By Sarah Taylor
This week, after an all-Majors reading last week, you’re back into the day-to-day experiences of life. Well — for the most part: the Ace of Swords signals something that is available to you, if not if not immediately apparent. As with all Aces, it isn’t going to fall into your lap as much as you will need to reach out and help yourself to what it offers. Yes: you will need to help your self.
Ace of Swords, Two of Swords, Five of Cups from The Röhrig Tarot deck, created by Carl-W. Röhrig. Click on the image for a larger version.
And because the reading returns you to the quotidian, you’re also in the realm of what is tangible (though, again, keep an eye on that Ace, which will be more subtle) — so here you’ll really be able to feel what’s going on, and to apply some mental equilibrium to those feelings.
When you look at the three cards in front of you, imagine you’re looking at a seesaw. You have the two cards on the outside, at each end of the seesaw, and then the card at centre as the fulcrum. I’m going to start first with the card on the right, then the card on the left, and finally that point of balance in the middle.
Imagine what it is going to take in your life to get this seesaw to work when you have what you have seated on the right — namely, a bloody big rock. How the hell do you manage to get anything moving — how do you manage to move forward in your life — with the Killjoy-Cube-of-Disappointment that has just whumped! itself down into your life, obliterating the path you were quite keen on taking? That cube even seems to have a voice in this reading. It’s sitting there, practically crossing its arms, uttering that one phrase guaranteed to stop you in your tracks:
“I am so disappointed in you.”
The heart becomes heavy, the inertia of your situation weighs your world down around you. You see little else but this cube. In fact — is this your heart? Is that what you’re looking at when you see it? Is this the shape and inner texture of your feelings? Or maybe something is beating at the centre, if only you could get to it. But how do you move it? How do you get that seesawing momentum back into your life — a life where change is inevitable, yes, but where things move through and move on out because of that inevitability?
The paradox is that even if that rock is immovable, it is not. That seesaw is designed to balance; and here, on the other side, is what you currently have at your fingertips to negotiate a path through Disappointment.
The Ace of Swords is associated with the element of Air, while Cups are associated with Water. Swords are also the masculine counterpart to the Cups’ feminine. Swords represent the mental plane — your thoughts — and the Ace, being the infinite aspect of its suit, is “insight” in its most clear form. Obviously, as with all Aces, they cannot exist in their entirety here on Earth. However, we can avail ourselves of their gifts and use them to the best of our abilities.
This means that what you have available to you, to use in accordance with your means, your imagination and your abilities, is insight. Discernment. Wisdom.
If you look at both cards on either side of the fulcrum — the Five of Cups and the Ace of Swords — you will see that there are some key similarities to the two of them. Both sword and block sit on paths; both have vertical planes; both have mountain ranges in the background; both have blue skies. However, with the Five of Cups, that sky is ‘creased’ — as if there is an interference in that clear thinking because of the sheer magnitude of what is in front of you.
You know what I want to do when I look at the Ace of Swords? I want to take it in the way that I know how, and start using its diamond blade in the service of revealing what that rock really is underneath all of the rough edges and the seemingly impenetrable coldness. I want to find the beating, red heart of Cups. I want to liberate it from the layers and layers of fossilised feelings that are so effective in their own way, because they protect what’s inside as well as hide it.
That voice keeps talking: “I am so disappointed in you.” You can listen; or you can see it for what it is: a voice that belongs to the past, not the present. The Ace is there to cut away what still has a grip but which is so old that it is calcified and unfeeling.
Insight. Discernment. Head balanced healthily with heart. Head to reveal the heart. The Ace is offering inner vision to get to the truth of what is going on, and the truth of who you are. You can take it. It is yours to wield.
When that happens, things start moving, and the card at centre — the Two of Swords — holds the shape of that movement; a transition into blue skies towards the horizon and a different landscape that rises over it.
========
Aces are significant cards to me personally. As a tarot writer, they hold the promise and potential for the right and righteous balance of creativity, heart, intellect and skill that I can then choose to draw from. Aces are also symbols of initiation, and it was an Ace — the Ace of Wands — that initiated me as a writer for Planet Waves by accompanying my first article nearly five years ago.
In Summer 2010, Eric took a chance on me and my tarot abilities and invited me to write a tarot column for this site. In essence, it was through his invitation that an Ace was held out to me, and I chose to take it. I have been ever grateful for this — not simply because of the opportunity to write, but also to participate in a community that has both helped me to discover more of who I am at heart, and supported me through some significant changes. The writers that we have here embody the Aces in all their forms, and I am privileged to be counted among them.
If you have considered taking out a Planet Waves membership, and haven’t yet done so, then this is my invitation to you to consider again. The site relies on its subscribers to keep this great content going, and has refused, time and again, to bow to pressure to derive revenue from third-party advertising.
If you’re interested, you can subscribe here. If you’re interested but you feel it’s a little beyond your means right now, then contact Chelsea at the number at the top of this page and see if there’s a plan to be made — and there frequently is.
With many thanks.
Sarah
Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Ace of Swords (the pure, limitless potential of Swords/Air), Two of Swords (Moon in Libra), 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.
Thank you Sarah for the reading today. It resonates with me to the core…reminding me that I have the power to remove those internal obstacles that I place in my own path…by listening to my heartsong. I love the image of the diamond blade, but right now, I could use some dynamite!
You’re welcome, Gwen!
Think of the sword as a laser; dynamite works and sometimes it’s perfect to remove blocks. Sometimes a laser is preferable because of its precision.
Sarah, today you haven’t explained how the cards were drawn. I know you don’t always but sometimes you do. Today I wish you had.
Because today I have a very cynical pessimistic perspective and in order to over-ride this state of mind it requires more than I usually do.
I am asking you now if you see both of the possibilities’ of this and are simply choosing the most optimistic possibility. Is there a clue in the order?
If I drew these cards I would lay them left to right. My reading is that I have the offer of the Ace of Swords and knowing it to be something like King Arthurs Sword in the stone I am offered something beyond most mortal men’s capacity. I feel the frustration of trying to wield this sword. I look to the middle card and I see my tendency to just allow what comes by floating in the stream and dreaming of the beauty possible. It feels really great in that imaginal place. But to the right of there – I see the hopelessness of moving the granite giant obstacle that has always defined me. This is the feeling I have from these cards.
Any encouragement you can offer is appreciated but truly this mind is what I am up against – and it doesn’t cave in to simplistic explanation’s.
Cowboyiam — I hear you. Your words come through loud and clear and strong. I have a sense of that need to have encouragement and that solid, apparently unyielding obstacle that stands in your way.
In the spirit of the reading, my encouragement is this: you have to reach for that Sword. I can’t give it to you, because it isn’t mine to give. Instead, it is yours to take. … Not the answer you might have been expecting, and not the answer a part of me really wants to give you: I could tell you the card order and have done with it. Yet, as you suggest, simplistic explanations just won’t cut it. Something else will, though. Much more keenly. That is your ability for insight. The clever trick of the Five of Cups here is for it to make you believe it is the only thing that exists (shades of “The Usual Suspects” there!). That isn’t true. The Ace is subtle, subtle, subtle, but it is your reaching for it that brings it into form.
Thank you Sarah. Just as I suspected – it is all up to me. I don’t know how well I will do. I have done some extraordinary things in my past and maybe I am still determined to overcome. Yet little-self remains and seems exceedingly powerful today. I feel like I am looking out from a dark prison cell of my own design. This seems the most hopeless place on earth.
But possibly – this too shall pass. I thank you for your contributions – on my disturbed beautiful journey. Being this honest feels good and hopefully houses some powerful energy. Time will tell I suppose.
Cowboyiam, hope you’re feeling a bit of levity today. I wanted to write yesterday but couldn’t formulate cohesive thought strings, still can’t but..
Conveying from a personal perspective. I want to make the world a better place. I ache for it, and when I fail myself.. (think hair-shirts and self flagellation).
There’s a re-realization that’s been floating across my awareness as of late, (and probably constant). You mention ‘extra- ordinary’. Man, can I dig the feel-good of overwhelming bliss! What I’ve begun to equate my life with is the ‘ordinary’. No shit!, the mundane day to day b.s. that won’t perhaps facilitate the second coming (or just plain world peace), but is enough to put a smile in my heart regarding the darkness that I find myself in.
I’m a fraction of a drop in the bucket, man. But that’s all cool, the way I see it is that we’re all the same string, wrapped in a circle (or multi-dimensional spiral), at different perspectives, and experiencing that which needs to be experienced as a whole.
Anyway, the more I can ground myself in taking care of ‘this’ body, the more I can allow my head-space to relax a bit. It does fucking suck to ‘see’ so much and have to deal with all the bullshit that trades faster than light. But then again, my only other option is to trade this suit in for another of the same exact style. Can’t do that, gotta run as far as I can this trip through, for better or worse.
Not sure if I really said anything man but,
I Love you brother,
Jere
Jere, you beautiful Being you, speaking psychedelic vision into a place where solid form rules. I see you preaching your vision like a ghost rider between the worlds, trying to communicate what can only be felt. Thanks Man.
You express in a way that helps me see how the term “suck it up” can be of benefit. The way my old self saw it was to put the blinders on and stop feeling honestly. Pretend to not feel long enough and we become hard dead zombies just going through the motions. But feeling everything vividly can overwhelm the heart.
I don’t think I have complete grasp of what you speak of as “ordinary” but I know I have truly been there for long periods before. I am reaching for there now. Love.
Cowboyiam, I was tempted to pass this by and say nothing but I decided that would be unethical of me. There are a couple of technical points in play but first I’d just hint at something via a word play – since you say your mind does not cave in to simplistic explanations… What is a cave if not a hollowed out rock? Your statement carries an attribute of the self-fulfilling! You worship the rock?
Of course, technically, you must decide whether you are hearing the cards themselves, or the given interpretation. Because it is human to project onto the cards they are intrinsically a mirror. So first of all, whose voice are you wishing to hear? That in itself is an issue worth getting clear on. We all want a ‘transcendent voice’ when we feel stuck. That appears to be an objective message that gives decisive clarity – the Ace would appear to offer you that… But only if you are clear on the source of the voice – will it be God’s, the tarot reader’s or yours?
Ironically, even though you eschew the simplistic message, it seems the lowest common denominator is what you actually need. If you are looking outside yourself for answers, know that the Ace also embodies archetypal mind – a non-hollow rock and anything but a cave. The burden you appear to carry is of attempting ‘to be’ that Ace. Whenever you function that way the manifestation of twoness always leads back to disappointment and loss.
I think it was Simon & Garfunkel who bequeathed us I Am a Rock and Leonard Cohen who reminded us that there is a crack in everything and that’s how the light gets in, such that we can forget our ‘perfect’ offering.
Cowboyiam – yesterday may also have been a 5 of cups sort of day. I know i felt like that. Was asking myself what is the fundamental block that is apparently still there no matter what. It was very serious. i went to the planetwaves oracle which said – the worst is over, now is a great time of opportunity and don’t be too much in a hurry to get rid of the past: life hates a vacuum, just let the past drain away and trust at this point. Then I read Sarah’s post (it was like that that whump of inertia and disappointment and futility).
I came away from this reading amazed – you can always change your mind how you view things and sometimes that is enough. I particularly like how the peace card has a light block that is pretty much where the block is in the 5 of cups card. I wondered if this 5 of cups in this spread is an illusion that clarity sees through?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e39UmEnqY8
sarah… just about the time you must have been drawing the cards, opening up to a message… I was receiving a message.
I wrote it on FB – like you draw the cards – only after which I get the message. 🙂
I am reproducing that post here… because… I can’t ignore a strong feeling, that my words and your reading (lol!) carry the same message. though I am struggling to find that common essence.
I am also copying it here, because… I had a feeling it COULD be of some meaning to cowboyiam.
here it is:
We humans… we all feel we are living in the dark.
some of us see a light at the far end… a light which ‘calls’ them.
these are those few who can actually see (feel) a calling… and that pull guides them on.
apart from the light at the end – and BECAUSE of it – the darkness around them seems to turn into, and form, black walls of a tunnel.
some of us find a light inside them. and they move through the darkness like a person holding a lantern, which illuminates a circle around them.
and they see things around them… their lighted circle. and they move around responding to whatever they see in that ‘here and now’.
rest of us are blind. we are totally in the dark.
and except a very few, in this blindness, we hear and listen to the few who have the light, or can see the light.
and listening to them we move ahead. we move ahead as if we ourselves can see that light. and thus, we become blind to our own ‘blindness’… becoming oblivious to things we bump into in the darkness that is our reality.
and then… there are a very rare few… who having struggled through their own blindness, and having bumped into things… wake up to their own blindness.
it is these people who truly ‘awaken’. to inherent human blindness.
and… this is when… and how… our blindness reveals its hidden beauty.
’cause, when we see the darkness we are in with fully open eyes, all our senses become acutely awakened. and our ‘bumping into things’ becomes the way we experience and know the world.
and we realise, what we were afraid of, and avoiding, is actually the essence of life and living.
love n warmth
b.
Sarah, everytime I’m amazed how your readings are so relevant in my own experiences, at that precise time I was listening to Depeche Mode:
“Insight”
This is an insight
Into my life
This is a strange flight
I’m taking
My true will
Carries me along
This is a soul dance
Embracing me
This is the first chance
To put things right
Moving on
Guided by the light
And the spirit of love
Is rising within me
Talking to you now
Telling you clearly
The fire still burns
Wisdom of ages
Rush over me
Heighten my senses
Enlighten me
Lead me on
Eternally
And the spirit of love
Is rising within me
Talking to you now
Telling you clearly
The fire still burns
I’m talking to you now
The fire still burns
Whatever you do now
You’ve got to give love
The world still turns
I’m talking to you now
Alex, Pam, Biren, Leana, and also Sarah, Thank You all soo much!
Pam That video was beautiful. Leana that poem was awesome. Biren you nailed it for me and Alex you spoke what my higher mind knows. I feel so loved right now.
Biren, I guess you speak to my condition in several ways. I have always been driven toward the light at the end of this tunnel and I have also suffered in the darkness. My awakening was twenty years ago and I have often been surrounded by a light that illuminates the beauty. But sometimes I seem to fall into a darkness that envelops my inner guidance and in those times I am so aware of the difference between what I long for and what I am experiencing. Sometimes it gets hard to believe what I have known. To be in that place again sucks, but to have a hand to hold brings security back into my awareness. I know it is up to me but your hand is a beautiful feeling. Thank you all for sharing.
(the LC was Alex Cowboyiam – I just found the ref ‘cos loved the London DVD of LC’s tour)
And WHAT a find, Pam! Super rendition by Mr Cohen. 🙂
Yes Alex amazing – the whole concert!
Cowboyiam and any one else who like me has live with that heavy 5 of cups for too long, I love you!
And I am forging a new relationship with the 5 of cups. It has been a recurring theme of Sarah’s Weekend Tarot reading all year, and it ruled 2014 for me, yiielding to the 5 of disks (worry), the 3 of Swords (Sorrow), 5 of Swords (defeat), and 7 of swords (futility). How am I supposed to live with readings like this?
I don’t know what’s going to come down on me. There is a lot of crap going on in my life and I am not liking a lot of it. Yet I do know I created all of it. A huge factor in that creation is that I have believed that the Big Rock of the 5 of cups is real, and it is all I deserve. And it has to mean more than that or why am I keeping on?
The other two cards confirm for me that I am on the right track with the new line of thinking that came in this morning as I contemplated my life and this reading (thank you Sarah!).
The Ace of Swords is a discipline of mind that will hold the vision of the 2 of Swords: a fruitful fertile valley of possibility that will sustain me as I create what I truly want. Then that big ole rock of the 5 of cups bangs down on my pretty picture and no more balloons floating in the realm of inspiration.
That 5 of cups is my daddy’s father saying to him when he was 50 years old, “You were never going to amount to anything, don’t expect things to be any different now.” I took my dad’s pain on as my healing mission when I was a little girl, and recreated that cubic, edge-on boulder in my path again and again, for his sake.
I am done with that. Been done with it. But I have this habit, see. I keep seeing giant blocks in my path– WHERE THERE ARE NONE!
Look at the three cards. It doesn’t matter what the first two are, because which one are we all looking at? Readers in the west are wired to sweep from left to right, and stop at the end… and believe it is the outcome. It is not the outcome. It is your or MY history. The Ace and Peace give you all you need to cleanse your mind of this mental illusion that you cannot have what you want. (Ryder Waite Smith is good for the 5 of cups. All the attention is on what is lost when the 3 cups spill, while the resource of the 2 full cups is unnoticed)
Have the courage to keep walking toward that corner even though it looks like it will split me in two, because I am pretty sure that when I get there, it will disappear. or crack open, or move. It doesn’t exist.
I feel like, often, I am a man following his dream, unaware. Like Jimmy Stewart in “Its a wonderful life”, I do the things that matter most to me but seem to assume I should be something else entirely.
Today I see all that I have surrounded myself with and so very much of it is truly my desired manifestation. Also I see what is lacking and ponder my mistakes and weakness, wishing I could start anew. How sad to focus on the lack and not the plenty.!!
So today I am noticing how poor the trade would be if I had to give-up anything I now hold dear for a taste of what I have not, yet. Life is good. Perfect it is not, but happy I am – when I gage first my assets. Taking anything for granted is my biggest mistake. I will myself to flow in the light of awareness and make it habitual.
Sort of like Jere said – maybe it wont save the world but it sure makes mine feel better. I have to stop competing and just be here now. I am.
DivaCarla the block and the sword have a sense of weight and gravitational pull about them and the vista of the two of swords has a sense of lift off/lightness/space/calm relief. Another plane another dimension – no paths, just the lit valley between two hills that leads the eye (and the feet?).
That light from the sword – that is from its positioning with intent? Another whump? – A ‘statement’ decision (beacon of hope?) and no exterior light to make that light on it so the light comes from within (and spreading out (manifesting) lights the valley in the 2 of swords?)
It might be getting closer – going into/breaking into/being/integrating/accepting/scrying on the angle of the block that is the ace of swords rather than leaving it behind (as I was trying to)
We watched The Young Victoria yesterday – there are several excellent piano versions of Schuberts Ständchen and what with LC and all the links I made around that and these I”m rather tipsy on music – it was this that made me think of ‘scrying’ the vista – notes which echo in the mind and heart: musical vistas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iotQkDWiwCs (Valentina Lisitsa)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EQKprOrMM8 (Khatia Buniatishvili)
ps there is laughter too – look at the final encore ‘I tried to leave you’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUCpdaiOauY
Still bringing the mind to bear on the block – following a thought through until you come back to the beginning from the other side.
Or more physically: shaolin priests can walk through walls (Kung fu with David Carradine), Harry Potter and going through the wall onto platform 9 and 3/4, or Neo in the Matrix – those bullets coming to a stop, and getting into the programming of the matrix and so into agent Smith
Pam, good extensions on this read, I like it! And I was thinking about the block in the 5 of cups last night as Venus brightened before my eyes.
Insidious, sneaky bastard!!! I keep looking at the block.
The block is not a thing between me and my desire. It is my desire. the thing I want (to be, do, or have) that I believe I cannot have. The belief that I cannot have it is the pivot point. Change that belief and … we are on to the 6 of cups hohoho!!!! Pleasure!
Hello DivaCarla – reading your post yesterday made me look at the 3 cards again and this time I noticed all the stars in the ace of swords card – but the light seemed too faint to create that breakthrough.
This morning I drove to the PO to get a registered letter and on the way was still thinking about the 5 of cups and those 3 cups spilt and tipped over, and the block and the three images of this reading of Sarah’s.
With the letter was a packet – I had forgotten in my meanderings last week I ordered Steering by Starlight by Martha Beck. I laughed. I read the prologue and laughed again. It might be a book to look at if you don’t already know it…
xxxp
ps – maybe moving first to the two of swords to land all those parachutes – unless they are mongolfiers (hot air balloons sounds like a potentially false achievement!)
And Amanda’s stargazer makes 3. ..
Pam, New Moon, clear skies, lots of stargazing to this week, whatever the astrology says. Venus is peaking in early evening now! Steering by Starlight sounds like a book I would love. We need to remember how because steering by man made satellite (gps) is vulnerable to breakdown.
Have yourself a starry weekend.
Thank you so much DC – hope you laugh too (like I did).
love Pam