By Sarah Taylor
“Once you free your mind about the concept of … being ‘correct’, you can do whatever you want. So, nobody told me what to do, and there was no preconception of what to do.”
— Giovanni Giorgio, songwriter and producer
The reading today is unambiguous: the events from the eclipse period and their effects are still at work in the psyche. You are being encouraged not to turn away from what was revealed to you, and to follow the call of what is yet to emerge into full consciousness, even as the land of The Moon seems alien to your thinking, logical mind. Your thoughts — and here, specifically, thoughts that are enmeshed with fear — are not the focus. The Moon, by its presence at centre, is asking you to acknowledge your fears, and to shift your attention to meet with what feels right in the depths of you. It is painting its desire on the canvas of your heart.
How to bring what The Moon is asking to be manifested to light? The card itself points this out in the form of a pathway, which runs between the two towers in the background, which I see as being associated with the Ten of Swords — where you have just come from — and the Nine of Swords — what might potentially re-emerge as a result of that experience.
The Ten of Swords suggests a time of hitting rock-bottom. It is the card of inevitable surrender to a circumstance, whereupon you discover in your prone position that the sky in the distance is clearing. What has happened is done, and the sacrifice you endured was what you needed to go through in order to emerge on the other side with a new perspective.
Now, as you move into uncharted territory, there might be some fear about the re-emergence of something in the Ten of Swords that you know only too well. The Nine of Swords is the card of thought as a mode of self-injury. It represents a deeply engrained belief that has the power to hold you to ransom and thus to isolate you.
Know this, however. The power of the Nine of Swords lies in the power you give to it. When you understand this, you are able to see that your beliefs are a matter of choice. And in that understanding we can all make the courageous choice of taking another path — the pathway that strikes out in a new direction.
The Sun radiates. It is action-orientated. It represents the conscious, which is more readily accessible to the intellect. The Moon works in a different way. Its light is reflected and therefore it is passive. It asks for receptivity rather than activity. It asks that you still the chatter. It asks that you embrace your creature-self, which is more adept at walking through the shadows (think how much better a dog or a jackal can see in the darkness).
Often, we are tempted to avoid The Moon because it isn’t fully understandable. What can happen when we enter the wilds is that we can try to explain it by falling back on prior experience — the Hindu notion of sanskara. There’s your Nine and Ten of Swords. The Moon is bringing you face to face with thought patterns and asking for some deep work around the releasing of those that no longer work for you or serve your highest purpose.
Choose differently. Ask for the help you need to see what you cannot see, and to look at what is so close to you that you hadn’t considered it wasn’t a part of you. Choose the unknown, choose your intuition, your feeling body, a path that is hazy and indistinct, but which calls to you wildishly. Be patient. Above all, be gentle and loving with yourself. This wildish connection is feminine, of the earth, feeling- and body-based, tuned to the world of Spirit; it moves in its own rhythms. It exhorts you in a strange tongue. Learn this language and you learn a new way of relating to your thoughts, to yourself, to others, and to your life.
Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Ten of Swords (Sun in Gemini), The Moon (Pisces), Nine of Swords (Mars in Gemini)
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.
Thank you, Amanda!
And it really can be as simple as wearing clothes you wouldn’t usually wear. Better still, clothes you wouldn’t dare usually wear 🙂
brilliant observation:
“One of the things that I have been finding useful is to change my actions, which are also often embedded in deep grooves. By doing this, I’m not addressing the issue of fear that I’m facing, but I’m shifting something else, which seems to have a chain effect — that adage of the solution not lying at the level of the problem.”
thanks, sarah — it’s an excellent, accessible compliment to the reading this week. and i think it’s so easy to forget that something simple and seemingly unrelated to anything “important” can still have a ripple effect on a subtle (or even obvious) level.
Thank you, everyone! 🙂
Having just read Eric’s post in Daily Astrology today, I would recommend working with that in conjunction with this week’s spread (which will have an influence well past this week). The Grand Water Trine emphasises intuition over intellect, and feelings over thoughts. This feels like the ‘new language’ that I refer to as being suggested by The Moon card:
http://planetwaves.net/pagetwo/astro-daily/venus-in-cancer-grand-water-trine-filling-up/
Aligns synchronistically with this morning’s study about what it means to have a North Node in Scorpio. Getting beyond the old patterns. Identified a poignant thought pattern about seeing loss as failure. I see now the opportunity to see loss as a necessary purification towards embodying what really matters. Your encouragement to go forward “wildlishy” through the hazy, indistinct is deeply helpful. Strange tongues. Yes. New language. Trust. Thank you.
This is just perfect. Reading this I would swear that you have been living with me…The past two years,have been the worst time in my life. This past weekend, I felt like I was face-down. But today, it seemed like I got a push and felt something tell me to “move forward” and try again becasue this time it is going to be okay. I honestly feel like finally, I will have positivity in my life.
Hmmm…Anyone ready for a margarita?
Pattern-busting! Wonderful! Thanks again Sarah.
Another Holy Shit reading indeed, Sarah! WOW. You’ve nailed what I’ve just been through, how it left me feeling, what I’ve ‘sort of’ decided to do about it and not do about it… and this is the first time, despite so much great coverage, that I’ve really understood what this very intense eclipse cycle was about. Which I guess in part speaks to the state I’ve been in, and have now moved past…
A huge thank you for your perspective and a really brilliant interpretaton. 😀
Thank you, all!
When I drew The Moon — the first card I drew, and my intuition was absolutely not having me cut the deck today or put the card on the left as is more usual — I realised once again the power of tarot. That it defies probability time and again is proof to me that there is a voice that works through it that sets the agenda, and I feel blessed for those moments when I trust it enough to get my own agendas and doubts out of the way.
What I feel about working with The Moon is tantamount to ‘getting creative’ about how we approach our thoughts. Sometimes it’s good to analyse our thoughts; sometimes it’s more productive to give them a quick nod hello while remaining committed to looking past them. This reading suggests the latter approach.
One of the things that I have been finding useful is to change my actions, which are also often embedded in deep grooves. By doing this, I’m not addressing the issue of fear that I’m facing, but I’m shifting something else, which seems to have a chain effect — that adage of the solution not lying at the level of the problem.
So, I feel fear. Yes — there it is for sure. I know what that fear is about. There is little point in telling myself to stop feeling it — that’s just more swords piled on swords, much like the reading. In which case, I’ll try something different, see if I can feel my way into a new language. I do this by doing something different than I’m accustomed to. No huge gestures required. Just a remapping of a neural pathway, however teensy, that has become the well-worn default route. Why not? Pattern-busting! 🙂 Those small changes are not necessarily the language of The Moon, but rather they make some space for The Moon’s language and light to filter through into consciousness.
Another Holy Shit reading Sarah! Thank you! These eclipses are making sure we GET the message, right?!!!
Gonna look at my astrology again around the aspects to see if I am missing something beyond or beneath the obvious. I get the feeling I am asked to dive deeper and not keep playing the old naval gazing tapes from the past.
A mentor has suggested that a person has to move beyond the stuckness of the old thinking in order to see what was really stuck. That perspective is necessary. So it’s not about fixing, it is about moving forward no matter what. Huge level of trust that these swords are illusions, not truth.
Enormously helpful reading Sarah, both as a study and as actual personal experience. Thank you.
“The Moon is bringing you face to face with thought patterns and asking for some deep work around the releasing of those that no longer work for you or serve your highest purpose”. This is so exactly where I am right now, dear Sarah. Have been cast back into feelings of paranoia, rejection, and fears around survival – that I seemed to have moved beyond. But I know the healing process often moves (seemingly) backward in order to move forwards again. And I can’t thank you enough for another magnificent reading.