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.