The Path of Nun: Tiphareth to Netzach

The twenty-fourth path joins Tiphareth, Beauty, to Netzach, Victory, descending the right side of the lower Tree from the harmonising centre to the sphere of the emotions. It carries the letter Nun, whose name means "fish", the creature of the deep waters, and by extension a symbol of fertility, of what teems and multiplies unseen, and in some readings of continuity and the generations.

In the Sefer Yetzirah Nun is one of the twelve simple letters assigned to the twelve zodiac signs, and it is given to Scorpio, the fixed water sign of death, transformation, sexuality and the hidden depths. The attribution of the letter to Scorpio belongs to the ancient Jewish scheme in which the twelve single letters correspond to the signs and months; the fish of the deep and the scorpion of transformation together make this the path of death and regeneration, the descent into the waters from which new life comes.