quid, a third thing, and frequently one that exists on some higher kind of level than the inputs. When the outcome is on the same level we have a simple synthesis, the reintegration of a dualism, the resolution of a paradox, the settling of an argument, the balancing of an equation, the solving of a puzzle, even the genetics of a child. The third thing here can usually be understood with a knowledge of the constituent parts. When the outcome is on another level we have synergy, something greater than the sum of the parts. When this is wholly unlike the parts, we have what is called emergence. The color blue, emerging out of the structure of the eyeball and the activities of the brain, is a classic example of emer- gence. Consciousness may well be another. Some emergent properties, like blue, are wholly unpredictable from a knowledge of the parts. This is called strong emergence. Others, like chemistry emerging from physics and molecular structure, might be extrapolated given adequate knowledge of the inputs. This is called weak emergence. Arthur Koestler tried to define creativity itself in terms of the outcomes of juxta- posing dissimilar matrices or combining disparate elements, satisfying the precon- ditions or doing the setup that allows the results to happen. We might have a good idea of what to expect in the outcome, in which case we have techniques to put the parts together, or we might just want to see what will happen, in which case we have an experiment that might move us closer to science some day. On an internal level, we can learn to take charge of own internal states with a kind of alchemy, and then to take aim at more suitable or interesting states, like blending reason and wonder, for instance. Or memory and forgiveness. We can take a thing like a craving, add some understanding, and emerge with an intention. We have the power here to change our minds, to liberate ourselves by making altogether new states of mind. We can also manage our cognitive resources according to higher and longer purposes. We can use this for self-direction and agency, instead of just being the results of our old internal conflicts. We dissolve our parts and recombine them: this is the alchemical formula of solve et coagula. The higher aim of this card is transcendence, liberation from lower or prior conditions, releasing tension and pressure, freeing our potential, raising ourselves and making things better on purpose, aiming a little bit higher. It is a kind of science. An important part of this, however, is letting go of the antecedent conditions. One who casts spells combines an image with a charge, but the spell must be cast away or let fly, and then forgotten. As the Bard noted, “Peace, sisters, the charm’s wound up.” The archer combines his aim with the tension in his bow, but he isn’t much of an archer if he tries to hang onto the arrow. The Yijing counterpart is Gua 40, Release or Deliverance, the letting go that follows a building up of tension. Like the link twixt Temperance and Sagittarius, this also uses images from archery. It also speaks of forgiveness. The Chinese character pictures a tool used to untie knots, hence undoing the knots that we’ve tied ourselves into, or the solving of our puzzles and problems.