Editor’s Note: 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. You can visit Sarah’s website here. –efc
By Sarah Taylor
This week’s article follows on from the two previous articles on the Celtic Cross (Part I — An introduction and Part II — Reading the Cross). This morning, I drew the remaining four cards, which form the ‘staff’ section of the reading, and I’ll explore these here as a separate unit (with a few exceptions), before revisiting the reading as a whole in a couple of weeks’ time.
Overview of the staff
What a spread! Four figures of authority, one court card, three major arcana cards. All of them are rulers over a particular domain: Creativity (King of Wands), the meeting of the spiritual and the physical (The Hierophant), balance and accountability (Justice), and intuition (The High Priestess).
All three male figures are clothed in red; the Priestess is in blue. This seems fitting because the male figures are of the world, while the High Priestess inhabits what I have referred to as the ‘liminal world’ — the world that lies between worlds. The red of the men’s gowns is flesh-like, more physical. The Priestess’s gown is watery, like the lunar world she inhabits. She also sits on top, balancing out, like the Moon in the sky, all the fleshy male energy beneath her.
Also, all four figures are seated on thrones, and, apart from the King, all of them are flanked by pillars. This seems significant to me: the major arcana — the archetypal figures we embody and express through the process of individuation — seem to be enclosed in a strong, ‘funnel-like’ structure created by the pillars, which form an extended column down most of the staff. Taking it from that structural point of view, it feels like each one feeds into the other, and finally down into the King. Does this fly in the face of the traditional interpretation of the staff, which flows in chronological order from bottom up?
I don’t think so. From my point of view, time is a construct, and if we sit with the possibility that it isn’t simply linear, then it may well be that the energy of the Outcome card is already starting to influence the King as he sits on his throne at the bottom of the staff.
Finally, the King sits side-on, a recipient of this energy who demonstrates, by his body language, that he is ready and able to draw on it and act on it by moving out into the world. As the only minor arcana card, he is not constrained by the limits of the archetype that the other three inhabit, but can embody all three actively.
7. You (or Your Client) — King of Wands
“This card describes the qualities that the client brings with them to the reading: what they are, and what they are capable of achieving. This card is the archetype they are embodying at this moment in time, and one which, like the tools above, remains available to them.”
Two Kings (the other is in the cross part of the spread, linked to above) and a whole lotta Wands. The King of Wands as you ties in with and further strengthens the themes of the emergence of creative drive and of evolution of the Self — an increased assuming of authority over who you are and the powers that you have at your disposal.
Like the King of Swords, the King of Wands, when fully expressed, is creativity that is both balanced and in full flow. If you look at him, he might be sitting still, but he radiates activity. He leans forward slightly — not like the Knight who is going at it full-tilt — his elbows crooked, as if he is containing some bright fire. And he is. But look at the way he holds his wand: like the King of Swords, at an angle; and his grip is gentle. He knows that true creativity isn’t forced, but rather moves through us. The black salamander at his feet represents that part of the creative process that cannot be fully controlled — yet it is at his side. There must be room for the unexpected.
8. Your (Your Client’s) Environment — The Hierophant
“This is the environment in which the client is operating — the support, or opposition, they can expect to encounter; the resources that are available to them. Therefore, the combination of cards 7 and 8 represents the encounter of the inner with the outer worlds.”
The Hierophant is about how spiritual laws are applied and enacted in the physical realm. At first glance, the imagery seems quite traditional, but in fact the two figures kneeling at the foot of the Hierophant symbolise the two different paths to spirituality: secular and cloistered, agape love and devotion to the discipline of spirit.
In this reading, then, the King of Wands is operating in an environment that is subject to spiritual protocol, structure, commitment. Well-aspected, this can be an additional focusing factor that the King can work with — it speaks of accountability to a higher power. However, there is also the potential for dogmatism to come into play if the King doesn’t sit in full awareness of how he reacts to and influences his surroundings, and his surroundings react to and influence him. It is the proverbial double-edged sword, and it might be useful to bear in mind that he has his own double-edged sword to bring to bear on the situation if need be, courtesy of the King of Swords.
9. Hopes and Fears — Justice
“This is an interesting card because it describes an internal process — that of the client’s emotional state. Having said that, emotions can effect experience, therefore this card is a subtle one. … It is only by first being aware … that someone can either change or apply it.”
Because this is the card that I find the most personal to a client, it is often very difficult to approach it from anything but their own perspective. Therefore, it is the card I most often ask clients to meditate on for themselves after the reading is over — whether by doing a visualisation exercise, by examining it from an emotional point of view, or by giving it time to speak its own message to them.
As a result, all I am going to do here is to suggest what Justice could mean from both points of view. If you find personal resonance with this reading, it might be valuable to do your own meditating on what it represents and calls up in you.
Hopes — that a decision is going to be made in your favour or that your way will be validated.
Fears — that a decision will be made against you or that you will receive a clear indication that you are not supported.
Bear in mind, though, that, whatever it means, Justice is working very strongly in this case: The pillars are a clear, directional channel.
10. The Outcome — The High Priestess
“The final card represents the outcome if the client were to continue on their present trajectory with no appreciable behaviour changes.”
This is what I wrote about The High Priestess in an earlier article:
The High Priestess is associated with ancient wisdom, passed from the divine to mankind, and much of her work, psychic as it is, is hidden from view, unable to be fully seen and understood.
The dominant colour of the card is blue. This is the colour of the throat chakra, and ties in with one of the principal challenges that someone who typifies The High Priestess archetype has to contend with: accepting and working from the understanding that the path calls for the ability to speak and live one’s own truth in service to divine will. The path of The High Priestess is not always an easy one, because she often has a greater degree of access to intangible information than most. She might know and understand things that others do not believe. She is an outsider by virtue of the fact that she is not completely of this world. However, if she dedicates herself to a fearless encounter with spirit, and is able to hold the tension between those encounters and her encounters with the mundane, then The High Priestess is in balance.
When she is out of balance as an archetype in our lives, then the shadow of The High Priestess comes into play. She may lack a belief in her own abilities, never comfortably inhabiting her role as intermediary and therefore never giving full expression to her gifts. Or she may lose her bearings and believe that she holds a sense of truth when her message in fact does not come from spirit: She confuses the earthly with the spiritual — an oracle who instead looks at her own reflection and mistakenly draws ‘truth’ from there.
Looking at the four cards in the staff now, I see something new. Instead of the channel of pillars moving in a downward direction, the flow also moves up, from King of Wands to The High Priestess. It has become, to me, a birth canal: The creative principle — or, to see it another way, the libido — of the King results in the emergence of The High Priestess as an outcome to the present. And it is some birth, passing as she does through the influence of her counterpart, The Hierophant, and the feelings associated with justice, or a lack thereof.
Therefore, the potential is there for a profound encounter with intuition and the ‘hidden feminine’ — forces that are as subtle as The High Priestess herself. These do not operate in a vacuum, but are subjected to the presence of factors that are more concrete — or rigid — and potentially cutting. Will the King of Swords, Justice and The Hierophant as archetypes make space for something altogether less structured? A clue lies in the small but potent presence of the salamander, whose colour is echoed in the pillar that stands to the right of The High Priestess. Sometimes the tiniest of details can make all the difference.
Next week, I will pull everything together in a final review and analysis of all ten cards and how they weave their visual narrative.
“And in this case, we stand as a court card, but the Major Arcana above it say we are being subjected here to influences beyond our control. Or perhaps those influences we cannot control, are making us what we are. And oh those pairs of pillars, these are all portals we must pass through, or perhaps a portal that is the spot of balance between two worlds.”
How fabulous, Charles! The archetypes actively working through us, and our surrender to that, while staying as aware as possible.
“One interpretation I often use of the KW is that he considers his ideas so obvious a solution, he is baffled when nobody else sees the righteousness of his ideas. That would go well with the Hierophant, who is sometimes considered an expression of orthodoxy.”
I’d also add that this works well in conjunction with The High Priestess, who can be misunderstood, and maligned because of it. Faith and trust feel key here.
Wow, that is quite a staff. I sometimes think of this as the “backbone” of the person being read. The bottom card is the self, as we stand on our own two feet. Then as it ascends, it goes through the influences that make us what we are. And in this case, we stand as a court card, but the Major Arcana above it say we are being subjected here to influences beyond our control. Or perhaps those influences we cannot control, are making us what we are. And oh those pairs of pillars, these are all portals we must pass through, or perhaps a portal that is the spot of balance between two worlds.
One interpretation I often use of the KW is that he considers his ideas so obvious a solution, he is baffled when nobody else sees the righteousness of his ideas. That would go well with the Hierophant, who is sometimes considered an expression of orthodoxy. But as you note, Sarah, it also stands for how our inner world is expressed in the outer world. A perfect card for our “environment.” And I’m going on with this same theme in the next card, Justice. It can represent our hopes and fears combined, seeking a balance between our inner spiritual world and the way our Self meets with the pressures of life. And the High Priestess asks us to trust in our intuition, to pass through her gate into the subconscious, and believe that there are deeper aspects of our inner world that we may not consciously know, but can guide us through our lives.
Thanks, Burning River!
I also wanted to add that the two paths of the Hierophant might also be seen to represent the sacred and the profane (in its non-sacred sense). There’s more than one way to skin the spiritual cat.
You did it again. Or should I say, in your hands, Sarah, the cards are doing “it” again. Just looking at the spread I am speechless. Will let them sink in. Be back to read when I sense they have settled themselves into my psyche.
Whoa.
With great respect.
+_+