The Weekend Tarot Reading — Sunday, April 13, 2014

By Sarah Taylor

So many swords; so many times that we have had the Eight of Swords in the readings these past few months. The first thing that comes to me in this regard are the words of a shaman and friend for whom I have the utmost respect:

“It’s coming up to clear. It is coming up to clear.”

The fact that the Eight of Swords keeps on wanting a look-in tells me, first and foremost, that it is an energy that is prevalent in the work we are doing — on ourselves, with the world — and which holds the key to an emerging experience.

The Eight of Swords in this particular deck makes something quite clear. There is a choice at hand. This is seen in the roads that fork past the figure who is sitting in heavy contemplation beneath the two nudes that flank him. At the end of each road lies a Sun. But we here on Earth have only one Sun. Therefore, what is implied is that both roads cannot be taken simultaneously. There is only one Sun towards which we can head.

Above the fork lies a stylized question mark.

What is the question being asked of you? Where is it that you might feel you are sitting between two compelling objectives, one set against the other (in your mind at least), both appearing larger than life, both holding the erotic allure of something that calls you to step down a particular path?

Yet, there is a hint in the writing on the cards, which is as follows:

“Interference,” “Lack of perseverance,” “Anguish by too much of [sic] reflection.”

Therefore, it might not be a conflict of choice as much as an experience of contrast: where, once we make a move to strike off in a particular direction, what we encounter is something that causes us to question: “Is this really what I want?” Contrast is nothing if not a gift given to enable us to give our choices an integrity check. Although here, the writing on the card suggests that it is the over-thinking itself that is impeding progress. Somewhere, somehow, a process that was set in motion encountered something primal and compelling that gives us the option: do we continue, or do we go back?

What is clear from the two outer-lying cards is that we are in a process of inevitable transformation and expansion. Either card on its own would be enough. Both together speak of circumstances that are going to shift and expand irrevocably, which is underlined by the fork in the road in the Eight at centre.

The Two of Disks, or “Change,” refers to the constant motion of back and forth created by our experience in a world that is defined by polarity. It speaks of the desire of matter to keep moving — and, by inference, our desire either to resist it, or to work with it. The two paths yet again.

But there is a quality to the Two of Disks that has an air of liberation about it. The card includes the words “Harmony,” “Transformation,” and “Yin Yang”. By being here, in Disks-bound Earth, we are contracting — whether willingly or unwillingly — to work with a process of constant flux. And yet, by dancing in this loop of infinity — which is itself dancing — there is harmony to be found in the movement. We move together and, through that movement, we undergo metamorphosis after metamorphosis, all the while moving in the direction of the arrows; moving upwards; evolving.

The card on the other side of the Eight of Swords embodies the change that we encounter on an archetypal level. We might not be able to see how all of our actions correspond to the change that the turning of the Wheel heralds, but that is because we are working with the transpersonal when we work with the major arcana. Who knows what major, macro shifts can take place when we choose to effect and integrate change in our own lives? And The Wheel of Fortune carries with it a karmic quality: everything, every action, we have brought to it determines the direction in which the wheel turns — though usually it is in the direction of expansion. It is cause and effect acted out on a scale that can alter the direction of our lives. Whereas the Two of Disks refers to the minutiae of how we flex with the greater cycles, The Wheel of Fortune is the greater cycle itself.

Think of a ferris wheel with the chairs around it. The Two of Disks are the chairs, adjusting and readjusting their orientation. And they sit on the ferris wheel itself, which adjusts your overall position. Such is the case with The Wheel of Fortune, and when it turns it is best to remember that the calmest point of change rests in keeping to the centre — to your centre. Nothing more is needed; nothing is as effective. Nothing else brings you quite as beautifully on to true path.

The Eight? With change like that on the horizon, no wonder there is a compelling reason to stay caught up in something in the foreground. But imagine what might be lying at the horizon.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Two of Disks (Jupiter in Capricorn), Eight of Swords (Jupiter in Gemini), The Wheel of Fortune (Jupiter)

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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