By Sarah Taylor
Last week, the Ace of Swords appeared as the card on the left of the three-card layout; this week, it is the Ace of Disks. There seems to be a ‘reaching towards’ in order to bring something into fruition — whether that has been something at the forefront of your mind, or a strange itch that you’ve somehow felt you’ve needed to scratch.
Ace of Disks, Strength, Princess of Cups from The Röhrig Tarot deck, created by Carl-W. Röhrig. Click on the image for a larger version.
This sense of an itch needing to be scratched is indicative of one of the ways an Ace can manifest. Because they are non-incarnate, they don’t take place in front of your eyes as one of the many situations or interactions depicted in the 2s to 10s. Nor are they aspects of the personality, as depicted in the Court cards. (More on that later with the Princess of Cups.)
Aces are the Alpha and Omega of their suit. Aces are the blueprint of the quality that each is designed to convey. Aces are eternal, unadulterated, never fully knowable, and exist in a parallel existence to your own. You can feel them. You can sense them. Sometimes the veil that separates you from an Ace can be so thin that it is almost ‘here’ — almost tangible. Sometimes it might reach you through an echo — or sidle up alongside you, defying your direct observation of it.
But it is there. Oh yes.
The way the Ace of Disks is making itself known is hinted at in the card illustration. A lone figure stands on a rocky promontory, looking out into open space. The night seems cool — chilly, even, given the snowy peaks in the middle-ground. Maybe that’s why the star in the distance seems so close: that crisp air bringing a definition to its rays, which stretch out in fine light-strokes from its centre.
And so the figure stands, looking at this celestial body in front of him. There is a reciprocity between person and star — both emitting a corona of light. I wonder if his own inner light is resonating with the pulse of light he both receives from, and transmits to, it. That star is so far away, and yet there is a connection.
What breaks my heart open when I look at this picture today is the spherical, hematite-like disk embedded the rock beneath the figure’s feet — as if we are privy to a secret that lies, as yet, unrevealed. That secret speaks something like this to me today:
You might think it is impossible. You might believe you have to reach far beyond the stretch of your most capable thoughts, your widest embrace, to find what it is that you’re after. But, listen here now: what you are looking for? You are it, and it is you. It isn’t ‘out there’. It is most assuredly right ‘in here’. Right under your feet. You have spent so much time and expended so much energy wishing on a star, you have forgotten that you are also that star.
This realisation unlocks something. This ability to own something that feels distant brings you into a new and infinitely more embodied and instinctual experience. You move from the ethereal to the visceral. Or you can … because you start to own it!
The words on Strength — the 8th card of the Major Arcana — start to define how it is that you are able to draw the Ace of Disks down into material, physical, visceral reality:
“manifold creative talents,” “power,” “integration of animal forces,” “passion (emotion).”
Disks are the densest of the suits, and so they speak to what you experience with your sense of touch, taste, smell, hearing, sight. Strength, embodied by the maiden and the lion, encompasses all of these. When you are dancing with the Strength archetype, you are both innocent and animalistic; you revel in your sensate experience. To quote Steve Vai on his album Passion and Warfare:
“We may be human, but we are still animals.”
You are safe, and protected. Not by some outer force, but by your natural discernment of what serves you, and what doesn’t. When you are animal-like, you are tapped into your bodily wisdom. You, and the Earth, are one.
The outcome of this is one that is, funnily enough, not strictly bound to the ground at all. Cups as the tarot representatives of emotions are less dense than Disks. They are your watery nature — the heart that beats inside of the human-animal, which, when liberated, feels deeply, expresses naturally, and allows you to open your arms into the mystery of life and love.
From the Ace of Disks — beautiful but, at first glance, out of touch — you have the ability to look closer — and to reach nearer — to home, to find something that is not only very much in your grasp, but which also offers you a means of resting into self-generated ecstasy and taking a risk.
You do this by diving like the Princess (Page) of Cups, open-armed, and into a sky that embraces you as much as you are willing to embrace it.
Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Ace of Disks (the pure, limitless potential of Disks/Earth), Strength (Leo), Princess of Cups (the Earthy aspect 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.
This is so stunning, and so helpful, dear Sarah. Particularly this “It isn’t out there. It is most assuredly right ‘in here’. Right under your feet. You have spent so much time and expended so much energy wishing on a star, you have forgotten that you are also that star.” I love the Princess of Cups card! Thank you so much for this.
You’re so welcome, Lizzy!
and all three in star time…
I’m interested in what you mean by “star time,” pam – are you referring to the Lyrid meteor shower?
Sorry Sarah nothing so erudite – just looked to me that the ace of discs is under the starry sky (star to starperson as you said), strength is in the starlight dimension (in a sense in the rock disk of the ace of discs,, inside the self, unrational seminal), and the page of cups is diving (letting go/be) from that inner space: manifesting it.
These three cards just seem to shift dimensions to me round a theme, everything flowing from exterior to interior from potential to elastic to the mpment/movement in manifestation. The stars in each card symbolising lucidity and enlivening. (Also reading Martha Beck’s Finding your way which is the literary equivalent).
I love this deck, and thank you so much for your readings – these last few months they really leap off the page (to this reader anyway)
Might it be possible to take the ace of disks as a continuation of the block in the 5 of cups from last week with the ace of swords brought to bear on it – if the starlight is the spark (lightning) manifesting in the ace of swords that illuminates/creates the vision of the 2 of swords/peace which today is perceived in actual time as the ace of disks – still a block but with something of potential in it and the individual atop it (rather tfse thr thehan coming across it – whump!) and still informed by starlight. Going into/opening yourself to the starlight (unrational/lucid/oneness with all) takes you inside the block and gives you the strength card which represent interior qualities?form?balance?/potential (potential as in tension now rather than possibility) that go out into the world (definitively losing the block and rock) via the page/princess of cups
(should have said a literary equivalent of the three cards in this spread)
tfse thr thehan ? = than
sorry
I can see your sense in the stars and in the Ace of Swords revealing what is inside the Five of Cups, i.e. the Ace of Disks, Pam. Yes! 🙂 Thank you.
S – the correspondences:
it was the Ace of Disks, did i miss the switch was intended ..
the Disks do understand for this moment unfolding in time
bp
Claire – Absolutely correct, and I’ve changed the “correspondence” copy accordingly. Thank you!
Amen. I just journaled about the same topic this morning: “I’m still searching for my niche in life, my work, but increasingly seeing that being drawn to this search means I’m failing to embrace the myself who is right here with real existing needs, desires, interests, abilities – looking elsewhere, rejecting the soul I have and am coming to know.”
I was looking outside myself for some grand and worthy task or work because I wanted to feel grand and worthy. I needed to develop some feeling of internal worthiness before I could begin to stop looking outward for value.
Thank you, Sarah – this week it was especially exact, but your readings always nourish.
I have often found it so hard simply to stop, and look at what is going on in my life right now. And it has been its greatest reward, if I can stay stopped long enough 🙂
Speaking of strange itches, I will be attending a BDSM event this coming weekend. How tos, scenes, the whole bit. Plan to be shopping for stockings and a garter belt this afternoon. My stars and garters!!! As my great-grandmother might say. I will be representing the 50+ sexy granny demographic. Just watch me!!
Woo hoo, Susy! How very “Strength” of you! Enjoy 😀
And just amazing how these readings each week mirror themes of the moment – for example this reading addresses self esteem too doesn’t it
Absolutely, pam. To me, the Princess of Cups epitomises the emergence of self-esteem.
An amazing card – you really have the sense of freedom and ‘falling’ into being/joy, and movement.
Looking at it I have the feeling of having to fly with her (or actively resist which is unthinkable!).
very beautiful
and of course the 5 of cups card represents being off course and the need to find the pole star/your guiding star to get back on track – and that could be the star in the ace of disks?
xxxp
Indeed. And more than that: I believe that the sense you are making of these two readings is the sense you are drawn to making for a reason that will be relevant to you.
Also in the ace of disks card there is a felling of aloneness and separation and in the princess of cups there is no sense of being ‘alone’ even though she is the only one in the picture – all embracing joy, openess, at one, creative, live…
Sarah, when I read Phil Sedgwick’s post about orius http://www.philipsedgwick.com/StarBlogs/Archives/2013/Orius%20and%20Expanding%20Views%20~%205%20Feb%202013.htm I had a yes moment; I feel the strength card like orius – do you think that is a possible interpretation
‘… It would seem Orius seeks to drive a person’s spirit back into the body where instinct and sense merge to build life experiences that feed one’s greatest yearnings. Urges Orius, end the vertigo caused by forcing square mental pegs into round reaction to real world holes. Recreate solidity on both feet by restoring the ultimate balance – the balance of soul within flesh.’