By Sarah Taylor

Healer. Lover. Ruler. The reading this week brings you into a close encounter with three aspects of the masculine — more specifically, your masculine — or something or someone who embodies a masculine nature reflected back to you. (It is worth remembering that the masculine and feminine are inner aspects or qualities we all share, no matter what gender we are.)

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

It’s really quite an extraordinary reading, and I can’t quite put my finger on it — yet. Perhaps it is extraordinary because we have, in each card, a separate sub-section of the tarot deck: on the left, there is a Court Card; at centre, a card from the Minor Arcana; and on the right, one from the Major Arcana.

Or perhaps that extraordinariness has something to do with the aspects of the male figures themselves: the Knight (the King in the Rider-Waite Smith deck) — Healer — is looking directly at us, while The Emperor as Ruler looks off the right of the card beyond the reading, his vantage point affording him something in the near future that we are not yet able to see. Finally, the Lover in the Six of Cups seems consumed by the sensation of running his lips over the neck of the woman in his arms — eyes closed, upper part of his body visible, arms drawing her into him.

Sober; sensual; regal. All ornate, however. There is not one card here that speaks of ‘austerity’. It is an immersive, sensory layout that sees the coins in the Knight’s headdress moving into the smaller moons on the woman’s scarf, finally finding themselves as the cosmic dust that gathers in the wake of The Emperor.

Yes. This is immersive. You feel this reading rather than think it.

And if you were to feel the three cards — how they talk to each other, how they are interlinked, what they weave — what would they offer you? What structures and progressions of sensory immersion are played out through your body when you move your eyes from one to the next, to the next, and back again?

Who are you when you look at these cards? Who do you become as a felt sense of each of them? What are they communicating to you in terms of how they move you, and how you move with them? What guises and personae, what actions and drives, do you feel activate in you?

You are Healer. You are Lover. You are Ruler.

As each of these, you engage with yourself and the world differently. Yet while they appear together in one reading, and there is a synergy to them that feels unmistakable, each of them faces in a different direction.

And, as I look closer, more to this story emerges.

The two outer cards are authority figures in the traditional sense: a King and an Emperor. Both reach their positions of authority either by birth, or by an assertion of that authority, whether declared through legislation or an act of war. They are not democratically elected; they assume power. A King is generally considered as ranking lower than an Emperor, though both rule their realms. The card at the centre also speaks of the masculine figure as dominant — except here it is in the context of the intimately interpersonal. Here there is the presence of another who may be the one who is being held and who is positioned as physically submissive, but who feels a wholly equal and essential participant in the tryst.

I wonder if they are not just engaging with the world differently but, more specifically, with their counterparts, whether present or implied? And so I wonder if there are different ways that you engage with another or others depending on the hat you are wearing, the role you are playing, the energy that you are bringing to bear on your life.

Maybe you have more options available to you in how you bring yourself to others than you may at first have believed? Maybe it is entirely natural to feel differently and to act differently depending on the role of authority that you are assuming in your life?

Healer: direct, compassionate engagement. Lover: bold, passionate embrace. Ruler: regal, dispassionate regard.

All three coming together in one place: you. Remember that this is about your own sensory experience of holding these separate yet complementary qualities. Don’t think about it too much. Rather, experience yourself as each one and see where they take you, what they show you, and how you unfold to yourself.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Knight of Disks (the fiery aspect of earth), Six of Cups (Sun in Scorpio), 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

Continuing from last week, we now have the full Court Card complement: in the reading on Sunday, March 8, the Queen of Swords sat at centre, with the Prince (the Knight in the RWS deck) of Swords to her right; and today, the Princess (the Page in the RWS) of Swords stands at centre, with the Knight (the King in the RWS) of Wands to her right.

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

There are shifts and emergences afoot at the level of how you are expressing yourself as an individual with an emphasis on thought, intellect and beliefs. The ‘odd man out’ is the Knight — a Wands card. This denotes both the implied presence (through his absence) of the Knight of Swords, and the birthing of a different emphasis.

How are you experiencing your own evolution from someone who has of late been focused on the mental plane, to one who is now defined by fiery, active, directed creativity? Where is something being birthed from the intellect and asking to be trusted as a force that is more impassioned and intuitive?

More importantly: what risk are you in the process of taking in order to give voice to your beliefs, and to enact them boldly, unapologetically, and in a way that asks you to stick your head above the parapet? Because your act of self-definition and the assumption of an inner authority that burns from the very heart of you will be hard to ignore.

The foundation to this week’s reading is the Seven of Wands. In the card, a figure is seen leaping from one locale to another, negotiating an abyss from which emerges seven Wands. The figure is naked — unarmoured, and without artifice. It is clear from the card that the jump is almost certainly successful.

It is also an act of daring and courage.

It takes a lot to trust the inner force of self-definition and revelation in order to propel yourself to new lands. It takes trust to make that decision when there seems to be no safety net. You are following the calling of your own creativity. That is your map, and little else.

What lies beyond the ledge remains a mystery, save for a growing understanding that there is a voice inside you that is demanding its turn to speak, and a power that is waiting to be expressed.

“no compromises.”

The writing on the Seven of Wands is the essential message of all three cards. The Seven is the act that defines this statement, while the Princess and the Knight are you, the one who is doing it. The Princess of Swords, as the youngest member of the Court Cards, is the voice of innocence that is unafraid to declare what it sees as truth. She is “Rebellion” embodied, the eyes on her headdress denoting the keen-sightedness that she has — the access to her truth that is untempered by artifice or a dwelling on consequences.

She is beautiful; she is willing to stand out. Her sword is something she is still yet to master, but in one key way she has mastered it: she has freed herself. The rope and chain that once bound her are severed. Her hand, no longer held in check by what she has been told to be — the voices, inner and outer, that restrained her — is liberated. Now, she is able to release herself into the world and seek out the independence that was not possible while she was identified with something that sought to keep her in (her) place.

When I look at both the Princess and the Knight next to her, they strike me as one-and-the-same person. Both have their heads at the same angle; the red on the Princess’s headdress mirrors the Knight’s hair. The inner child and the adult in alignment, one with the new ability to see and speak what she sees, the other coming into his own as a force to be reckoned with, and who is able to find a home in the red-hot flames of Eros without being consumed by them. He is fire, and he is also a space in the fire. He knows how to work with what licks up from beneath, and to contain its energy, so that it is shaped and directed consciously.

So it is time to go back to what I noted at the beginning of this article: the Knight of Swords as an implied presence, given he is the only Swords Court Card not to appear in the three cards from last week, and the three this week. Because he is here, that’s for sure, except his outer expression is one that is distinctly more fiery than he is often given credit for. I see the Knight of Wands as holding that Swords energy along with his fire. He is the emissary for both. What a formidable combination! The potential to analyse and apply wisdom in a way that is unequivocally creative.

That’s you, by the way. Yes. You. What is clear here is that you have started to step — no, leap — into a new relationship with your mind and your artistry that is both courageous and measured. You may not have a clear idea of where you’re going, but it seems you have a far clearer idea of who you are than ever before. And what you’re embarking on has legs; it can take you places.

If you can contain and focus what is moving through you, you have the capacity be a force to be reckoned with. Good going, intrepid traveller!

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Seven of Wands (Mars in Leo), Princess of Swords (the earthy aspect of air), Knight of Wands (the fiery 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

Whether permanently, or temporarily, we have moved into a different space with this week’s three cards, all of which come from the major arcana — the 22 archetypes that mark The Fool’s, or Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s, Journey.

The probability of drawing three major arcana cards is, alone, worth noting, given that the major arcana comprises well under a third of the 78-card tarot deck (the rest consisting of 56 minor arcana cards). Statistically, therefore we have less than a one-in-three chance of a major showing up.

The Empress, The Star, The Moon from The Röhrig Tarot deck, created by Carl-W. Röhrig. Click on the image for a larger version.

The tone of the message is clear: pay attention. Pay attention to how this reading might be showing up. And there’s a good reason to pay closer attention than usual: an all-majors reading can have a “behind-the-scenes” quality to it — as if you can feel that there’s definitely something going down but, like a roll of thunder, its origin and direction may not be entirely clear. Although the thunder itself is both heard and felt in your body.

That’s the key: a major arcana reading is happening at a soul level — or, if you will, at the level of the psyche. That there are no minor arcana cards to ‘pin’ it to a particular situation, event, or person doesn’t mean that it won’t be experienced in your day-to-day life. It’s just that, like thunder, it is more immediately accessible as something formless yet undeniably present. A felt sense, a surge of affect (“[T]he experience of feeling or emotion.“), an inner knowing that ‘shift happens’, a psychic (i.e. of the psyche) movement that isn’t directly attributable to a specific happening, but which colours the outside world with the hue of an emergence.

Your own becoming.

On the surface, the reading looks exclusively feminine, yet it is not — bearing in mind that all of us, no matter which gender we are, hold both the feminine and the masculine within us. Actually, while The Moon and The Empress are quintessentially feminine, the card at centre, The Star, is androgynous, even if the figure appears to be female. I know that Carl Röhrig, the creator of the deck, based some of his figures on well-known Hollywood faces; and The Star reminds me strongly of Julie Andrews in her Victor Victoria role, underpinning that idea of androgyny, or gender-switching. Aquarius (which The Star corresponds to) is nothing if not the free-thinker.

As a “free-thinker,” however, The Star as a card is more concerned with the mechanism behind that free-thinking than with the thoughts themselves. Let me explain. The card that comes before The Star in the major arcana is card XVI, The Tower, which symbolises the clearing away of what has been built or constructed and which no longer serves. The reason for this? To re-establish flow — not simply internally, but transpersonally: between you and the divine. The Tower clears away the blocks to the presence of a guiding light that is not of you, but wishes to move through you.

The Star is that flow. It is clarity; it is grace; it is inspiration; it is cosmic connection. Your thoughts are freed from the plaque of your distortions, your contractions, your self-reproach. When The Star is present, you are a “free-thinker” because your own wisdom is in alignment with a greater wisdom. This is not subjugation or brain-washing. It is the understanding that somewhere, somehow, you and it are one and the same.

How does this fit with the other two cards? I see a movement from one state to another, mediated by The Star and suggested by the direction in which the figure is looking, and what s/he looks away from.

The Moon is feminine, and also introverted. It is the card of the contemplative, someone who ‘tunes inward’ rather than ‘moves outward’. It is passive, in the same way that the Moon’s light is reflected from the Sun. That’s not to say that nothing is happening, but what is happening happens in the shadows. The Moon speaks of a time when things may feel unclear in the outer world, and so there is a drawing in and a feeling into the watery body of a world that lies beneath and beyond the five senses. The light of consciousness is temporarily, deliberately, obscured. Something at this time has asked to be retrieved from the depths.

The Moon seems to me to be the foundational card to this reading; something you have been in, and which you are currently moving away from. What you retrieved during your time sequestered in the shadowlands has enabled The Star to appear in this reading. If you look at the light on the top of the figure’s head in The Star, it is what was hidden behind the Moon. Now, it has come out, as if from an eclipse. (I am aware, writing this now, that there is a total solar eclipse later this month, on March 20.)

What you are moving towards is The Empress — another feminine card but, as you can see, the extrovert to The Moon’s introvert.

The Empress will not be ignored. She is life bursting into full-blood-bloom. She’s fluffing out her tail feathers, putting on her red lipstick, sweeping her copper hair into a moussed crown, and joining the party. I have a feeling she isn’t going to be easily ignored. And she means business. She is the inspiration from The Star, embodied and lived out. Her eyes are wide open, and she’s sizing the world up.

Or, is she sizing you up? Her raised-eyebrow expression feels like a feathered throwing down of the fur gauntlet: can you try her on for size? What would it feel like to be Empress for a day — or quite a few days? What would it feel like, not to wield your femininity like a mask, but wear it as an innate part of you — something that has emerged from your knowing and an inspiration that you may not quite be able to explain but, like that thunder, is impossible to ignore?

On one level, this reading is about the complexity of feminine identity in all of us, and the way the seas are shifting and revealing a new wave of the experience of her.

On another, though, it is about sensing that and understanding you have access to a wisdom that works through you, and stepping into this revelation as a state to be lived out. This isn’t hypothetical; it isn’t even simply psychological or emotional; it is physical, baby. Bring her through, bring her in — mediated by your own wisdom. Remember — no masks necessary. She, and you, were made for each other.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: The Empress (Venus), The Star (Aquarius), The Moon (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

“The worst is over; now you can choose to take what it has given you, and transform it.”

This week, the Ten of Swords lies at the centre of the reading. The Ten of Swords also lies at the centre of your experience, in one form or another. Yes, it can be a scary-looking card, but, like The Tower of a couple weeks ago, a first glance seldom, if ever, gives up the whole picture.

Eight of Wands, Ten of Swords, Ace of Cups from the Röhrig Tarot deck, created by Carl-W. Röhrig. Click on the image for a larger version.

The reaction that may be kicking in immediately is, actually, a taste of Swords in action: a thought you attach to a situation that has the ability to colour it all kinds of weird and chaotic; a thought that hides something beneath it; a thought that, for some reason, feels designed to stop you from looking for what’s really beneath.

The mind, eh. Who can fathom that particular rabbit hole? Do you want to fathom that particular rabbit hole? Do you get the feeling that, if you do, you’ll just surface somewhere else with more of the same? That’s what I feel when I look at the Ten of Swords today.

So let’s look into the Ten of Swords — but only for a little bit. Just enough to see what’s useful. And after that, how about we look beyond it? Specifically, to the two cards that flank it, to the left, to the right. All three are linked.

I always like to bear in mind an interpretation of the Ten of Swords I came across in a discussion on a tarot forum. There, someone referred to it as “the card of the drama queen.” I think it makes a good point, and this point comes in the form of bad news and good news.

I’m going to take the traditional tack and go with the bad news first, which is: something has indeed happened. A deal was broken, a relationship didn’t live up to expectations, a job was lost, an unexpected downturn tapped you on the shoulder, a virus morphed into a secondary infection. That’s all there to be seen on the surface of the Ten of Swords, as unapologetic in its expression as the card is.

But the good news is this (and it was revelatory for me): the worst has already happened. The drama queen knows the drama has passed. She is simply singing an old tune, drawing out as much as she can from her experience. You can learn from your inner drama queen: you’ve reached the peak. The dark night has come, and the dawn is about to break over the horizon. You stuck it out, and you saw it through. The drama only continues if you choose not to let that dawning of the light in. That’s why the Ten of Swords was labelled a drama queen. What is passed is done, and yet the mind can still cling to it as a living, breathing reality.

That creature in the Ten of Swords can’t continue to live. Right here, right now, it is only your thoughts about what you’ve been through that give it life.

When I was writing the card correspondences below this article, I mistyped the “Ten” in the Ten of Swords: instead, I typed “tend.” I believe this is on point. Gather up those ugly-beautiful, mismatched, disparate pieces and hold them until they find a home. Share what you are going through with someone who sees you — not just with their eyes, but with their heart. Now you may start to see the alchemy that the Ten of Swords is offering you.

At the top of the Ten, there are two parallel, light-grey seams that look like they’ve been squeezed onto the card from a paint tube. Look to the left, and you’ll see a mirror of them again in the lines that pass between the man and the woman in the Eight of Wands. Except this time, the lines are straighter, whiter and brighter. They are lines of light, less viscous, signifying an exchange from one third eye to the other. There is an intuitive connection that is asking to be harnessed. There is a ‘separateness’ to the figures in the Eight that stands in direct contrast to the hoard of the Ten. There is room to breathe, there is “you” and “me,” and the eyes are spaciousness itself. Take your Ten — take what you have gathered from your pain — and transform it.

The same holds true for the card on the other side — the Ace of Cups. When I look at the rays emanating from the Ace, I see a metamorphosis from the arc of swords at the top of the Ten of Swords, and a naked, ecstatic woman who has taken the place of the dim, red light beneath them.

Take your heart, and transform what you have been given from your time of ‘ruin’. Because if there’s one thing that it has given you, it is an awareness that you have a heart. You can feel it, alive, beating and glowing inside you. It can feel pain, and it can radiate healing. I’m really not sure one of those happens without the other.

You are built of sturdy, enduring stuff — if you were to look past your mind and see the bounty that lies in what you have to offer yourself and others, not in spite of your experience of the Ten of Swords, but because of it. Your broken heart simply broke open. Your mind has simply been released to see more than the darkness. Your solitude has given way to an opportunity for communion.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Eight of Wands (Mercury in Sagittarius), Ten of Swords (Sun in Gemini), Ace of Cups (the pure, limitless 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.

By Sarah Taylor

Ah, Disappointment. There you are again! But, hey — what’s that? You want to come closer? Just so you can help us experience and understand whether we’ve really got it this time? Why, thank you!

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

Yes, I’m being a bit flippant, but the paragraph above holds the gist of the three-card reading in front of us. The Five of Cups is with us again, but with a significant shift in the quality of its appearance from this past Wednesday and the Sunday before that. This is connected both with its changed position in the layout, and the cards that accompanied it on its prior excursions, as well as the ones today.

First, the position. On February 1 and February 11, the Five of Cups was in the third-card position, which more often than not equates to something that’s coming up. It was felt, yes, but the reckoning of that feeling was yet to materialise fully.

Today, Feb. 15, it is in the centre-card position, which puts it at the heart of the matter. In other words, it is in the process of materialising — and by that I mean that you are increasingly becoming conscious of it, rather than there being an objective increase in its intensity. This difference is subtle and important. It is moving into focus; and what you focus on seems to become larger. Keep perspective: know that you are the one who is calling this forward — calling it out. Whether you are aware of it or not, whether you want it or not, a part of you has been waiting for this. You have unfinished business with it.

Second, the accompanying cards. I’m going to focus on two from the two prior spreads, and then the two that are here today. On Feb. 1, we had The Fool at centre. Its presence heralded your stepping into the unknown — taking a new route in the way you negotiate Disappointment. On Feb. 11, we had The Tower at centre. Its presence indicated the dismantling of something that had been built on the false assumptions you were making about love. This dismantling may have felt, and continue to feel, like a loss, a release, or both. Whichever, it was heaven-sent — which has less to do with heaven than it has with a part of you that is connected to an understanding that there is something greater at play than your human wishes and desires. Something that you might not recognise has the capacity to feed you in ways your previous choices may never have offered you.

So, through The Tower, the ground is being cleared for a new reckoning with the Five of Cups. Now that it’s materialising more concretely in your awareness, can you approach it differently? Key to this approach are the qualities available in the two cards flanking the Five: the Eight of Disks, and — another Eight card — Strength. There’s balance in them from the start.

First, the Eight of Disks, or Prudence. You are nurturing something into fragile, beautiful existence that has the ability to sustain not just you, but a group, a community. This asks for dedication and attentiveness. Staying power and a light but firm touch. What you are growing into life is both tangible and magical. It is infused with light while being practical. It could be your tour-de-force.

Bring this awareness to the Five of Cups — the ability to stay the course, to nurture, to sustain — and the sheer rigidity of that central card is shown up for the outdated and unyielding thing that it is. Look at the Eight of Disks and the Five of Cups side-by-side and you’ll understand the contrast, and the felt-sense of the choice available. With Disks and Cups, you’ll be able to tap into your body’s wisdom to discern what is true for you.

And finally there is Strength, card VIII of the tarot’s major arcana.

“Lion,” “Passion (emotion),” “manifold, creative talents,” “power,” “integration of animal forces.”

As a major arcana card, the presence of Strength aligns this reading with the two previous ones (with The Fool and The Tower) and suggests that what you are dealing with is very much part of your life’s journey, your soul path. This is not just about what is happening on a mundane level. This is about how you are negotiating the business of answering the call to grow into yourself — to become the person you were born to become, uniquely you.

The Disappointment you now face is familiar; it is something you have encountered time and again; and it takes you, and you alone, to face down what remains of it and to square it away — perhaps once and for all. Each time you have come round, another layer has been chiselled or blasted apart. Each time you have come round, there is less of a pull into the sense of loss that once seemed second-nature to you. Each time you have come round, you have found more space, inside and out, to nurture something of exquisite beauty and value to you and others.

The Five of Cups, representing here what has haunted you for so long in matters of the heart — well, it doesn’t stand a chance. Step into your ecstasy — the wisdom of your untamed heart — and roar the remnants of disappointment away. ROAR! Bring the animal into the sacred. I have a feeling you’ll be surprised that you know what you’re doing, at the heft you can wield, and the result you achieve.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Eight of Disks (Sun in Virgo), Five of Cups (Mars in Scorpio), Strength (Leo)

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.