By Sarah Taylor

You do the same thing, over and over; or you change.

This phrase came to me as soon as I had drawn the three cards. Or, rather, as soon as the three cards drew themselves: there they were, left on the table after the fifth shuffle of my deck, the exact number I needed. And a perfect combination.

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

You do the same thing, over and over; or you change. This is Psych 101: the repetition of the very things that hurt and — here — disappoint us tends to be our default setting. It is an unconscious process that only comes to light after the play has finished, the lights go up, and you are hit with the realisation that you’ve seen it before. Many times. Your life as the play. All the world’s a stage.

Which means that the large, dense, looming cube in the Five of Cups may also seem familiar to you. It embodies that experience when the road is blocked by something that frustratingly prevents you from getting where you feel you want to go. More than that, though, is that sinking feeling that you know this cube very well. You’re practically on first-name terms with it — if it were interested in engaging you in conversation. But it is not.

Its job is to be where it is. In front of you. And, because we are dealing with cups, what it will bring up in you is something feeling-based. It may be accompanied by thoughts, but primarily it is the emotion attached to meeting that obstacle that prevails.

Imagine yourself in this position. You might not need to imagine this; it could be that this is something you are facing down at this moment. Now, here’s the thing: Stop. Stop, and feel. Stop and move, not along that road — which is not, or no longer, available to you — but into your feelings about that road and what you have met on your way to where you were heading.

Feel. Disappointment is the route in, but what lies beneath that might be altogether more raw. Grief, pain, loss. These are the feelings associated with how the Five of Cups appears in your life, hinted at in the card:

“unexpected disruptions,” “Lost balance,” “problematic Relationship.”

What formative experiences have generally taught us to do is to avoid these feelings. When we were younger, we probably couldn’t afford to dwell on them; our very survival was at stake. Now that we are older, however, that pattern has been ingrained. Avoid, avoid, avoid. Don’t feel. Don’t go there. And what happens? Unacknowledged, unmet and unfelt pain, pushed back down into the recesses of our psyches, which then creates the very circumstances to bring them to the surface again. Not to punish us — but so that we have another opportunity to acknowledge, meet, and feel them.

You are not being punished. You are getting a chance to do what you didn’t do last time. You are getting the opportunity to stop, in that moment where you would shut your eyes and refuse to see; instead you can stop, sit down, and sit with that cube. That sum of all of your disappointments as they are meeting you today.

The paradox, when looking at this particular version of the Five of Cups, is that the only way out is through. Not “through” measured by progress in your physical reality but by moving through the internal terrain of your heart.

Become a Fool. Be prepared to step into the unknown. Not-knowing allows The Fool to come into play — and it is here as a central archetype whose potential is activating at this moment. The Fool is calling you into your own Fool’s Journey, which here begins with opening your heart to what wounded you profoundly some time back.

That heart-opening is the agent for the change that appears to the left of The Fool. Unlike the Five of Cups — associated as it is with what lies within — this change is one that manifests in your outer life, as you, The Fool, are able to hold open the space for it, while also admitting the full emotional extent of what the term “disappointment” means for you.

The change is not something enacted consciously; it happens as a result of playing The Fool and being wholly prepared to step into the abyss of your blocked heart. That is the route to the great opening, where a landscape lies ready to reveal itself. Where you lie ready to reveal yourself — both to yourself and to others. And it is beautiful!

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Two of Disks (Jupiter in Capricorn), The Fool (Uranus), Five of Cups (Mars in Scorpio)

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 the cards speak in the way that they are doing this week, then it’s time to pay attention. Specifically to three things:

• What was coming up on the horizon mid-December last year
• How that came into focus in your life around Jan. 11 this year
• What is about to move into the picture again from the week of Jan. 4, and how it, too, is related to the reading of Jan. 11

This is going to get a little mind-based, but given a Swords card is the central card (again) — and Swords are associated with the mind, mental processes, and beliefs — we might as well make use of the prevailing analytical current and apply it.

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

I’m going to go through each of these three points and see what emerges over the ensuing paragraphs, and how that might be playing out in your life in ways that make sense to you. Or at least they may seem to make their own sense even if they are held in a kind of mystery to which the mind is only partially admitted.

First, the Six of Swords made an appearance on Dec. 14 last year in the right-hand position. Swords, as I mention above, are to do with the mind, and the Six of Swords is one of the most ease-ful of the often difficult Swords suit. In this deck, it is associated with a kind of mental breakthrough, or synthesis; an idea that solves a quandary, or a meeting of minds that suggests a feeling of ‘falling into place’ — where, “Wow! Three and three equal six! Why did I not see that before?!” Appearing as it did in this position suggests that its influence was being hinted at or intuited, but it did not yet have a tangible presence in your life.

I will also go back to the idiomatic meaning of the Six of Swords, which will be relevant for some: a journey over water.

This changed around the week of Jan. 11 (the second point above), when the future became present and the Six of Swords moved from the right-hand position to the central position. Something started to get real wings. What was merely a glint in the celestial eye moved into the realm of tangible possibility. And this week, the Six of Swords is, yet again, in the centre of the reading.

This possibility of synthesis, understanding, a meeting — or a journey — still stands, or has developed or evolved in some way. And it still has as its basis The Hermit, which is also in the same position as it was on Jan. 11. The synthesis or journey has come out of a period of inner contemplation that has transformed the way you think about something, what you believe, how you choose to approach a particular mystery. That, in essence, has allowed the mystery to remain as such while you, simultaneously, have been able to navigate it. Yes, that’s the paradox right here: neither you nor the mystery had to surrender who you were at core in order to get to the other side.

You see, The Hermit has learned that, to work its magic, the mystery is embraced, but not solved.

Which brings us to the third point: that which is about to move into the picture again from the week of Jan. 4, and how it, too, is related to the reading of Jan. 11.

On Jan. 4, Justice appeared in the near-past or foundational position of the reading. Today, on Jan. 25, she appears in the near-future reading. We are currently in Mercury’s retrograde phase in Aquarius (underlined by the Six of Swords, which corresponds to Mercury in Aquarius), and so what is coming up will be a revisiting of old ground from early January.

Bearing this in mind, what did Justice mean to you then, and what does it mean to you now? I wrote this about Justice on Jan. 4:

“No fighting — no projecting conflict outside. The time for that particular engagement has passed. You now work with what is — it is the foundation for where you find yourself in the present.”

That ‘present’ is about to make itself known again — the implication being that you will have an opportunity to make a choice as to whether you want to project an inner conflict outside, or to assume any responsibility for it that you have heretofore assigned to others.

This is not about taking responsibility for what isn’t yours, but rather to look at conflict with a discerning eye and look at where any roots have their origin in you, or your own experience of conflict in the (distant) past that you are now revisiting. Again, The Hermit, as foundational card, can assist you both with discerning what is yours and what isn’t, and with being able to hold and transform what you now see to be true.

The outcome is also linked to the third point above, and has a connection to the reading from Jan. 11. Look back at that reading and to the Princess of Swords on the right, and then look at Justice. There are a couple of striking similarities and contrasts between both, and I am going to pick out just a few.

The first is that they are both female figures, except Justice speaks of a soul-based experience, while the Princess speaks of an element of the personality, or a specific person. The second is that both figures have a weapon with a distinctive hilt, except the Princess holds her sword to herself while Justice rests her arm on her light-sabre in order to weigh up the scales of karma. The third is that while the Princess’s eyes are open, and her headdress is made of 18 eyes similar to her own, Justice wears a blindfold fashioned by the cosmos. One sees personally; the other one is guided — not by her eyes, but by the checks and balances of existence and patterns that lie beyond our minds to comprehend.

And so we come back to this reading: The Hermit is the point where our personal comprehension encounters the mystery; Justice is where balance is restored and where the impersonal comes into play. Both of these meet in the maze of the mind — the Six of Swords — in a way that honours both.

You are the intersection of man and mystery; from this intersection magic is both made and honoured. Something is happening here. You might not be able to explain it fully. No — you will not be able to explain it fully. However, you can know it and you can feel its effects. There are bigger things at work. But you are an integral part of them. Perhaps that’s all you need to know.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: The Hermit (Virgo), Six of Swords (Mercury in Aquarius), Justice (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

Taking a look back over recent readings, there are correlations between this reading and two others that are asking for attention: first, with the reading last week (Sunday, Jan. 4, 2015), and, second, with the reading of Dec. 14, 2014. If we approach these as significant, this means that there is a larger story the cards are telling you about your life, from week to week — sometimes focussing on one theme; sometimes returning to another; sometimes bringing in something new.

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

Last week, the reading held the following cards, from left to right: Justice, Eight of Disks, Princess of Cups (the Page in Rider-Waite Smith-based decks). This week’s reading, from left to right holds: The Hermit, Six of Swords, Princess of Swords. That’s a major arcana, a minor arcana, and a court card respectively — both courts also being Princesses.

Something feels like it is lining up. Two parallel lines; two parallel, yet interconnected, experiences. Both with their roots in a larger life theme (both major arcana cards being those larger life themes, and in the card associated with the past); both applying those themes in the practicalities of the present (the minor arcana cards in the centre position); and both heralding the emergence of a new way of being (the Princesses in the future positions).

I write “a new way of being” because Princesses are the nascent, personality-based expressions of their suit. They are relatively young and inexperienced, yet they are also bold, fearless, and unadulterated (un-adult-erated). They have not yet learned to self-censor in the way that older people do — and more respect to them for being this way. They are the way-showers, the liberators, the renegades and rebels. Their rebellion can be quiet and personal, or loud and provocative. It can be destructive, constructive, or both. One way or another, though, an aspect of self is birthed and makes its presence known — either in you, or through a reflecting back to you from someone else.

Many of us will be trying out our new wings right now, that’s for sure.

So, in the cards this week, we have a time of introspection in the past, which may or may not have been accompanied by feelings and tangible experiences of solitude. This is The Hermit, which is the card that comes after the extroversion of Strength, and indicates moving within. This is a vital aspect of the soul journey, moving within. Without this time, we cannot integrate what we have discovered on the way.

It is often not an easy time. It is often not easy to contend quite as fully with ourselves as The Hermit asks of us. We fight tending the inner fire. We will do much in order not to look into its flames, let alone nurture it. But something has come of this time. Work has been done. The wood has been chopped, the water has been carried.

And now there is a period that you are currently moving into, which was coming up on the horizon in mid-December last year:

“The words on the Six of Swords:

“Differentiation,” “Cognitions,” “ability to analyse.”

Three swords stand, point down, on each side of the card. Balance, yet “differentiation.” Analysis, yet synthesis. This is one of the ‘lightest’ of the Swords cards, and speaks of a transition from the confusion of the Five to a coming together and moving into a new form. It will also frequently speak of a trip across water in the real world. There is a shift to a new state of relating, and relatedness. This is likely to have its origins in you, although it may also play out through the mirror of another, or others, in your life.”

The outcome: freedom. Freedom from a belief that has held you back, freedom from an inability to express yourself, freedom to stand for something that releases you and others, freedom to have your own mind. Again, this is the start of something: the Princess needs time to mature and take her place at the head of court — to integrate and live out her promise fully. But she is there, and she will be heard.

What will come from that assertion is a sense of being unashamedly yourself in how you see and relate to a part of life. Your life.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: The Hermit (Virgo), Six of Swords (Mercury in Aquarius), Princess of Swords (the earthy aspect of air)

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 a perfect first card to bring in the New Year, and a perfect lead-on from the third card in the previous reading. The Fool — card 0 of the tarot’s Major Arcana, the beginning of all things — picks up, at left, where The World — card 21 of the tarot’s Major Arcana, the closing of one door and the opening of another — concluded last week.

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

One way to look at the tarot is from a wider perspective that views it as a reflection and relating of the process of individuation (of becoming whole, individual beings in a shared experience). From that perspective, the Major Arcana is concerned with the broader and deeper themes of the soul and the parts of it that are currently expressing themselves through us.

As such, The World brought something full-circle, and The Fool is a new start, a striking out on the road of inner and outer experience. A new circle is being formed as we look at the three cards in front of us.

These are the words I can decipher on The Fool:

“Courage to stand by oneself,” “independence,” “Creativity,” “Great potential,” “possibility,” “willingness to risk,” “freedom,” “Possibility for quantum leaps,” “frankness,” “following one’s own feeling.”

Perhaps it is that The Fool offers “the pathless land” that Jiddu Krishnamurti spoke of on the dissolution of the Order of the Star. It is ‘no-path’; it is in the stepping out that The Fool creates his/her own. This is individuation, expressed. The Fool is for no-one but him/herself. S/he is unique, s/he knows it, and his/her movement through life defines, and is defined, by this.

It is also true that when we strike out into uncharted waters, we will frequently be called fools by those who watch from the sidelines and express their opinions, whether they are based on concern, fear or jealousy. Really, it always comes down to fear in one form or another.

You might be told that you don’t know what you’re doing. That might be true. But when The Fool appears, ignorance is no excuse for not taking that first step. And — most important — it is yours alone to take, alone.

The Fool is an interesting card to me today in one particular respect: the line drawings sketched out in the bottom-left corner of the torn-out note-paper. There is a butterfly, a dove perched in front of a heart, a crocodile, the head of a large cat, a naked couple (fucking), and a snake. All of these appear or are alluded to in the larger image of The Fool: the two sides of the butterfly reflected in the two faces of The Fool; the dove is now feathers; the heart on left cheek; a tiger in the jaws of the crocodile in the upper left quadrant; the merging of both genders into a gender-melange that defies categorisation; the quickening of the ‘snake’, or erotic energy, that enlivens and is created through that merging.

The Fool, like us, brings in a complexity that is both paradoxical for a ‘new start’ and also reflects the human condition. We are a mix of expressions, of complexes, of contradictions held beautifully and haphazardly; we are a blank slate upon which are writ our experiences in invisible ink — not even known to ourselves as we strike out in the direction of our soul’s calling. If we knew, we would never move in the first place.

As it is, it is our very ignorance — and the way we masquerade with ourselves — that allows us to get creative and to get moving.

But what is the flavour of this next step? Or what is it that is the driving force behind it? This is the card to the right of The Fool — the Ace of Swords.

Similarly to the Major Arcana, the Aces are pure-form cards, except in this case they are the as-yet-untapped, available quality of their suit. The Ace of Swords can be described as insight, or wisdom. Like the razor-sharp blade that reflects a ray of light, it is the mind when it is in full alignment with the Self, as it forms a bridge between you and a higher consciousness. When you draw upon the gift of the Ace of Swords, you draw on that light. But the operative phrase here is ‘draw upon’: it is available, yes, and it also asks for your involvement — your commitment to attuning to and working with it.

As The Fool seeking to express yourself in a way that is uniquely your own, you have on your path the gift of insight — a means of seeing that looks both into and beyond your immediate circumstances. You can access what might seem hidden to others; you can act clearly, cleanly, swiftly, economically, powerfully. The clouds of doubt part in the presence of this gift. The route reveals itself to you.

What it leads to will differ, given all paths are unique. But to you, in some key way, it will feel like the Success that is described in the final card — and it will be tangible, grounded in the physical world. Look at this card carefully — perhaps with that inner sight and a sense of adventure — and hear it calling to you. Where is it taking you? What is it that you look out at from your vantage point? That remains to be seen.

First, though: that first step.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: The Fool (Uranus), Ace of Swords (the pure potential of air), Six of Disks (Moon in Taurus)

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

For a long time, it felt like you were carrying it all alone; holding things together, shouldering the burden of an experience or task that seemed to give you space for little else.

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

Now, things have shifted, and opened, and there is a feeling of that burden being shared — or at the very least a spaciousness that had heretofore eluded you.

You can look up, and see ahead of you; you can feel the support of those around you. Those, perhaps, who have been with you through your time of trial, but who were also caught up in their own “Work,” equally involved in a task that called for their attention.

I drew the Nine of Disks first, and put it at centre. Very clearly this is the point at which you find yourself. A lack of perceived equality in the Three of Disks (the card of apprenticeship to life) — a needing to learn — is in the past, and there is a dawning knowledge of a ‘standing together’, where each entity is its own, and nothing holds authority over anything else. The only authority to be held is one’s own, over oneself.

The landscape in the central card reflects this evolutionary step from Three to Nine (three times three; three figures bringing shared experience in the spirit of equality): fecund, blooming, the sky colours soft, a light radiating from the heads of the two men and woman, and from behind the mountain range in the distance. The inner light meeting the outer; as within, so without.

“the more I give the more I get,” “association of love wisdom and creativity.”

That connection was always there, but, bent double, it was nearly impossible to see or to know it. There is a ‘pay it forward’ feeling to the Nine, where all aspects are in co-operation to bring it about.

However, the central card would not have been possible without the card to its left. A card that combines both “effort” and “success.” The seeds of success were held in the effort itself. It might have felt like it was too much to carry, or that you were alone and forgotten. You were not. The Three and Nine are intrinsically linked, serving the same purpose, which becomes clearer in the final card to the right.

The World. The closing of one door and the opening of another. What better card to see in the Solstice? What better planetary correspondence (The World is associated with the planet Saturn) when Saturn is in the last degree of Scorpio, and just about to move into Sagittarius?

The writing on The World is in German, but one of the phrases stands out to me:

“The conclusion of karma.”

The woman, who is The World, is liberating herself from the chains of karma. You, who are your own world, are seeing yourself in this mirror. The snake is freed too, and works in unison with the woman: the unleashing of erotic energy that is held comfortably and yet allowed its own expression. There is no controlling; no runaway uprising.

Both are in co-operation — and this is reflected in the co-operation in the Nine of Disks. Except this time it is the co-operation of one aspect of self — a sense of place in one’s world that has been hard-won — with another: that mysterious, root connection to a primal creative force that lies at the foundation of everything.

This might feel strange at first — difficult, even. You have a handle on it; and if you don’t, you have the ability to acquire it. It is at your fingertips.

You can own this experience. You, and your band of brothers and sisters — whether inner, human, material- or resource-based — have been working a long time for this.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Three of Disks (Mars in Capricorn), Nine of Disks (Venus in Virgo), The World (Saturn)

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

Once more, we have a Queen and a Prince in the line-up (the last one was two weeks ago, on Sunday, Nov. 30). There is a whole lot of integration going on, if we take the view that any court card represents an aspect of the self that is in current expression — in other words, that is at the forefront of an inner transformation.

Queen of Wands, Prince of Disks, Six of Swords from the Röhrig Tarot deck, created by Carl-W. Röhrig. Click on the image for a larger version.

Here, both courts encompass all four elements, so there is a rich balancing act at play: the Queen of Wands is the watery aspect of fire, and the Prince of Disks is the airy aspect of earth. Moreover, the Queen is head-on to us, while the Prince is in profile, facing the Queen; a reciprocity between one card and the other, and between one card and us. This is a three-way conversation in action.

Who are you? Who are you becoming? Where is the dominant feminine seeking integration with a masculine that is in his prime, but not yet King?

The Queen of Wands is described by the following words on the card: “Self Knowledge,” “Sympathy,” “change.” The only English word on the Prince’s card is “Design,” although one word in German will almost certainly be translated as “Architect.”

The two primary differences between this reading and the one two weeks ago are that the Queen and the Prince’s positions are switched, and so the Prince now looks at the Queen instead of looking away from her. And his eyes are open and filled with the light that sits inside his crown. That light is reflected in the feather beneath his chin and the constellation to the right of the gem in his helmet.

The Queen of Wands is a witch in the broadest sense: she harnesses erotic energy in service to her art — whatever that art may be. And she is the guardian of both that energy, and of herself. She looks at us directly, fingertip on chin, surveying us. She epitomises masculine energy (Wands being masculine and phallic); and yet as the most individuated aspect of the feminine, the Queen has balanced both principles in a way that works for her. She is then able — if she so chooses — to offer that to others and to the world.

The Prince as Architect is a mathematical designer-builder — and yet his suit is a feminine one (Disks), which means that his raw materials, like the sign with which he is associated (Taurus), are of the earth. Like Taurus, he also works with the raw materials of what he considers to have worth; he is an architect of values. He understands what will be enduring, and places his focus on that. Right now, his inner sight is focussed on the Queen.

What does the Prince build that the Queen knows? What does the Queen transform and the Prince construct through his knowledge of form?

The answer lies in the final card, the Six of Swords, or “Science.” Here, we have two separate strands, their origins in two distinct areas of the cosmos, running through a circular maze to meet each other on the other side and to form the most beautiful and complex of blooms, its colours a synthesis of both.

Through separation and trial, we now find integration. Behind the rather exotic flower is a feather of light, which sits at the same level as the light in the Prince’s cranium, and the white of the Queens headdress.

The words on the Six of Swords:

“Differentiation,” “Cognitions,” “ability to analyse.”

Three swords stand, point down, on each side of the card. Balance, yet “differentiation.” Analysis, yet synthesis. This is one of the ‘lightest’ of the Swords cards, and speaks of a transition from the confusion of the Five to a coming together and moving into a new form. It will also frequently speak of a trip across water in the real world. There is a shift to a new state of relating, and relatedness. This is likely to have its origins in you, although it may also play out through the mirror of another, or others, in your life.

Finally, while the Queen is facing us and the Prince is facing the Queen, the Six feels discrete. This integration may be taking place outside awareness, or at least outside a place that is immediately accessible to you — as if it is in your psychological ‘peripheral vision’. You might sense — but not see — it, because, at this moment in time, what you are looking at is that other, and not what you are co-creating.

And there’s nothing wrong with that. Frequently, and perhaps frustratingly to the part of you that loves to believe it knows and has a handle on everything, this alchemical magic needs little of your conscious attention. Simply being there, doing your thing, in the presence of what transforms you, works its own wonder. Let the understanding of this filter through to its own rhythm; the maze confounds at times, but the path has already been resolved.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Queen of Wands (the watery aspect of fire), Prince of Disks (the airy aspect of earth), 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.