By Sarah Taylor

“Once you free your mind about the concept of … being ‘correct’, you can do whatever you want. So, nobody told me what to do, and there was no preconception of what to do.”

— Giovanni Giorgio, songwriter and producer

The reading today is unambiguous: the events from the eclipse period and their effects are still at work in the psyche. You are being encouraged not to turn away from what was revealed to you, and to follow the call of what is yet to emerge into full consciousness, even as the land of The Moon seems alien to your thinking, logical mind. Your thoughts — and here, specifically, thoughts that are enmeshed with fear — are not the focus. The Moon, by its presence at centre, is asking you to acknowledge your fears, and to shift your attention to meet with what feels right in the depths of you. It is painting its desire on the canvas of your heart.

Ten of Swords, The Moon, Nine of Swords from the Rider-Waite Smith Tarot deck, created by A E Waite and illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. Click on the image for a larger version.

How to bring what The Moon is asking to be manifested to light? The card itself points this out in the form of a pathway, which runs between the two towers in the background, which I see as being associated with the Ten of Swords — where you have just come from — and the Nine of Swords — what might potentially re-emerge as a result of that experience.

The Ten of Swords suggests a time of hitting rock-bottom. It is the card of inevitable surrender to a circumstance, whereupon you discover in your prone position that the sky in the distance is clearing. What has happened is done, and the sacrifice you endured was what you needed to go through in order to emerge on the other side with a new perspective.

Now, as you move into uncharted territory, there might be some fear about the re-emergence of something in the Ten of Swords that you know only too well. The Nine of Swords is the card of thought as a mode of self-injury. It represents a deeply engrained belief that has the power to hold you to ransom and thus to isolate you.

Know this, however. The power of the Nine of Swords lies in the power you give to it. When you understand this, you are able to see that your beliefs are a matter of choice. And in that understanding we can all make the courageous choice of taking another path — the pathway that strikes out in a new direction.

The Sun radiates. It is action-orientated. It represents the conscious, which is more readily accessible to the intellect. The Moon works in a different way. Its light is reflected and therefore it is passive. It asks for receptivity rather than activity. It asks that you still the chatter. It asks that you embrace your creature-self, which is more adept at walking through the shadows (think how much better a dog or a jackal can see in the darkness).

Often, we are tempted to avoid The Moon because it isn’t fully understandable. What can happen when we enter the wilds is that we can try to explain it by falling back on prior experience — the Hindu notion of sanskara. There’s your Nine and Ten of Swords. The Moon is bringing you face to face with thought patterns and asking for some deep work around the releasing of those that no longer work for you or serve your highest purpose.

Choose differently. Ask for the help you need to see what you cannot see, and to look at what is so close to you that you hadn’t considered it wasn’t a part of you. Choose the unknown, choose your intuition, your feeling body, a path that is hazy and indistinct, but which calls to you wildishly. Be patient. Above all, be gentle and loving with yourself. This wildish connection is feminine, of the earth, feeling- and body-based, tuned to the world of Spirit; it moves in its own rhythms. It exhorts you in a strange tongue. Learn this language and you learn a new way of relating to your thoughts, to yourself, to others, and to your life.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Ten of Swords (Sun in Gemini), The Moon (Pisces), Nine of Swords (Mars 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.