The Mid-Week Tarot Reading — Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Note: We’re bringing Sarah’s tarot column to you today due to a confluence of weekend circumstances and Mercury-in-shadow communication; she’ll return to her Sunday schedule this weekend. — Amanda

By Sarah Taylor

Well. If this were a reading I was giving to a client, the first thing that would come to me is marriage or an equivalent ceremony of commitment, such as a handfasting. The Hierophant presides over spiritual laws as they are enacted in the physical world. The Ace of Swords is about truth, and in this context the crown circling the blade of the sword is evocative of a ring on a finger. The Three of Cups is a community-based dance of celebration and fertility.

Given that this is a reading that has more universal relevance, the idea of ‘marriage’ opens up to a larger idea of the agreements we make in the presence of Spirit and those we choose to surround us.

It also mirrors the reading of February 23 in a few key ways. It both reinforces its message and symbolises the entering of a new energy that emerges once we have crossed the waters of transition in the Six of Swords, which stood at the centre of the previous reading.

Something new is available to us; it is up to us to reach out and up and take it.

As with last week’s reading, we have a figure who sits between two pillars — The High Priestess then, and The Hierophant now. Whereas The High Priestess is a solitary figure, who communes with Spirit in order to seek out its message — whose message is often unheard or unheeded — The Hierophant is the human representative of the divine when it is contained within human laws. This is why he is often associated with marriage, where two people are joined on the earthly plane according to divine governance.

Nevertheless, The Hierophant also carries within it the idea of the two-fold path of devotion, indicated by the two monks at the Hierophant’s feet. The first path, embodied by the monk dressed in blue on the right, is the path of the ascetic, or one who renounces the world in order to serve Spirit. The second, embodied by the monk in red on the left, is the path of immersion, the one who is devoted to divine experience through the physical body. In other words, we have the dual paths of masculine and feminine, transcendent and immanent. The implication is that we can choose between them; both lead to the same destination.

We have moved from The High Priestess and a time of inner reflection to The Hierophant and its outer expression, in the form that best fits us. And so the Six of Swords in the previous reading has given way to the Ace of Swords — the potential for insight and Truth. The passage through, though unclear at the time, leads to a point where we can reach for clarity and receive it.

But we must reach for it if we are to benefit from its presence.

The Ace is a gift, and it asks for our participation in what it offers us. It asks for the understanding that we cannot possibly hold it in its entirety. We are finite beings; the Ace is infinite. We can align with it — and The Hierophant speaks of the ability to align in order to receive — and this is where we can feel it moving through us in a way that enlivens and brings meaning to us.

The presence of the Ace of Swords makes itself known through our awareness of a greater potential available to us. That awareness is the point at which we can reach for it. When we do, it will be there. That moment when you search for the truth and it hits you? That is the Ace of Swords. The instant when you see something so clearly it comes in with a rush of goosebumps or an intake of breath, because you can finally see? The Ace of Swords. The point where you are guided by a wisdom that moves through you like a directed current of air? The Ace of Swords. Remember, when it blows through, you are the one who is best positioned to ground it.

And what better way to do that than to dance? Whether literally or metaphorically, there is something to be said about one’s own guiding principles as they are lived out with others. Where there is support through mutual celebration of life and love, and how that is expressed in an act of togetherness. The Three of Cups is the one card that appears in both readings; it is emphasised. Here, it is on the right of the reading, while before it was on the left. It is a pervasive presence, and something that can be relied upon through passages of change and the emergence of clarity.

There is a time for service to a higher law, and there is a time to leap with joy. Both, it seems, bring you to your moment of truth.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: The Hierophant (Taurus), Ace of Swords (the pure potential of air), Three of Cups (Mercury in Cancer)

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.

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