Planet Waves is running a membership drive.
Read more in Solstice Fire and the Art of Service, by Eric Francis.

By Sarah Taylor

Another week, yet another two major arcana cards — this time surrounding a card from the minor arcana at centre, the Eight of Disks.

Matters of the Soul remain at the fore, this time grounding into a particularly practical, physical experience that is asking you for your due care and attention. But first let’s look at what brought you to this point by seeing what underpins it.

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

The Moon at left represents the foundation to the Eight of Disks, most likely being part of your near past. The words that I can decipher on the card read as follows:

“End of karma,” “final trial,” “Examination of the subconscious,” “Threshold of the new level of awareness,” “Illusions.”

The Moon signals a time that seems to be defined by a lack of clarity. On the one hand, this can be confusing: the conscious mind wants to make sense of what, to it, feels nonsensical. It is hell-bent on using its familiar language to construct meaning around what seems to defy meaning — much in the same way that you will see things in the shadows under a moonscape that you cannot quite make out. In this light, you have entered the borders of dream-time. Reality feels permeable, edges seem fluid, the impossible a little, or a lot, more possible.

If you insist on continuing to try and make sense with your daylight faculties, it’s much like insisting on speaking French in Japan and believing you will not only be understood, but that you, too, will be able to understand others. Not so. What The Moon asks of you is to throw out your familiar, intellectual way of communicating with the outer world, and instead sink into your inner world, the spaces between, and flow with a new rhythm.

Your inner eyes, trained as they are on shadow, will inevitably start to become used to what had eluded you when you were insisting on your tried-and-tested means of analysis. This ‘language’ is heart- and body-based; it bypasses thought; it comes to you in feelings, impressions, sensations, inklings and prickles. It brushes against you when your back is turned; it breathes warm air on your neck; it whispers when you’re the quiet, receptive denizen of negative space.

It comes to you in the gaps.

What’s interesting to me this week, is that this intuitive communication that has taken place is now causing a shift in your material world. Like The Moon, the Eight of Disks speaks of a sense of ‘between’ — though while The Moon’s ‘between’ is a fully formed state with its own language, the Eight of Disks’ ‘between’ is a stage of moving from disincarnate into incarnate reality.

Seen another way, in the recent past you received some kind of psychic blueprint for a project, an object, or a situation that has the potential to be wholly tangible. Handle it with care, though, my friend: it is still fragile, its intricate structure a vessel for something that lives and breathes. Give it time and care to grow and expand in a way that feels natural. Feed it, water it, speak to it — in other words, pay attention and respond to what it asks for, and what it asks of you.

You are not doing this alone, nor is the outcome just for you. It is not a vanity project, and it is worth shifting out of that mode of relating to it if it feels you’re being drawn that way. Yes, you have been integral in its birth and will remain integral to its growth — though it might be a whole lot bigger, and involve more people, than you are at first imagining.

Finally, you will see that it is in some way connected to the breakthrough and call to action that was embodied in last week’s reading: The Judgment, at centre just six days ago, is here and coming up on the right, the near future. This is what I wrote about The Judgment then:

“Hint: get out of your own way. There is nothing else you need to do. There are bigger forces at work than you alone, and they are the driving factors. To push is to add unnecessary fuel to an already kinetic situation. To resist is to look into the eyes of an angel and mistrust what you see. There is no need to fight; the weapons were laid down some time ago. It is time to listen, to hear what is being spoken to you through the trumpet-blast of your own awakening.”

That trumpet blast will be heard again in the next few weeks — the second wave of your awakening to some aspect of yourself. It feels like the contractions through a birth canal — or a re-birth canal.

And that hint still stands true: get out of your own way.

Tend carefully to what you’re creating in the Eight of Disks, and surrender the need to try and control anything else. The wisdom of the angel in The Judgment asks not for your active assistance in your awakening. Instead, keep your eye on what you know, and where you know you can make a difference.

Look to what is emerging in your world — it will be tangible, something you can name. This is not the time to leave an unprotected plant outside if an unexpected frost might hit; this is not the time to turn your back and ask for what you have brought through to fend for itself, when your participation with others in its evolution is an integral aspect of the experience. Participation isn’t a behind-the-scenes factor right now; it is one of the principal roles you’re (all) playing.

There is change possible here; devote yourself — your love, your dedication, your mettle, your ability to ask for help and to receive it: these will stand it, and you, in good stead. Because, here’s the secret: it, and you — all of you — are inseparable. Knowing that, how can you do all of you justice?

What is your next move?

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: The Moon (Pisces), Eight of Disks (Sun in Virgo), The Judgment (Pluto)

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.

Planet Waves is running a membership drive.
Read more in Solstice Fire and the Art of Service, by Eric Francis.

By Sarah Taylor

There are some interesting correlations and mathematics in this week’s reading.

First, like last week, the first two cards belong to the major arcana, with a minor — this time Wands — to the right of them. We are riding on a theme here, and my sense is that this week is a particular evolution of something that is not new, but is starting to shift into new territory.

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

Second, Pluto appears at the centre in the form of The Judgment, just as it moves to centre-stage in the news: the New Horizons space probe is due to fly past the dwarf planet tomorrow, July 14, 2015. One headline sums up the synchronicity: “Pluto to give up its secrets.”

Or, is it that the influence of Pluto is giving up your secrets?

Numerically, the number “two” is underscored in both readings. Here, Justice is card 11, The Judgment is card 20, both cards adding up to 2 (1+1 and 2+0). The High Priestess from last week, as card 2 in the major arcana, is making another visit this week, but in a different guise: the accompanying book to The Röhrig Tarot explains that the figure in The Judgment is The High Priestess — only this time, with her eyes open.

The liminal feminine, inward-looking, in the past (as the High Priestess to the left of last week’s reading), is now present, here right now, and calling others to their own awakening — as she is calling you to yours. You are turning your inner vision outwards. This is further reflected in the contrast between the angel and the blind-folded figure of Justice who sits in the recent past.

Finally, nine (from the Nine of Wands) is the difference between XX (The Judgment) and XI (Justice). This is all leading you somewhere.

It is leading you to the point of breakthrough. Are you able to recognise the call to action and shift that fortified, entrenched way of acting — the one that, quite frankly, has started to bore you, and everyone else, to tears — so that you give yourself enough space to a) see a way through and b) get yourself there?

Hint: get out of your own way. There is nothing else you need to do. There are bigger forces at work than you alone, and they are the driving factors. To push is to add unnecessary fuel to an already kinetic situation. To resist is to look into the eyes of an angel and mistrust what you see. There is no need to fight; the weapons were laid down some time ago. It is time to listen, to hear what is being spoken to you through the trumpet-blast of your own awakening.

It is time to look into the eyes of that angel and feel the steadfast, compassionate inevitability of your own exposure.

They say that Justice is blind. And, you know, that blindness served a purpose. It sifted out what was no longer necessary; it weighed up a situation and guided you in a particular direction (you might not have had much choice about it). It also gave you the time to honour the path not taken. The blindfold denoted an unwillingness to be swayed by sentiment or subjectivity. Justice brought you to where you are now — at the feet of an angel. And she is not blind. She sees everything. She sees you, fully; and, through the reflection of her eyes, you have a rare moment: to see more of yourself than you had heretofore thought possible.

To see more of yourself and to stand present in that knowledge, neither attacking your reflection nor turning away from it.

The eyes of an angel.

Imagine the power that is generated in that moment — an instant of recognition, the removal of what felt impenetrable. Simply because you realise that the way you’ve always seen something is not the only way to see it. What would our world be like if we acted as if nothing existed over the horizon? Now imagine what the world would be like if the choices you had were not limited to the ones you’ve made in the past.

Deciding to see differently is seldom enough to achieve different sight. Right now, though, the forces at work are such that a shift in perspective is within reach. You just need to get out of the way. No, you can’t put conditions on it. No, you cannot control it. No, you are not able to stipulate what you deem acceptable to see and what you’d prefer to remain concealed. No, there is no need to hide anymore.

The magic of an invisible world stands poised to reveal itself. It has only seemed like magic because it defied your sense of what was possible. Until now. Until now.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Justice (Libra), The Judgment (Pluto), 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.

Planet Waves is running a membership drive.
Read more in Solstice Fire and the Art of Service, by Eric Francis.

Planet Waves — the Art of Service. Digital Illustration by Lizanne Webb.

By Sarah Taylor

What happens when the Sun and the Moon come together?

Illumination.

The High Priestess, The Sun, Six of Swords from The Röhrig Tarot deck, created by Carl-W. Röhrig. Click on the image for a larger version.

Illumination is the name of the game with this week’s reading of (from left to right) The High Priestess, The Sun, and the Six of Swords. From reflected light, to radiating light, to a moment of en-lighten-ment and the a-lighting after travel from one place to another.

Contrary to what many assume, The Moon in tarot does not correspond to its namesake, but rather to Pisces. It is The High Priestess who is the tarot representative of our Moon, and for good reason: she reflects the light of consciousness, much like the Moon reflects the light of the Sun. She is the feminine lunar to the masculine solar.

This can be seen practically in the role of The High Priestess, which is to experience Spirit. She then ‘translates’ her experience — non-verbal as it is — to those who cannot experience it directly. She is an intermediary, much like her partner The Magus, who, as Mercury, is the messenger between the divine and the human realms. But whereas Mercury is active, The High Priestess is receptive. She is not so much interested in outer communication as she is in inner communion.

The High Priestess also works alone. So this card, representing as it does the near past and foundation to your present circumstances, speaks to a time where it was necessary to take a step back and to listen. What you were listening for was the wisdom that was able to move through you when you were still enough to be its container.

How still were you? How clearly did you hear it? How true to its words were your own?

Because the challenge with The High Priestess is that the truth you received may have been an inconvenient one — for you, or for those around you. Or both. It’s one thing knowing for yourself a particular truth; it is quite another fully admitting it to yourself and communicating it to those for whom it is meant. Frequently, The High Priestess will know, but she or others will not want to. Sometimes, The High Priestess is in the painfully privileged position of holding an answer that will remain unacknowledged. More than that: she may be punished for it.

However, The High Priestess’s power is not in the message: it is in her ability to connect in the first place. Anything that comes from that is secondary. Her power is personal, private, often silent and seldom recognised — and cannot be diminished for its lack of voice or recognition.

You may have gone unacknowledged, what you held inside undiscovered — maybe even ridiculed. Take heart in your ability itself, and not in its results.

It is this ability that has connected you with the current illumination that is hitting your world full-on. What you knew, can now be seen first-hand. What you felt as truth has, in some way or another, come out into the open. Under the light of The Sun, everything is revealed. There can be no secrets and no hiding; there is instead an opening to consciousness and the rays of awareness that blaze into every corner, nook and cranny.

The work is done. Well, this particular aspect of the work anyway. In one fell swoop, we have spanned nearly the entire major arcana, and walked the path of the Moon and into the Sun. Night to day. In the relative blink of an eye.

The Sun is an interesting card to me because frequently it is seen as an entirely positive one. I see it differently. It is positive, but objectively so: it is not limited to joy or happiness but encompasses the myriad ways that something can come ‘to light’. It is neither good nor bad. It shines. And in that way, we are freed from the secrets we have kept.

It reminds me of a conversation between the two main characters, Sue and Mick, in the movie Crocodile Dundee. Sue is trying to explain the concept of therapy to Mick, but it is Mick’s wisdom that throws things into a different light:

Sue: I suppose you don’t have any shrinks at Walkabout Creek.

Mick: No. Back there if you got a problem you tell Wally. And he tells everyone in town, brings it out in the open, no more problem.

That’s The Sun. Out into the open; no more problem. Not unless you want to make more of a problem out of it. But why would you want to? This is a shift into a new state, and one that brings you into the company of others: when there’s more light, you also get to see who’s around you.

And there is more ‘shift’ to come in the final card, which hints at what is moving over the horizon — perhaps even literally. The Six of Swords — or Science — describes the voyage from one place to another — often metaphorically, but sometimes geographically too.

What had remained unclear in the painful skirmish of the previous card that is implied by the Six’s presence — the Five of Swords — has now had the light of consciousness trained on to it. This consciousness is fearless; it simply wants to see. There is currently in you a willingness to see what The High Priestess knew all along. You are at a point of admitting to yourself and others what you had sensed, and in a way that sets everyone free. This light generates forward movement, the solution to what seemed like an insoluble problem, the ironing out of a wrinkle or two — or three — of misperception.

There is the understanding of something at hand. A “light-bulb” connection is made. New shores beckon.

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Planet Waves is currently running a membership drive entitled the Art of Service — pretty fitting with a tarot reading this week that has illumination as its core focus. I spoke a little about my own experience of Planet Waves last week, and how I found it at a time when its support made an appreciable difference in my life. I know that I’m not the only one.

We can all do our bit to keep Planet Waves shining. You can do this by simply spreading the word, donating, or joining our community if you haven’t already done so.

Visit the link here to become a Core Community member. Let’s keep this light shining brightly.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: The High Priestess (Moon), The Sun (Sun), Six of Swords (Mercury 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.

Planet Waves is running a membership drive.
Read more in Solstice Fire and the Art of Service, by Eric Francis.

Planet Waves — the Art of Service. Digital Illustration by Lizanne Webb.

By Sarah Taylor

Before you read this week’s tarot reading, which, itself, is about service, I wanted to speak a little to a phrase you might have encountered on Planet Waves if you’ve been visiting recently: the Art of Service.

Planet Waves is small enough to embody that most precious of experiences in this vast, often impersonal, place called the World Wide Web: community. It was community that drew me in when I visited some eight years ago; it was community that encouraged me to take part in many of the post discussions; it has been community that has helped me find and enjoy many friendships, online and off; and it is community today that feels critical when so much is telling us that we, individually and collectively, are not important, and that we have no voice.

We do. We all matter. Planet Waves matters in the lives of those, both vocal and silent, who come here to find meaning and a sense of place. That is community and the Art of Service in action.

Community supports us; and it continues to thrive in turn through the support of its members. We who write here could not do what we do without you — and I know that this relationship is reciprocal, as one who has come here, not knowing what to do, and finding the guidance I needed at just the right time.

So, please, consider taking out a membership if you haven’t already. If you have, then consider introducing someone else to a Planet Waves subscription. Community is dependent on its existing members, and also has the potential to expand its support base through the welcoming of new ones, their ideas and their contributions. The more we weave the web (Web), the greater the support available.

Visit the link here to become a Core Community member. It takes minutes, its cost is nominal, and its value frequently lies beyond the words to describe it.

With love,

~ Sarah

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Today, left, centre, right: past, present, future. The Hermit, Five of Disks, Ace of Cups.

This is a chronological reading, telling you what is passed and forms the foundation to your reading this week; what you are currently experiencing; and what you are moving towards and into. It is an evolution, from self-contained and isolated seeking, to the radiation of what you have found in your inner Soul travels.

The Hermit, Five of Disks, Ace of Cups from The Röhrig Tarot deck, created by Carl-W. Röhrig. Click on the image for a larger version.

You don’t have to worry. Or — rather — feel free to acknowledge that there is something weighing upon you, and it is not the full story of your travels and travails.

It is leading you from something and to something. Your worry is the waypoint between two states, where you feel left, holding the world on your shoulders, with no apparent way forward. You feel held in place by something that is both so big that you cannot easily see it, and perhaps so consuming of your time and energy that the challenge is incumbent on you merely to stay upright through it all. You may feel you are not up to the task.

You are up to the task. More than that: this is the task. This is your work right now, a progression from a particular role that you took on some time ago — one where you committed yourself to the practice of a skill of how to be in the world. Whether a formal commitment or one that may have felt thrust on you by circumstances, Disks describe a tangible way of operating in the world. Think back to a moment where these words may have come to you, either consciously or just beyond the level of everyday perception:

“If not now, when? If not you, who?”

It’s an old ‘un, but a good ‘un. And, whether you know it or not, you are the embodiment of this in a specific form and expression.

As The Hermit, you were recently living in a mode of separation — from others, from the world. The Hermit is not the most uplifting of cards at times, especially if you are someone who relies on or feels more comfort in the company of others. Not that you were completely alone, all of the time. That’s not The Hermit — not most of the time, anyway. But what The Hermit is is that time of personal integration after the expansion of The Lovers, the forward motion it leads to (The Chariot), and the leonine ROARRRR! of the discovery of your animal instinct.

After this delving into the other and the erotic, it has been time to close the door on the outside world of distraction — and the potential to squander your new-found eros on pursuits that merely have you running in circles — and to take what you have been given, and use it. Own it. Be it. Live it. Dive under the surface and find the deeper gift — the one of service, both to yourself, others, and the divine.

As The Hermit, you have had the opportunity to become discipline, embodied. As The Hermit, you turn away from sexual power as distraction and learn about sexual power as the extraction of that elixir within that serves everyone and everything.

In psychological terms, you learn to sublimate: the act of channelling eros towards creativity — one that has its roots in a Will that is larger than your own will. This Will is unconcerned with individual wants and needs. This Will is the drive to become more fully yourself, and by doing this you hold the key to bringing something of value into the world.

The frustration inherent in this is that you may have little idea of the “what” and “why” of your specific role. Surrender to Will means surrender to a higher wisdom. Surrender to a higher wisdom means not always knowing what the process or the outcome will be. Surrender to the process means the surrender of the trappings that you thought were the final story in your animal-driven, instinctual experience of yourself as a sensual body in a sensual world.

After Lust, the laundry.

So, this burden that you feel you are carrying may indeed feel worrisome.

“Where is my support?”
“Why is this all starting to feel a little heavy?”
“Do I know what I’m doing?”
“Am I able to find balance at a time where it seems others, or my faculties, have deserted me?”

But through this, you are finding and refining an equilibrium in the physical world.

Think of it this way, intrepid traveller: when you learn new skills, you also bring in the opportunities to try them out. As a unicycle juggler (you, the figure in the Five of Disks), you got your three-ball routine down pat … and now the clown on the sidelines has just thrown you a couple of new balls. Whoa! Wobble, wobble! Back-and-forward on that unicycle you dance, the wheel searching for that midpoint that will bring you fully upright again.

It is nothing you didn’t ask for. It is nothing that wasn’t asked from you.

Keep going. You’re in that ring. You might feel alone, but there are others around you, witnessing your work. Yours is a performance that is part of a greater performance. What you are holding is not the final point of it all, but it gets you there: to the moment when you know why it was that you are doing what you are doing. And the paradox of that moment is that, then, the juggling act will no longer be necessary.

Because what you are moving into is connection. The Ace of Cups. Pure and simple. The point is not to complete your task; the point is to connect through its endeavour.

Your juggling is simply the doorway to the Ace. It is the tangible method through which you begin to feel what balance is. You lock into what lies at the Heart of you. You re-member. The three-ring circus disappears. There is no separation between you, those around you, and the roles that each of you have assumed.

You throw the balls into the air in a round of riotous applause, your arms spread open. It is then that you understand that you’ve never needed anyone’s applause. The joy of who you are is its own ecstatic reward.

“I stand in golden rays radiantly
I burn a fire of love over and over
Reflecting endless light relentlessly
I have embraced the flame forever and ever.”

~ Depeche Mode, “Heaven.” (See the video here.)

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: The Hermit (Virgo), Five of Disks (Mercury in Taurus), Ace of Cups (the purest, infinite potential of water)

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.