By Sarah Taylor

You know last week when the Five of Swords appeared to the right of the Two of Swords as one of the options you were poised between (the other being the Ace of Swords)? This week takes a look at what’s happening and what’s available if you did, indeed, feel the sting of those five swords in your world.

Seven of Stones, Five of Swords, The Emperor from the Haindl Tarot deck, created by Hermann Haindl. Click on the image for a larger version.

To recap, I wrote that the Five of Swords “is not the under-handed, stealth-driven sabotage of the Seven of Swords, nor the existential anguish of the Nine of Swords, but it is a moment of “ouch!” where someone’s peace of mind is sacrificed on the altar of conflict. Blood is spilled in a battle of wills — a skirmish where there is a clear winner and a clear loser, but either way the victory is one that has its costs. It is accompanied with fiery fury and rage; emotions run very high; despair follows, even though it might be short-lived.”

A skirmish. A war of words. A battle of wills. Sometimes a legal matter where the verdict comes without apology or much deliberation — and there is a cost involved. It may feel like the winner has taken no prisoners, that there is little compassion. It may simply be the bitter sting of defeat, no matter how things stand objectively. There is no objectivity to be had here. You, or someone else, is hurting.

The background to this skirmish has unfolded through the lens of the Seven of Stones (Pentacles in the Rider-Waite Smith deck). There is a sense of events leading up to the Five as foretelling the Five’s outcome. Not enough material resources, perhaps? Or not as much support from others as you would have wanted.

But most of all, the Seven is a moment of spiritual crisis. Why am I doing this? What is this all for? It has an existential quality to it — which stands in stark contrast to the physicality of the suit itself. An existential crisis in a material world. It is a time of taking stock and finding out what really matters to you. It is a moment of seeing where the path of true commitment lies.

This Defeat that you face may simply be another signpost pointing you back on the path of your true commitment. It may be the final battle of a straggling idea that’s had its day. You may be seeing the vestiges of a past belief getting cut away; the sting is the sting of your identification with it — as if it’s a part of you getting cut away with it, when in fact it is not. The truth of who you are still stands. You can still apply the Ace of Swords here (the one that appeared last week). You still have the capacity for insight, which can lead you to a deeper compassion and understanding of the circumstances.

There is a wisdom to what has been taking place, if you do not identify with what your mind might be telling you about who’s ‘winning’ and who’s ‘losing’, and if you can shift towards the change that this is pointing you to.

Bear in mind a skirmish is not the whole battle — it is an outpost, a moment of volatility. And it may be that it is you on both sides of the battle lines: one part of you clinging to what’s changing, the other part standing there on the right.

The Emperor.

You have lost nothing. You are simply in a moment of finding your balance again, your true path, your sovereignty.

From the bare rock and rusted foliage of the Seven and the Five, we move to the truth that lies at the heart of the matter. A tree stands behind The Emperor, a natural depiction of the grounded, rooted vibrancy of an archetype who holds personal authority, yet who is also aligned with the world around him. There is a natural order to things. There is no sign of the forcing of his will over others; his simply being there is a statement of where he stands and what he stands for.

The Emperor’s sceptre — the masculine symbol of his authority, topped with what looks like a head of wheat — is held up towards the Five of Swords, as if he is warding off its influence with that small gesture. It is enough to leave it all behind. The globe he holds to the right, in his left hand — the feminine symbol of fertility, potential, (re)birth — feels like an offering in this reading. An offering to you.

There is a time for conflict and the feelings and experiences that come with it. There is a time to seek balance again and restore yourself to the throne that was always yours to begin with. This is not a battle; this is simply an acknowledgement of what already is. There is no-one to fight over what can only be yours: your will, your dignity, your place in your world.

All else falls away into insignificance in the face of this knowing.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Seven of Disks (Saturn in Taurus), Five of Swords (Venus in Aquarius), The Emperor (Aries)

If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article explains how to use the spread.

By Sarah Taylor

When I turned over the three cards I drew this morning for this week’s tarot reading, the first card I drew on the left was a blank one. I was confused for a split-second, and then smiled as I realised I’d forgotten to remove the two spares from the deck (either that, or, like the jokers in a pack of cards, they’re there to play silly buggers with unprepared tarot readers). But these cards themselves are significant, and an appearance by one of them in this reading is no exception. I’ll get to that a little later. But first, card order.

Ace of Swords, Two of Swords, Five of Swords from the Haindl Tarot deck, created by Hermann Haindl. Click on the image for a larger version.

I drew the card at centre first, then left, then right. In hindsight, this makes supreme sense to me given that the first card — the central one — is the Two of Swords.

Swords represent the mind, your beliefs, your thoughts, how you approach something psychologically. They also represent the written word, the spoken word, the law.

This reading is an all-Swords reading, and so your mind, how you construct your world, and how you express yourself are all fundamental parts of how you are operating right now.

The Two of Swords speaks to the idea of a temporary equilibrium. It is a point of balance, a suspension of judgment, a moment of stillness before action. It can also symbolise a contract or agreement that brings two parties together for a limited time to fulfill a particular purpose.

This is the moment you’re currently in, and it is the moment in which you get to choose between what lies to the left of the Two of Swords (the Two being your ‘contract’) and the right. In short, you get to choose between wisdom and Defeat — or between insight and conflict.

Now, back to that blank card and its significance as a ‘placeholder’ for the Ace of Swords. The Aces are discrete members of the 56 Minor Arcana cards. This is because, while they lead into the numbered cards, they are not in the world of the numbered cards. Cards 2 through 10 represent incarnate, embodied reality. The Aces do not. They are pure archetypes of the elements they represent.

The Ace of Swords is the pure archetype of Air, and given that Air represents the mind, the Ace of Swords is also the limitless potential of the mind. If we were to put words to it (which in truth we really can’t do effectively, the Ace being a pure archetype — though we can try to approximate what it means to our limited understanding), then the Ace of Swords is Solomonic wisdom; keen, dispassionate insight; the clearest vision you can have.

But here’s the thing about the Aces: they can stand for so much; they can stand for nothing at all. This was emphasized to me in the blank card I drew before drawing a card to take its place, which was the Ace of Swords. Sometimes, you might as well ‘draw a blank’ if you aren’t going to recognise that the only person who is able to manifest the Ace of Swords in your world is you. The Ace itself, divinely sent, can only meet you halfway: it stands in the non-incarnate world, and it is up to you to notice its potential and draw it down.

To put this another way, the presence of an Ace in a reading asks you to take a risk, because it is asking you to act on something that is not tangible. Is it available to you? Absolutely! But like the adage goes, “That book ain’t gonna write itself, ya know!”

That idea isn’t going to advertise itself. That insight isn’t going to apply itself. That theory isn’t going to test itself. That ground-breaking, life-changing inspiration that scares you shitless to contemplate isn’t going to do all the work for you, shoulder all the risk, and save you from the sweat of work — or the humiliation of defeat.

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No. The presence of the Ace is not a guarantee, either.

It is an all-or-nothing deal, and you are not protected from the consequences of your actions. BUT. Its potential is available to you — and its presence means you have more resources than you might at first consider possible. More, perhaps, than you can currently conceive of.

Think of the Ace of Swords as a seam of intellectual gold sitting deep in the Earth’s crust. It is there, for the taking. You are the miner. Standing there on the surface, tapping your toe in earnest, will not fill your cart. And if you go down there, you may simply fill your cart with rock.

Or you may strike gold. And the only way to do that is to commit.

The alternative you can choose in this moment of equilibrium is the card on the right, the Five of Swords. (I have a feeling that if you decide not to choose, the Five is what you’ll get anyway, given that the Ace needs your active commitment to it.)

The Five of Swords is when that temporary alliance of the Two of Swords goes tits-up, as we say here in the UK. It is not the under-handed, stealth-driven sabotage of the Seven of Swords, nor the existential anguish of the Nine of Swords, but it is a moment of “ouch!” where someone’s peace of mind is sacrificed on the altar of conflict. Blood is spilled in a battle of wills — a skirmish where there is a clear winner and a clear loser, but either way the victory is one that has its costs. It is accompanied with fiery fury and rage; emotions run very high; despair follows, even though it might be short-lived.

But to its left, there are peace, stillness, the moment where the mind can reflect on itself and see the truth: the Ace. The single sword that looks back at us in the mirror. In a sea of troubles, it is the grounded location of the lightning bolt of intuitive knowing.

But you’ve gotta reach out and take it. Sometimes having a handle on the truth is the greatest responsibility of all. Because it asks you to do something with it.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Ace of Swords (the pure, limitless element of Air), Two of Swords (Moon in Libra), Five of Swords (Venus in Aquarius)

If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article explains how to use the spread.

By Sarah Taylor

Some time in the past, you took a risk. Today, it has paid off. Now it’s time to draw something to a close, and to develop your creative endeavours. This is a time to move carefully, and with humility.

The Fool, Six of Stones, Four of Wands from the Haindl Tarot deck, created by Hermann Haindl. Click on the image for a larger version.

The symbol of “zero” shows up in each card in today’s reading — although in two of them it is implied rather than explicit.

In The Fool, we meet zero, embodied. The Fool is zero; he’s our hero of zero, the archetype that starts the whole story off. His presence in a reading means that you, intrepid reader, were indeed intrepid: you took a risk, made a move, charted uncharted waters, laughed in the face of danger, or ridicule, or both.

Given The Fool is in the ‘past’ position in this reading, this Fool-ish experience is one that you’ll have more perspective on, now that it’s happened: you’ll be able to identify and describe it in a way you wouldn’t have been able to when it was happening. In fact, you may not have been immediately aware of the presence of The Fool back then. But today you are. You can see how you walked the path of The Fool in that risk, that move, that fool-hardy manoeuvre that got chins, and fingers, wagging.

And so it has brought you here, to the Six of Stones (Pentacles). Success. Here, you can infer The Fool in the circle of stones and the open doorway at their centre. He is calling you again; he is asking you to follow your intuition to the place it is leading you. That’s not for me to know — nor is it a matter of anyone else’s opinion. This is your calling, your decision.

One thing to note about the Six of Stones that may be helpful: like all Sixes, there is an air of ‘moving on’ to the energy of the card. There has been a point of understanding, of insight, of crisis, of consolidation. This is the moment of calling, or cashing, something in. Imbalances are being redressed, but it’s a delicate process, and what will serve you here is to remain mindful of what it took for you to get here — and what it took others to get you here. Credit where credit is due, all round.

Acknowledge, secure, and move forward. At its most practical, do your accounting thoroughly, collect what’s due to you, and pay what is owed. Metaphorically, the same method applies: do your personal accounting thoroughly, own what’s due to you, and give credit and/or make amends where it’s called for. This is more practical than you might imagine; you cannot move forward if a part of you resides in denial, holding you back. And it is worth bearing in mind that this cuts both ways: you may be carrying obligations that were never yours to settle in the first place. Ask for objective assistance to decipher which ones are which, and you’ll find it easier to move on.

Because what you’re moving towards is another “zero” in the shape of the bubble enclosing an eye, set behind four wands, two pointing upwards, two pointing downwards. Balance. Perfection.

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The Four of Wands is in the future position here. It is what you are moving towards as The Fool who is currently experiencing the Six of Stones. It is a ‘threshold moment’: it marks a pause between one act of creation, and the next one.

In that moment, as subtle and fleeting as it is, there is a perfect equilibrium between inner and outer, above and below. It cannot last, nor should it. It is there in that briefest of blinks of an eye, in which you can choose to commit to something that draws a part of your journey to a close, and clears the pathway to an evolution of that journey, or to a new venture that is fuelled by the fires of the previous one.

It is unlikely to be a complete break; more likely it is a re-visioning. That re-visioning will go a whole lot more smoothly if you’re seeing clearly — hence the need to clear clutter and square things away now. There is a lining up — a conspiring of sorts — that is happening in your physical world. See what happens if you do your best to move with it and hear the calling of what makes the deepest sense to you when you leave enough space for your inner wisdom to speak to you.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: The Fool (Uranus), Six of Stones (Moon in Taurus), Four of Wands (Venus in Aries)

If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article explains how to use the spread.

Both the written and audio readings for the beautiful 2016 annual edition, Vision Quest, are now immediately available. Order all 12 signs at a great value or choose your individual signs. You may access written and audio excerpts from the Vision Quest main page.

By Sarah Taylor

Okay. Something is going on somewhere in your life, whether directly to you or as an event that you’re now aware of, that is testing you. It may be edging you well beyond the line that you consider to be the outer boundary of your comfort zone. It may be far from comfortable — a haranguing and overbearing dissonance. This is the card at the centre of today’s reading: the Seven of Swords.

Alchemy, Seven of Swords, Two of Stones from the Haindl Tarot deck, created by Hermann Haindl. Click on the image for a larger version.

As always with tarot, however, every problem has a solution, every bitter encounter has a balancing antidote. Readings are nothing if not supremely practical.

Here, the antidote is two-fold, and comes in the form of the cards that flank the Seven of Swords: Alchemy (also known as “Temperance” or “Art”) on the left, and the Two of Stones (Pentacles) on the right. They are a complementary pairing, working less visibly than the Seven of Swords, behind the scenes.

The three cards together are a reminder that conflict-as-distraction can be a compelling and effective way of maintaining a status quo that feeds off those who feel disempowered enough not to do anything about it. Let me say that again another way: if you are feeling “uselessness,” it’s not a side-effect of what’s happening — it is the purpose for what’s happening.

This conflict may be an external one between two parties, or between you and someone or something else. Or it may very well be an act of sabotage that you are playing on yourself — it’s just that that part of you has managed to get away with it. Until now, that is. Because now you can see it, clear as day, in the card in front of you at centre. When I look at the Seven of Swords, I get a visceral feeling that can only be described as squirrelly. There is a weakening discomfort that writhes in my stomach — like iron butterflies. If you’re feeling that somewhere in your life, then perhaps this reading both offers a spotlight so that you can identify it, and points to how you extricate yourself from it.

This extrication is a subtle one. This is not a situation where you go in, sword drawn, with a loud rallying cry. (Not least because it may be you on the other side of that battle line, too.) Nope. Enough with the warring, the belligerent rhetoric, the stinging words, the judgements — all niftily concocted to keep you on the back foot. To fight is to identify with the Seven of Swords; it’s more of the same.

What you need to do is to perform an act of magic — alchemy, in fact. You do this by holding a paradox. Your task, if you want it, is to find an equilibrium between two different ideas that appear to have no resolution.

Carl Jung said that he didn’t work with people under 40. One of the reasons for this, he said, is that they did not have sufficient ego strength to look inside. The ego has to be defeated, the subject humbled, before they are able to do the great work of inner alchemy. Another reason is one connected to this: when we are younger, we want to solve paradoxes, not hold them. A younger ego doesn’t like that squirrelly feeling of non-resolution. It wants control; it wants to be in charge. It resists mystery, it resists not-knowing, it resists being unable to square that circle.

Here, you are in a position to work your magic by allowing that circle to exist alongside that square. This means not moving into the conflict in order to defeat it in the same way it’s being waged; nor is it about identifying with it so fully that you can’t step back to see that there is space around it. It is this space that you can perhaps allow to draw your interest.

It might be something that doesn’t quite sit with the fighting — a part that is not interested in joining in.

It might be that you can feel something present that is not the Seven of Swords, but which is in some way connected to it.

There may be an alliance that you can seek — a form of co-operation or a partnership with other/s — that builds something alongside the Seven of Swords. Not in reaction to it, nor to address it directly. This thing offers an alternative that doesn’t play by the same rules. I’d like to write that it’s a “game-changer,” but what you’ll be creating is more like a quantum shift: it takes it out of the game entirely. No more game.

Or, rather, no more games.

There is the possibility of harmony at a time when harmony may seem entirely impossible. Harmony is there, though. It is accessible through that alchemy, which is a state of holding the impossible while not trying to solve it, and simultaneously being receptive to what else is arising around you that feels better — far better than this old, stale story that’s taken centre stage in a part of your awareness for long enough. Magic seems to me like a far more exciting option.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Alchemy (Sagittarius), Seven of Swords (Moon in Aquarius), Two of Stones (Jupiter in Capricorn)

If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article explains how to use the spread.

Vision Quest, Planet Waves’ 2016 annual edition, has been published. Order all 12 signs at a great value or choose your individual signs.

By Sarah Taylor

Just like last week (with the Prince of Stones, Aeon, Three of Swords), this week’s spread holds a Court, a Major Arcana, and a Minor Arcana card from left to right respectively — only this time we have Queen of Stones, The Sun, and the Nine of Stones. So, quite a different picture.

Queen of Stones, The Sun, Nine of Stones from the Haindl Tarot deck, created by Hermann Haindl. Click on the image for a larger version.

To me, it offers a chance to grow up and into something different from the story depicted in last week’s cards.

Perhaps the opportunity to redo something, or to shift something, or to grow and nurture something that runs in parallel. Where, when, and how this happens will be individual to your circumstances, but the sharing of a) the same configuration and b) two members of the same the Court (Stones) are enough for me to know that they, like the web of Grandmother Spider, are interconnected; and, like the strands of her web, they will forever be shaped by their meeting.

And here’s another parallel: the river of blood on the right of Aeon seems this week to hold the current potential to spring into a full-bloom, full-blooded red rose in The Sun. The clouds last week have parted; the eye and the foetus have become blazing Sol in an alchemical reaction where the rain has brought beautiful life to the land below.

Instead of three Swords — “Mourning” and conflict borne of thoughts at odds with each other — there are now nine Stones, or Pentacles. The mind has found a grounding presence. There is an identification with the world of nature; there is a guiding force that nurtures a connectivity to our roots.

What does this mean for you?

In some way, you no longer feel separate from a world that not only holds you, but gives you life. It may be an entirely visceral experience of belonging — but it will not be a belonging to another person; rather, it’s belonging to life itself. Which may well be felt as the blooming of a belonging to yourself, or the potential for that.

There is the potential to feel part of something bigger, but in a way where you are neither lost nor rendered helpless. Far from it. For this is the kind of participation that needs you; it asks for you because you have something to offer, and you also see what is offered to you. It’s not simply an exchange, though, or some kind of cool, rational transaction — though it might make more sense than anything you’ve come across for quite some time. No, this exchange has meaning to it. It holds heft and depth. It is rooted — and there’s that connectivity again. It feels old — ancient, in fact. Yet it may also have the sheen and fragrance of something sprung fresh from the earth that has held and fed it.

New ideas based on old principles. A new vision that your soul has known forever. A new offer or journey that has been walked in myth, in stories, in others’ tales over and over again. A moment of striking realisation that brings something out of the shadows, and now — now — you can see where you’re going. At the very least you can see as much of the road that you need to see. You have an idea that you have all you need, and simply by putting one step in front of the other, that road will rise to meet you.

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This rising of the road is the support implied by the Nine of Stones. This version of the card is called “Material Gain.” In a later version, Haindl changed it to “Delight in Existence.”

This is more nuanced. We’re not talking about material possessions, and how much you can get, so much as understanding and seeing what you already have available to you. You become richer through the acknowledgement of the riches around you, particularly in the natural world: the riches of nature and life, yes; and also the richness of the patterns of thread after thread after thread that weave you into a fabric as vibrant as it is diverse.

This is not a concept. It’s not an intellectual exercise of thinking your world different. You will be able to feel this quite tangibly in some way in a particular area of your life. You will have a felt sense of existence and your active role in it.

But because this is tied into last week’s reading, that idea of choice that was central to the three cards’ meaning still holds today.

It happens through you, instead of your waiting for it to happen to you. You are the initiator.

How?

I’ll leave you with the words of Rachel Pollack in part of her description of the Queen of Stones in The Haindl Tarot: The Minor Arcana:

“Taken one way, the little figure [at the mouth of the maze] represents creation, which begins with the Goddess, the center, and works its way through the stages to the outside. Taken another way it shows the soul entering the labyrinth, in search of sacred truth. Can we join with the Grandmother and remain ourselves?”

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Mother of Stones in the West (the watery aspect of earth), The Sun (Sun), Nine of Stones (Venus in Virgo)

If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article explains how to use the spread.

By Sarah Taylor

“We cannot just keep on as we have gone before, but must radically change our ways.”

According to writer and tarot expert Rachel Pollack in her book, The Haindl Tarot: The Major Arcana, this is one of the meanings of the card at the centre of this week’s reading, Aeon. I take it to be the primary meaning for the purpose of this spread, and one that has far-reaching implications, both personally and collectively.

Prince of Stones, Aeon, Three of Swords from the Haindl Tarot, created by Hermann Haindl. Click on the image for a larger version.

Card XX in the tarot’s Major Arcana, Aeon is the Haindl Tarot’s version of Judgement in the Rider-Waite Smith tarot deck.

It holds a similar essence to the RWS variant, but here I feel a sense of something that has an urgency in the way that Judgement does not. Or maybe it’s simply that the urgency in Judgement is softened by the more human presence of the fiery-headed angel.

Here, the angel has become a mysterious eye in the sky. There are still those snow-capped mountains in the distance, but unlike the single body of water in Judgement on which the figures of men, women, and children rise from their coffins, here there are no human figures, and the sea is now riven into one river of water on the left, and one of blood on the right. Above them, a foetus lies curled in an egg, ready to be born.

Each separate river is further associated with the card next to it: the water corresponds to the Prince of Stones (the Knight of Disks in the RWS deck), and the blood to the Three of Swords. How fitting.

The Prince of Stones, as Pollack points out, is the only Court Card in the Haindl deck that depicts a real person: Chief Seattle, a Pacific Northwest leader who strove for peace and accord, but who was part of a nation that was cheated, subjugated, and driven from its land. The orca at the top of the card would have held a vital place in the hearts, minds, and creativity of the Native Americans who bordered its marine habitat.

In the same way that Native Americans were hunted and displaced, so the orcas were, and continue to be, subjected to the harpoons of those who care little for the implications of their actions.

Rivers of blood indeed.

The Three of Swords drives this home: broken accords; allegiances (and alliances) torn apart; the debasement of the heart in favour of a war of words, where tears and blood are spilled.

“Mourning.”

Take this to a personal level; apply it to what’s going on in your life. Where is there a battle over some kind of ‘real estate’, whether literal or figurative? Where has the balance between heart and mind faltered to the point where no-one emerges with what they wanted? Where are there tears on contracts?

Where are you being called to pay attention to a toll exacted on something that holds, nurtures, provides life? Where is the voice of natural authority being drowned out by an agenda that will stop at little or nothing to exact its price?

The written readings for all 12 signs of Vision Quest are available for instant access, and Eric is working on the audio astrology and rune readings! Order all 12 signs here, or select individual signs here.

Now zoom out and take it collective. Where can you apply the same questions to what’s happening in your community, your country, the world? As Eric often writes on this site, “The personal is political.” One does not exist without the other, and this is particularly visible in a reading where there is one Major Arcana card (the collective/archetypal), one Minor Arcana card (how that archetype manifests in the physical world), and one Court Card (an aspect of personality that becomes the instrument of the archetype and how it manifests).

You see, it lies with you. And it lies with all of us. This is Pluto we’re talking about here. But we also have Saturn, the great limiter; that can work against us, and it can also work for us. No birth can be rushed, but it can’t be held back indefinitely either. Something will be born; something will die to make way for it. The eye seems to proclaim this from its all-seeing position.

A new age is imminent. Our actions are determining whether it will be defined by rivers that flow with blood, or with water.

Can we make different choices this time around? Can you?

“Although the picture appears dire, it is, in fact, suffused with hope.”
~ Rachel Pollack, The Haindl Tarot: The Major Arcana

 

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Son of Stones in the West (the airy aspect of earth), Aeon (Pluto), Three of Swords (Saturn in Libra)

If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article explains how to use the spread.

By Sarah Taylor

What if we were to make peace with our fathers?

It’s not a suggestion, but a question — one that this reading makes clear is up for consideration. I don’t believe an answer is required or even necessary; I don’t think this is about forcing hurtful or impossible terms. But asking the question? I think that’s the essence of the three cards in front of you today.

Four of Cups, King of Wands, Prince of Wands from the Haindl Tarot deck, created by Hermann Haindl. Click on the image for a larger version.

Last week, the Ace of Cups sat at the centre of the reading, a symbol of the flow of Love that you either choose to resist or align with.

It’s not an active process, unless you see ‘letting go’ as something you do actively; I’m not sure that letting go is a primary action as much as it’s something that happens when it’s clear it is the only option that makes sense anymore. It is the result of a chain of actions and reactions that bring you to the point where letting go feels, if not logical, then inevitable.

The cards today continue this theme — and, really, an ongoing theme of change and stepping into a position of authority in your own life — in a specific form.

The version that I have of the Four of Cups has as its title “Mixed Happiness.” This has since been updated to “Yearning,” which has the effect of positioning the card as reaching into the future towards something that is yet to manifest, rather than leaving it held in the present. Hermann Haindl himself said that this card spoke of needing to do something with the Cups in order to effect the kind of change that transforms current circumstances — ones that may feel like loss or disillusionment, or pain and grief. This is similar to the Ace, where one must reach for it in order to own the gift of Love that it offers you.

I notice that the blue background in the Four of Cups mirrors the background in the third card, that of the Prince of Wands (the Knight in the Rider-Waite Smith deck). I also notice that the card in the centre, the King of Wands, acts as an interface of sorts between the Four and the Prince.

I am going to call the King the surface of the mirror. The Four of Cups — “Mixed Happiness” or “Yearning” — is what you, the Prince of Wands, is looking at when you look into this mirror.

Except this mirror is not neutral. No mirror in this world is, no matter how much we believe it to be. Mirrors reflect back to us an interpretation of what we’re looking at based on who we are and the experiences we bring to it. The surface of the mirror is a filter that is uniquely tinged by our beliefs — especially the hidden ones.

Here, you, dear Prince, are looking at a situation in your life through the eyes of your father, the King of Wands. You may not know it, but it is he who stands behind your shoulder, in some way influencing not only what you are looking at, but also the one who is doing the looking: you.

Why are you feeling the way you are about the yearning that runs through you? This force at play within: is it you? Or is it a filter that you have carried around — possibly unknowingly, probably for much of your life — that influences how you see, react and respond to your circumstances?

This, to me, is the striving for identity in circumstances that are defined by loss — and the moment, a gift, that is given to you in the stillness where you get to choose how and who you are when you finally respond. It is also about peace-making: with the inner fiery masculine, with the seat of creativity, with father, with an authority figure, with authority itself.

The written readings for all 12 signs of Vision Quest are available for instant access, and Eric is working on the audio astrology and rune readings! Order all 12 signs here, or select individual signs here.

To create your life as a reaction against what you perceive as the shortcomings and failings of masculinity and how it was modelled to you is to have your life defined by it. You become the very thing that you repel. You search, search, search in the mirror for your answer, not thinking to turn around and see what it is that is really being reflected back to you.

And so, I come back to a variation of the question that started this reading: What if you were to make peace with your father?

What if you were able to see his influence, and the ways he unnervingly shows up in your thoughts, your words, your actions? What if you were to look as fully as possible, not because you needed to forgive him, but so you could set yourself free? What if he were to become human, rather than super- or inhuman? What if you were to see him as limited, rather than an infinite god?

What if you were to resurrect yourself as the person who is really standing in front of the mirror, and dance to your own tune — perhaps one that includes joy and sensuality, pleasure and beauty, and a more fluid and creative notion of masculinity? What if all of this resided in you alongside the ability to hold to yourself as a mature expression of centred creativity?

Maybe then your father wouldn’t command so much of your attention that you have little room for anything else. And maybe a whole lot more would change besides.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Four of Cups (Moon in Cancer), Father of Wands in the East (the fiery aspect of fire), Son of Wands in the East (the airy aspect of fire)

If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article explains how to use the spread.

By Sarah Taylor

David Bowie — A Fool’s Journey

The Fool — The Röhrig Tarot, by Carl-W. Röhrig.

David Bowie. His public life threw out the rule books; he was a voyager into the unknown, creating movements rather than following them.

As an artist and performer to whom it seemed art and life were one and the same thing, he exemplified the archetype of The Fool.

He never stayed the same.

“Just gonna have to be a different man / Time may change me / But I can’t trace time.”

It feels significant that Uranus, the planet that corresponds with The Fool, was squaring the New Moon on the day he died – reactivating the Uranus-Pluto square, which is all about revolution.

And maybe the revolution, as he sings here, is love.

Go well, Cosmic Traveller.

“There was a boy
A very strange enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far, very far
Over land and sea
A little shy
And sad of eye
But very wise
Was he

And then one day
A magic day he passed my way
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
“The greatest thing
You’ll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return””

~ Nature Boy, David Bowie and Massive Attack (orig. Nat King Cole)

* * * * * * * *

This Week’s Tarot Reading

This week, two Minor Arcana cards and one Ace mark a shift away from the broader, Soul-story told by the Majors over the past few weeks — from what you are being and the world within — and into your interactions with the world around you, and what you’re doing. Think of the Majors over the two prior readings as being the backdrop to your experience, and this week a tangible moment in time painted in finer detail onto that backdrop.

Three of Wands, Ace of Cups, Five of Swords from the Haindl Tarot, created by Hermann Haindl. Click on the image for a larger version.

The three cards in front of you do not mark a Past, Present, Future reading. Instead, they are happening simultaneously, with the Ace as the cauldron into which the card on the right — the Five of Swords — can be alchemized into the card on the left — the Three of Wands.

You can salvage what seems to be slipping from your grasp — or maybe what was torn from it — and transmute it. In other words, you can take a situation that’s riddled with conflict, and transform it into one that holds creative potential. You get to sift through a war of words and find the key to disarm it. You get to distill lightning from a shit-storm. You rediscover fire. You find a way through.

How?

By asking for, and reaching towards, what is held there in potential: the Ace of Cups.

Remember last week you were The Magician as the central card, with all four Aces in front of you with which to start creating your world? Somewhere along the way, maybe just for a moment — perhaps for longer — you slipped out of alignment and integrity with your highest ideals and your calling. Now, here is your first opportunity to use your abilities to harness the gift of the Ace of Cups and get to work on dismantling a snafu that you’ve gotten yourself into.

You don’t do this by thinking, analyzing, or perpetuating a war of words (even if only with yourself). You do it through love. But this is not a love you can force into existence; it’s not something you sprinkle like sugar (“Hey! The more the better!”) in the hope that the bitterness disappears. You can’t foist love on people and things that can’t relate to it, won’t accept it, don’t need to accept it.

No. The Ace of Cups is simply there. Enough.

We do love to feel in control. We do love to feel in control of love. With love, we tend to sit like a kid in the passenger seat of a car, who’s holding a plastic steering wheel, believing that the hard work they’re putting into turning that wheel one way and the other is having an effect on the direction of travel.

When, in truth, love makes its own course. It always has. It is a current that flows through life, and beyond it. You are either flowing with or against it. And, paradoxically, sometimes the stronger you feel the stinging barbs of ‘not-love’, the harder you’ll try to get back to it — when what might serve you better is to let go and fall into it. To fall back into love.

There is nothing you have to do to it or with it apart from acknowledging the possibility of its presence and inviting it in.

It is that simple. So simple, that you frequently forget to try it. I mean, it can’t be that simple, can it? Something that simple can’t work.

Or can it?

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Three of Wands (Sun in Aries), Ace of Cups in the North (the pure, limitless potential of water), Five of Swords (Venus in Aquarius)

If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article explains how to use the spread.