By Sarah Taylor

“We cannot just keep on as we have gone before, but must radically change our ways.”

According to writer and tarot expert Rachel Pollack in her book, The Haindl Tarot: The Major Arcana, this is one of the meanings of the card at the centre of this week’s reading, Aeon. I take it to be the primary meaning for the purpose of this spread, and one that has far-reaching implications, both personally and collectively.

Prince of Stones, Aeon, Three of Swords from the Haindl Tarot, created by Hermann Haindl. Click on the image for a larger version.

Card XX in the tarot’s Major Arcana, Aeon is the Haindl Tarot’s version of Judgement in the Rider-Waite Smith tarot deck.

It holds a similar essence to the RWS variant, but here I feel a sense of something that has an urgency in the way that Judgement does not. Or maybe it’s simply that the urgency in Judgement is softened by the more human presence of the fiery-headed angel.

Here, the angel has become a mysterious eye in the sky. There are still those snow-capped mountains in the distance, but unlike the single body of water in Judgement on which the figures of men, women, and children rise from their coffins, here there are no human figures, and the sea is now riven into one river of water on the left, and one of blood on the right. Above them, a foetus lies curled in an egg, ready to be born.

Each separate river is further associated with the card next to it: the water corresponds to the Prince of Stones (the Knight of Disks in the RWS deck), and the blood to the Three of Swords. How fitting.

The Prince of Stones, as Pollack points out, is the only Court Card in the Haindl deck that depicts a real person: Chief Seattle, a Pacific Northwest leader who strove for peace and accord, but who was part of a nation that was cheated, subjugated, and driven from its land. The orca at the top of the card would have held a vital place in the hearts, minds, and creativity of the Native Americans who bordered its marine habitat.

In the same way that Native Americans were hunted and displaced, so the orcas were, and continue to be, subjected to the harpoons of those who care little for the implications of their actions.

Rivers of blood indeed.

The Three of Swords drives this home: broken accords; allegiances (and alliances) torn apart; the debasement of the heart in favour of a war of words, where tears and blood are spilled.

“Mourning.”

Take this to a personal level; apply it to what’s going on in your life. Where is there a battle over some kind of ‘real estate’, whether literal or figurative? Where has the balance between heart and mind faltered to the point where no-one emerges with what they wanted? Where are there tears on contracts?

Where are you being called to pay attention to a toll exacted on something that holds, nurtures, provides life? Where is the voice of natural authority being drowned out by an agenda that will stop at little or nothing to exact its price?

The written readings for all 12 signs of Vision Quest are available for instant access, and Eric is working on the audio astrology and rune readings! Order all 12 signs here, or select individual signs here.

Now zoom out and take it collective. Where can you apply the same questions to what’s happening in your community, your country, the world? As Eric often writes on this site, “The personal is political.” One does not exist without the other, and this is particularly visible in a reading where there is one Major Arcana card (the collective/archetypal), one Minor Arcana card (how that archetype manifests in the physical world), and one Court Card (an aspect of personality that becomes the instrument of the archetype and how it manifests).

You see, it lies with you. And it lies with all of us. This is Pluto we’re talking about here. But we also have Saturn, the great limiter; that can work against us, and it can also work for us. No birth can be rushed, but it can’t be held back indefinitely either. Something will be born; something will die to make way for it. The eye seems to proclaim this from its all-seeing position.

A new age is imminent. Our actions are determining whether it will be defined by rivers that flow with blood, or with water.

Can we make different choices this time around? Can you?

“Although the picture appears dire, it is, in fact, suffused with hope.”
~ Rachel Pollack, The Haindl Tarot: The Major Arcana

 

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Son of Stones in the West (the airy aspect of earth), Aeon (Pluto), Three of Swords (Saturn in 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.