The Weekend (er, Monday) Tarot Reading — Sunday, June 10

By Sarah Taylor

My apologies for the late running of this week’s reading, which was due to a brief illness. In future, we will post a notice for any missed articles and, wherever possible, we will run an alternative tarot article to maintain continuity. — Sarah

The Moon is another card who has been a familiar visitor to these pages over the past months — unsurprisingly, perhaps, when so many people are expressing a lack of clarity over what is going on in their lives and in the world at large.

As the flip-side of our sun-infused quotidian world, The Moon presents us with territory that we tend to avoid by going to sleep; we wake the next morning with little experience of the landscape over which it holds domain. In the same way, from an archetypal perspective, we are frequently unconscious of what hides in our own darkness; we sleep-walk through our lives.

This is what the presence of The Moon in a reading often indicates: a time when things are cast in deep shadows, where strange creatures and entities emerge and howl at our slow-dawning consciousness, as if wanting us to take notice of them, and when navigation through the obscurity is assisted by our connection to our intuition. Intuition is associated with the feminine, as is the Moon herself, which governs the cycles of the tides and our own watery natures. It also governs reproductive cycles, and it is this that is mirrored in the imagery of The Moon, suggesting a birthing of something from within our depths — something that seems simultaneously us and not-us.

Here, the unconscious is calling to us, and it feels like a gentle, if persistent, call, in spite of the presence of the dog, the wolf and the lobster gathered under Luna herself. The reason that I use the word ‘gentle’ is two-fold: first, my eye keeps moving to the profile of the contemplative Moon and the gold drops falling onto the land beneath her. There is a calmness to the card that we might fail to notice if we remain focused on the creatures. Second, the two cards to the right of The Moon reinforce the sense that I have that the need for fear is illusory.

The Eight of Swords is simple in its meaning: we are being trapped by an idea that has no power to harm us. It might be compelling, yes — in fact, it probably is compelling because it is powerful enough to have brought us to a standstill in some way. However, look closer. All the woman has to do is to shrug off the binding that is half-heartedly wound around her, so that she might remove her blindfold. If she did this, she would see that the swords surrounding her are not drawn; they are staked into the ground, tip first, with enough of a gap behind and in front of her to walk away from them. She is holding herself captive by refusing to see what is right there with her. All she needs to do is to make the first move.

The puddles at her feet offer another clue: the heart is not at issue here; she is being dominated by her head. The position of her head echoes that of the Moon, both looking down. But whereas The Moon, transpersonal, sees and knows, she needs to see with inner sight, tapping into the intuitive feminine that is being restrained by a paralysing belief.

What is there to meet her when she understands her predicament? The Knight of Wands.

First, I see green on the horse’s rein covers and the five sprigs of leaves on the wand he clasps in his right hand. The heat is tempered. The horse — the means by which the Knight makes his journey, or the way that he moves through life — is not out of control. The reins lead my eyes from the Knight’s left hand to the horse’s mouth, which sits on the bit: it isn’t fighting the Knight, but is working for him; and the Knight’s grasp is both strong and authoritative.

Second, an expanse of sky forms the largest part of the backdrop. Blue is cool and that coolness is extended to the metallic sheen of the Knight’s armour. This particular personification of creative spirit may be intense, but there is also the presence of rationality. The sky also speaks of possibility — a cloudless blank canvass, and a lack of interference. He is a free agent, his path unimpeded. [Into the world: the Knights in tarot, August 10, 2011]

He is a free agent, his path unimpeded.

The Knight of Wands is the re-emergence into this reading of fire at its most potent. He bristles with vigour, yet is tempered enough not to get carried away; he has the wherewithal to pull back on the reins when necessary.

What he seems to be doing here is offering us something. I’d say an adventure of the spirit. He invites us to seek the courage to look into the shadows and realise that what we are looking at is a form of liberation. The key is the connection we have to our heart and the wisdom it whispers to us at the edges of our awareness.

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.