By Sarah Taylor

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” ~ Joseph Campbell

As with last week, this week we have another reading with two Major Arcana cards — this time, accompanied by a Court Card, which seats it very practically: there is something you can do, or rather something you can be or at least be aware of while the big changes that the cards suggest take place around and through you.

Princess of Cups, The Magician, The Tower from the Haindl Tarot deck, created by Hermann Haindl. Click on the image for a larger version.

And there are big changes, no two ways about it. What’s interesting to me, though, is that, once again, there will be times where things will simply seem to happen to you — that’s The Tower. But there will be ways that you can exercise agency in those events. You do not simply need to react to them. You have the ability to respond, too.

Remember that: the difference between reacting and responding.

That difference may seem subtle, but there is a chasm of difference between the two states. You are holding the potential to cross that chasm from one of being spectator to one of being a conscious participant.

The key to this lies especially in the relationship between the central card, The Magician, and the card to its left, The Princess (Page in the Rider-Waite Smith tarot deck) of Cups. More on that a little later.

First, the two Major Arcana cards. If you read this column regularly, you’ll know that I refer to Major Arcana cards as Soul-based archetypes. Together, the Majors comprise what Joseph Campbell described as The Hero’s Journey: the call to a personal mythical adventure that we choose to undertake consciously. Each experience we face, whether perilous or joyous, is a step towards becoming a whole person, and a unique one. We learn who we are, and where we have strayed from the path by trying to be someone we are not.

Archetypes are invisible and impossible to know or experience fully. We reach them through personal mythical tools, whether dreams, creative acts or, in this instance, tarot. They move through us, and we can sense them and their presence even if we can’t fully understand or pin them down.

Two Majors, as with last week, means that something significant is afoot. Pay attention to your dreams, to synchronicities, to recurring themes that seem to pop up asking for attention in your life — sometimes wrapped up in the least likely, most low-key exteriors. (Be prepared to share this with someone you trust. I tend to recommend a therapist who is well-versed in dream-interpretation because they will not only be prepared to take that journey with you, but they will also be a grounding element to your experiences. They will help you parse out the gold from the bullshit of illusion and wishful thinking.)

The Magician is the first port of call, because he is central to the reading and the first card I drew. He is the anchor. He is currently, or will soon be, active in your psyche. He is the manifestor, the darer, the creator. He takes the four elements, or suits, that make up the Minor Arcana as your day-to-day experiences, and shapes his environment from them.

The Magician also corresponds with Mercury in astrology, so pay attention to what unfolds in your experiences during the upcoming Mercury retrograde period of Jan. 5 to 24.

You are in the act of creating something. But what are you creating? And where is that creation coming from? What are your motives? How is your integrity to the call of your own Hero’s Journey?

Look at The Magician carefully. There are two faces in the card. The first one, bathed in light, faces towards the card on the left, the Princess of Cups. The second, bathed in shadow, faces towards the card on the right, The Tower.

The Tower is a particularly physical card, in that it is more often than not an outwardly experienced event based on an inner shift. The Death card is inner transformation. The Tower, on the other hand, is what happens a little further on down the road from that inner transformation — the ripple effect. Once you have shed a skin (which was indicated by Death, card XIII, in the near past position in last week’s reading), and you have readjusted your course (Temperance, card XIV), what is then able to emerge is what was rendered to the darkness in the first place (The Devil, card XV).

You, Hero of your own Journey, have created the space to let in enough light to see what you hadn’t known about yourself before this. And from this encounter comes another shift: The Tower, which is the falling away of something that will simply not stand in integrity anymore.

The Tower is ruled by Mars, so this falling away can be sudden and powerful. It may take you unawares, but it will not be entirely unexpected when you’ve had some time to survey the rubble. It will only be because you were trying to convince yourself you could keep on keeping on. That you had this. That you could control uncontrollable circumstances that were trapping you and keeping you from your real purpose.

The Tower can also be a blessed, expansive relief and release of something holding you down and back. One way or the other, The Tower meets denial with reality.

The funny thing is that when I see this particular version of The Tower today, I see ribbons dancing around a soulless monolith. Maybe there is more cause to celebrate than you first think? The clue for this lies in the card towards which the light face in The Magician is looking: the Princess of Cups.

In the little white book that accompanies the Haindl Tarot, which is based on the longer books by Rachel Pollack, the description for the reversed meaning of the Princess of Cups is, “Importance of personal history ignored.”

Here is the key to the agency that I wrote is available to you in this reading — the one that works with the energy of The Tower, rather than in denial of it.

Look at your personal history and the role that it plays in how you choose to operate and shape your current experience. Are you doing something because it is an expression of the truth of who you are? Are you following a personal calling?

Are you walking a path simply because it is the path that you are expected to walk?

Or are you doing it as a denial of who you don’t want to be?

That last one is important, because frequently it is your heartfelt determination not to be like someone, or not to do what you are supposed to do, that drives you: it drives you back towards the very thing you are expending so much energy running from.

The only way out, this time, is through. You cannot circumvent history. You can only change it by, finally, feeling it. We are in the realm of Cups here. By entering the cave of your ancestors, you are giving yourself the time and space to heal your heart. There is an element of surrender to this. You cannot force yourself to feel, but you can stop holding onto what isn’t working any more. You don’t have to be shaken off. You can simply let go. And by “letting go” I don’t mean giving up or giving in, or rescinding responsibility. It is the most responsible act you can do: responding rather than reacting.

Be aware that it’s hard to see and look for our blind spots. They are, by design, hidden from direct view. Again, it is better to call in assistance. Find someone who will listen and hold you if need be. Find a quiet place where you can feel that you are a product of where you came from, but not a victim of it. Or find both. I am a huge proponent of personal therapy if it is within your means. If not, then a confidante is an excellent idea.

This is great work here — the Great Work. But you have both the archetype of The Magician and the soulful connection to your beautiful heart. And you have the chance to build on firmer foundations: the ones that connect you to your integrity, your Soul. The Tower is not compulsory; neither is it the monster that so many people build it up to be. The pain is optional and it comes in the holding on. The letting go allows the new into the picture. The energy starts moving. There is room to breathe, and to live.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Princess of Cups (the earthy aspect of water), The Magician (Mercury), The Tower (Mars)

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

As you can see, this week I’m using a different tarot deck, thanks to leaving three of my Röhrig cards in a scanner at my partner’s house. I’m taking it as a deliberate mistake, and that the Weekend Tarot Reading wanted to cross the threshold between the old year and the new with an emphasis on something ending, and something beginning.

And I have no doubt about that when I look at the three cards in front of us.

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

The cards themselves come from the Haindl Tarot, a deck created by the late German artist Hermann Haindl. (Interestingly, The Röhrig Tarot that I usually work with is also named after its creator, Carl Röhrig, who is also a German artist.) I was fortunate enough to do a reading for Mr Haindl back in 2012. I didn’t fully appreciate who he was at the time, which was probably a good thing given the pressure of coming up with a spontaneous 60-second interpretation of the card he was holding out to me. I searched out his deck after that, but I wasn’t drawn to it then. Today, I was.

The Haindl deck is generally considered advanced tarot-reading material. I’m not sure that’s to do with the cards themselves as much as people’s response to them. Haindl uses a lot of contoured hatching in his illustrations, and this gives the cards a shadowy depth — as if there is layer upon layer. He also uses pagan, Ancient Egyptian, and Native American imagery, so some of it is unfamiliar, at a cultural remove to many readers.

I think the imagery is striking, and has a sensate clarity to it — if you can get past any judgments that tell you you’re not up to feeling it. The images are less stylised; they may feel a little sobering.

Perhaps that’s entirely supportive for a reading that is interested in showing you what is falling away, and — and this is important — what remains and continues because it holds integrity.

On Dec. 6, the Ten of Swords appeared in the same position it does here. It’s entirely possible that what’s going on now is a continuation of a theme that you identified back then. This time, the Ten’s companions are The Emperor, at centre, and Death, on the left. I drew The Emperor first. Although he represents a pure archetype — the secular ruler — he is also the only card of the three that has a person as the protagonist (if you exclude the bony arm in Death). He’s also facing us head-on.

So in this case, you are The Emperor — or more accurately The Emperor is an archetype that is active in you. And you, as The Emperor, are flanked and influenced by — and are influencing — two experiences: Death and the Ten of Swords.

Some of the ways the cards are ‘talking’ to each other drew my interest immediately.

First, the relationship between Death and The Emperor. These two correspond with each other numerologically, the 1 and the 3 of the 13 in Death adding up to the 4 of The Emperor. They are complementary. How? As ruler of the human realm, The Emperor is interested in secular (i.e. non-religious) law and how it is expressed and enforced. When this archetype is in balance, he ensures our human outer and inner realms remain accountable to themselves and to the natural world, which is ruled by his counterpart The Empress.

Here, The Emperor knows he has no clothes. He doesn’t need them! There is no guile, no need to embellish his power, which is in alignment with natural law — hence the tree behind him.

Both Emperor and Empress understand the cycles of life — that all things are born, live, die, and are reborn, time and again. More than that: death makes way for life; from death emerges renewal. Look at the sceptre that The Emperor holds, then look at the skeletal forearm holding the scythe in Death. They mirror each other. From the bones comes a wheat-sheafed symbol of power that is to the living truth of things what the hand in Death is to its polar opposite.

The raven looks away from The Emperor and off to the distant left. Something has happened in the recent past that marks an ending. It was time. And there’s no going back to the way things were, no resurrection of the form it was in. As painful as it might have felt, and perhaps as sudden, there was a stripping away and, with it, a completion.

Well, actually, not quite. Not a completion; a transition. Because what remains standing, facing us, at centre, is The Emperor. His nakedness now takes on a new meaning in light of Death. Maybe it was his clothes that were stripped away? His perceived source of protection; his armour; his defences; his insistence on demonstrating his leadership through appearances rather than holding himself to the truth of his calling.

Maybe he gave up the pretence.

To his right, another correspondence makes itself clear: the small ball and cross-bar of the central sword’s hilt in the Ten of Swords is reflected in the eye of the raven in Death.

“Remember who you are,” it seems to say. “And remember who you thought you were.”

Those caves you hid out in, conveniently running from one shady corner to another to escape the blaze of consciousness?

Those mind-games that have taken up so much time of yours, as you tried to convince yourself in the face of increasingly compelling evidence to the contrary?

All those entrances are barred to you now. There’s nowhere to hide out anymore in this particular matter you’ve been facing down.

Nowhere to run; nowhere to hide.

Why would you want to? You’re The Emperor, for crying out loud! Maybe it’s time to start acting like one. Because what I see now are the colours of the cube above your head also reflected in the eye of the raven. A cube is even, solid, stable. The four directions are indicated in each horizontal vertex, the ‘above’ and ‘below’ in both vertical ones. And there you are, at the centre — of the seven directions and of this reading.

Something that didn’t fit any more has fallen away. You experienced loss? Certainly. You’re raw? Probably. Vulnerable? Yes. But ducking for cover — whether by disappearing (so you elude yourself, too) or by wearing masks — will no longer be a game that serves you particularly well.

You have the capacity to step into a deeper, more responsible integrity. It’s time to start assuming a role of leadership in your own life.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Death (Scorpio), The Emperor (Aries), Ten of Swords (Sun in Gemini)

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’s the best way to deal with actually getting what you wish for, for a change?

This is the focal point of this week’s reading: being able to ask for what you want — whether to someone else, or as an inward prayer — and having a good chance of getting it.

Knight of Disks, Strength, Nine of Cups from The Röhrig Tarot deck, created by Carl-W. Röhrig. Click on the image for a larger version.

The first thing that came to me when I turned all three cards over was their beauty. Can you see it too?

The colours made my heart want to sing out loud: they are warm, light, and entirely in sync across the spread. Then, I looked at the composition of each of the cards, and they, too, are complementary. In fact, the correspondences between the Knight (King) of Disks and the Nine of Cups is, to quote my initial response, (and excuse the language of spontaneous wonder) “Fuckn AWESOME!” I don’t think I’ve been hit by the lyricism of a reading like this for a long time.

And this, too, is key to the reading. It’s the subtle, but significant, heads-up that lies behind the transcendent imagery.

Let’s explore the Knight of Disks and the Nine of Cups first. The Knight of Disks is described elementally as the fiery aspect of earth. He is the masculine ruler of the realm of all things material — the physical world. He is, in this deck, the “Healer”: the word inscribed on the golden circlet of his headdress, which stretches up and past the top of the card. The Knight is known for his groundedness. Look at his eyes, his gaze: centred, calm. It looks like he has reached a state where he is able to maintain the kind of inner equilibrium that enables him to get things done — to get down to the business of extending that equilibrium to others in order that they might heal.

The Knight is an active element of your psyche, whether you are aware of him or not, whether you choose to work with him consciously, or not.

But then there on the other side is the Nine of Cups. This is popularly known as the ‘wish card’. Could this idea be any better-illustrated than in this deck? I think not. And like the Knight, the Nine of Cups is active, too, whether you’re aware of it or not.

Both are active. Look how they’re working together: they are essentially mirroring each other while each staying true to their individual feel and meaning. The Knight’s beard is reflected in the feathered striations in the Nine; the Knight’s headdress — sand, coins, and keys — is duplicated in the hearts, cups, and tiles of the Nine; the “Ritter der Scheibe” to the Knight’s left becomes “Love, deep joy, happiness” in the Nine. The Knight’s face is a dream-like swirl that feels otherworldly in the Nine. Fantastical. So unlike the Knight who lives and walks very much on the firm ground of this world.

Here is the call for balance — but this balance is between two potential ideals rather than one that’s typically considered preferable and another that you would typically want to avoid.

It may seem, then, that you wouldn’t need to tread as carefully. Yet I think that would be an underestimation of the reading — and, paradoxically, the power of your position in all of this.

Think of it this way. You are in a position to get what you want. But is it really want you want? Is it really what you need? These are two questions worth asking. It may be that the magic at your disposal is just that: ‘disposable’. It may be that you are working with finite resources here; except, unlike the fairy tales, you may not even get three wishes. It could be that it is one wish, spoken from your gut, that is available to you.

If you slip over into the territory of the Nine, your flight of fancy could be as nourishing as candy-floss. If you stay wholly with the Knight of Disks, your conservatism may cause you to ask for only what you believe you deserve — which may not be very much.

This is walking the line between two extremes of staunch, staid pragmatism on one side, and frivolousness or delusion on the other. The Nine could have you asking for too much chocolate cake. So let the Knight of Disks ground you somewhat, so your wish serves you in a way that is enduring — and, yes, healing. (Just remember: not all medicine needs to taste bad.)

The result is the central card, Strength: the ability to experience the kind of freedom you may have thought was beyond you, while still having boundaries that enable you to explore that freedom without losing yourself, or having to give yourself up to ideals and demands that don’t serve you in the least.

Boundaries allow you to explore heretofore inaccessible lands.

Use that wish wisely. You have every right, and ability, to do so.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Knight of Disks (the fiery aspect of earth), Strength (Leo), Nine of Cups (Jupiter in Pisces)

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

Something is rounding off to an end. But this is a particular kind of ‘end’, because it implies the beginning of something else that’s connected to it.

The Judgment, Four of Wands, Eight of Wands from The Röhrig Tarot deck, created by Carl-W. Röhrig. Click on the image for a larger version.

The Four of Wands, you see, comes relatively early on in the Wands suit — just before half-way. So this “Completion” is more about finishing off one stage of a larger creative project. And, nearly always with Wands, I invite you to view the word “creative” in as broad terms as you can define it. It does not have to be work-related, nor artistic in the conventional sense. This is any kind of project to which you have devoted your erotic energy — that is, your procreative powers. It’s ‘juice’, life-force.

If you were reading this column several weeks back, you would have been introduced to the Three of Wands — which appeared more than once over a short period. In this card, a figure is walking down a road, over a hill and into the distance, heading towards some hills. You, like him, had struck out on a quest that asked for faith — particularly because it was guiding you away from what was familiar. It may even have asked you to walk alone, with little support for your particular (ad)venture.

But you were full of that juicy life-force that I write of above. Something was calling you, and something felt right. Others around you may have scratched their heads in confusion, may have ridiculed you, or may simply have been focussed elsewhere. You were connected to a growing sense of beauty that kept one foot in front of the other.

So now, today, you find yourself at the first waypoint. Here, in your life, there is a marker that confirms that you are where you are because you listened.

What immediately preceded this waypoint is the first card in today’s reading — The Judgment. As the foundation card, The Judgment will have made itself apparent in your life very recently, somewhere between your departure on this journey and now; somewhere in the past month or so. Maybe even in the past week or two.

The Judgment is a spiritual wake-up call. It is a revealing or understanding that is so powerful it brings something back to life, or allows something new to come through you that had previously been lying dormant, or defeated.

The Judgment has been the call you were waiting for to confirm that, yes, the path you’re on is your path. No mistakes. Your faith has been acknowledged.

It doesn’t necessarily mean that the path is comfortable or you’ll feel like you’re tripping the light fantastic. That’s not what The Judgment is about. It may be challenging; it may be chaotic; the pace may feel like some kind of mayhem at times. It may be hard to discern any underlying patterns when things get shaken up into consciousness in the way they have been. What it does do is liberate something in you — and very likely something around you, too — so that there is more energy available to you.

If your circumstances haven’t changed much, look within and ask yourself whether it’s rather you who’s changed. Whether you are now more able and adept at weathering the storms that have been hitting you. More than that: could it be that you are learning to navigate the storms so that they work for you, rather than against you? Have you somehow become a surfer of the unpredictable — a harnesser of the unpredictable? Maybe it’s that unpredictability no longer matters in the way it used to. If that’s the case, that’s some transformation, traveller!

And there’s more to come.

Your “completion,” whatever it looks like, has unleashed the kind of energy that you’re going to be able to feel in the form of the Eight of Wands. It’s coming up on the horizon. A channel will open; think of it like your surfboard getting an outboard motor. There will be meetings, connections — some external, and others an alignment with a part of you that brings with it emerging possibilities. A missing puzzle piece is revealed. It may have been staring you in the face all along. Now you’ll have the eyes to see it.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: The Judgment (Pluto), Four of Wands (Venus in Aries), Eight of Wands (Mercury in Sagittarius)

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

There have been a lot of Sword cards in recent readings. That means a lot of “mind”: your thoughts, your beliefs, your self-talk, the rules and regulations — official and unofficial — you set up with yourself and others.

Stay with me here as we move into Qabalah 101 — this reading gets a little technical, but I believe it’s worth the time spent on it.

Two of Swords, Ace of Disks, Ten of Swords from The Röhrig Tarot deck, created by Carl-W. Röhrig. Click on the image for a larger version.

Swords govern the plane of the intellect and how you express that in words. Exercised with grace and elegance, you get insightful observation, discernment, negotiation, and wisdom. In other words, when it’s informed by your creative capacity (the Wands as an initiating force), and delivered with heart (the Cups that follow on from Wands), then Swords as the third suit is an expression of your inner alignment.

But, being the third suit along, there’s so much more to reckon with when you arrive in the land of the blade: the balancing act gets more demanding. It asks you for skillful precision if you are to keep that alignment of creativity, heart and mind. Think of the shift between juggling with two balls, and then adding a third. It tends to up the stakes a little.

Today, that balancing act is expressed in these three cards. The first card and the third card are the first and last active Swords cards: they run the range of experiences you can have with your mind, Two through Ten. They also flank the Ace of Disks: the potential that is birthed from your thoughts, as the first card of the fourth and final suit, Disks — the one that deals with material reality.

Disks are “earth”; they are the descent into matter. All of the other suits are the ingredients that you’ve mixed together to be able to experience yourself as a body interacting with a world.

So. You know that saying about your thoughts creating your reality? You are slap-bang in the middle of being able to see this, to understand this, to live it out. You may not know it, but you are the magician of your own life. And as a magician, you are not simply passive: you have agency.

And you’re being asked to assume that agency. As the third suit in the tarot deck, Swords are denser, and so they are more obvious. You can access Swords much more easily than you can Wands or Cups. And there’s a downside to this: it is far easier to neglect the presence of Wands and Cups in your life than it is Swords. Mind seems to rule if it is left unchecked. It can dampen your energy; it can interfere with your heart. To take back your agency, today’s reading is saying this to you:

Stop relying exclusively on your mind. You cannot think your way into this one, or out of it. You can go for “Peace,” you can go for “Ruin.” Or you can choose not to identify fully with either, and understand that they are simply one part of a far larger experience.

The possibility exists that you can acknowledge and embrace every aspect of your mind without holding it as the only thing that matters.

Where is the energy that moves through your body, the initiator of everything? Can you let it run free, knowing it moves with its own wisdom? Where is the space that you give to your feelings — the ones that make themselves known before you have time to label and pigeon-hole them? Can you feel them without needing to know what you’re feeling?

And then, finally, can you use your mind as a collaborator with your creativity and your heart, to express the truth of both without distorting them? To honour their integrity with no need to second-guess them out of existence?

To speak your truth, even if it makes you tremble?

To give shape to your world, even if it asks more of you than you thought (note: thought) possible?

There is a time for Peace and a time for Ruin. But no creation of yours needs to be caught up exclusively in either. That’s not what your mind is there for. Your mind is there to sift and make sense of something that has already been called into existence. Your mind is there to discern and then to direct, not judge and coerce.

The Ace of Disks holds a significant amount of potential. It is no less than the sum total of what was called into existence through you some time ago. The mind has its role to play, but it is by no means the headlining act. This is an ensemble piece rather than a star vehicle for your mental gymnastics.

When your mind grasps because it absolutely has to know! — step back and see if your heart has something to say. If your mind wants to turn on you, and tell you that you’re a failure, disengage if you can and track the flow of your energy.

When that moment comes that everything falls into place — when it not only makes sense, but you feel sense — you don’t have to be moved into action by a fear that you have somehow missed out or that you’re letting things slip through your fingers. No. Find a higher ground; a higher vision. Find that star that has been calling to you through space and time. You can’t command it to come to you, and you don’t need to.

You, and it, are one and the same thing. Separation has only ever been a mental construct.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Two of Swords (Moon in Libra), Ace of Disks (the pure, limitless potential of earth), Ten of Swords (Sun in Gemini)

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

There is only one choice.

You may have sat there like our protagonist in the Eight of Swords, with your head in your hands, at a loss as to what to do. Feeling lost; not-quite-here; an outline in a garish landscape that has, of late, started to seem more grotesque than gorgeous.

Knight of Swords, Eight of Swords, Nine of Wands from The Röhrig Tarot deck, created by Carl-W. Röhrig. Click on the image for a larger version.

Why? Because there are two paths in front of you, and you haven’t had a damn clue which one you’re meant to take.

Actually, it’s a little more complex than that: it’s not as if you’ve had two clear-cut choices and a list of pros and cons for each. Nope. You’ve had an overpowering sense of not being able to step back enough to see anything much at all on this particular issue. You’ve struggled to edge out from under it to get the kind of perspective that enables you to make a decision because you just know it’s the right one for you — and then act on it.

But here is an answer in the form of these three cards that are clearly in front of you.

There is only one choice.

There is only one path. There is only one Sun. This is the path you walk, this is the light by which you navigate. It may look like it’s ‘out there’ but, traveller, it is ‘in here’.

It is the Knight of Swords when he’s at his very best and not screwing around with his cunning, or manipulating behind-the-scenes for his own ends, or unleashing his inner hell cat. When the Knight of Swords grows up and starts to take responsibility for his own shadow, then what is unleashed is a bolt of energy — the energy that was being used to hold that shadow at bay.

When unfettered by the kind of blindness that needs to exist in order not to see a particularly sharp-edged truth, he can then direct that same truth-detecting ability to the matter at hand. Your inner Knight has the ability to knock the obstacles clear out the way that were blocking you from seeing clearly. He has the ability to channel and focus wisdom.

There is only one choice.

Maybe you’ve been caught between two options. Maybe what seemed like two options turned out to be one perfect whole. Maybe there never was another option. Soon, I have a feeling from these cards, you’ll not only get what you need in this regard — something in you also has the potential to feel more vibrant, more present.

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What has been making you feel incomplete is the distance you’ve been experiencing from your own truth as the small figure in the Eight of Swords.

It’s part of a dance with your inner sage, your Higher Self — a dance that involves contacting with it, spinning away, sometimes needing to walk in faith when the distance feels too far to know its presence, sometimes losing faith entirely, and then re-contacting in a moment of supernova brightness that changes the landscape.

And let’s talk about that landscape. In one way, you’ve been here before. In another, you haven’t. Yes, you’ve felt that disconnect and disorientation but, today, the story may not be the same. Don’t rely on past experiences to guide your decision-making.

The guide you need is your inner sight — your insight; the Knight of Swords. He will act as a magnifier for that frequently soft, oft-unheard, always-right knowing that sits at the heart of you. When he appears, you’ll know him because while he is canny and powerful, he isn’t simply about the kind of understanding you reach with your mind. This understanding will have a felt-sense to it. It will be anchored somewhere deep. You will not be moved. This won’t be stubbornness, but certainty. No justifications needed. No apologies required.

The truth, when connected to who you really are and your unique path, has its own rules.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Knight of Swords (the fiery aspect of air), Eight of Swords (Jupiter in Gemini), Nine of Wands (Moon in Sagittarius)

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.