The Holy Idea of Type 8 is ‘Holy Truth’, which seems pretty all-encompassing, doesn’t it? Is this the meaning of life? Dr David Daniels describes it as “appreciating the greater truth of the oneness of all at the core of being”. It’s represented in the Tarot by the Star (card 17, for 1+7=8).
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This card shows a naked figure next to a pool, pouring water from 2 vessels. This pool has been called a symbol of our unconscious, and the Star is often interpreted as a card of deep peace and healing. Riso and Hudson, in the ‘Wisdom of the Enneagram’, say that “in their deepest self, 8s....still have some degree of contact with the purity and power of the instinctual responses.....without a real connection to the wellspring of our native instincts, we are cut off from the basic fuel we need for our transformation.”
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I love this idea of the pool in the Star as the ‘wellspring’ of our deepest selves, and indeed 8s in numerology and in the Tarot are about transformation. In ‘Meditations on the Tarot’ they say that the Star is the arcanum of growth and represents the “universal sap of life”.
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The figure being unclothed brings to mind 8s virtue of Innocence. Embodying vulnerability is a sign of deep growth for 8s. Referring back to the vessels of water in the Star, Riso and Hudson say that 8s who can “surrender to some larger plan than they have for themselves....become vessels for a higher purpose.”
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‘Meditations’ also tells us that the Star is where we learn the fundamental truth that life is a spiral, and that we are not imprisoned in closed circles. It is liberation from the “captivity of spirit”. David Daniels talks about the evolution of 8s and their experience of Holy Truth/Innocence as one of proportionality, arriving without agendas and with an “exuberant energy that fits each situation and person.” This is energy that can ascend and descend in a spiral, and does not agitate in closed circles.
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‘Meditations’ also calls the Star the “mother of the future”, which I think is a lovely parallel to the 8 being named the “Protector”. This is bearing and embodying Holy Truth as an example for the rest of the world, becoming a “vessel for higher purpose”—or a ‘spiritual Noah’s Ark’, as ‘Meditations’ says of card 17. 8s can become, in the Star, vulnerable and transparent enough to reveal the ‘universal sap of life’ that flows through all of our veins.