By Sarah Taylor
This week, we have what seems to be at a cursory glance a very ‘masculine’ spread of cards: Knight of Disks on the left, Prince of Cups on the right, and The Fool at the centre. Except things aren’t always what they first appear to be.
Given that The Fool makes his appearance as a major arcana card — and given he is at the ‘centre of all things’ — the reading is focused on the larger, soul-based work that we do as individuals. This is The Fool as our practice of self-expression. I write that it’s a practice of self-expression because we have a few things occurring simultaneously in the interaction between and among the triad.
First, while The Fool is associated with our own fool’s journey through life and therefore refers to our soul development (or, perhaps better, “recovery”), the presence of two court cards, which enclose it, signifies that we are dealing with a particular person, or an aspect of the personality. More often than not, it applies to a characteristic that is expressing itself dominantly, or seeking expression, in the person observing the spread.
Second, there is a clear message in the first two cards that this is an aspect of personality/psyche (Knight of Disks) that is coming to a shift — moving away from the close of one theme, to the opening of another. This is because the Knight of Disks is the very last card in the tarot deck; The Fool is the very first. From very last to very first: this is a significant turning point.
Card “0” in the major arcana, The Fool is what we become when we are at that turning point in our own evolution: we become willing, or at least able, to take a step into the unknown. The Fool himself is ambiguous. Although male, in this deck he is the divisible, but integrated, self — both masculine and feminine. Both, however, are caricatures: the left half of his face in black and white, a clown-like smile painted over his mouth; the right, a mask of drag-queen make-up, a heart on his cheek. Both are personae, both over-lay the essential Self, which lies in the unknown that The Fool embodies and towards which he is pulled.
Towards the left, he is pulled to the essential masculine: the patriarch of his suit, yet a suit that is feminine in nature. As earth, the Knight of Disks is fully grounded in both aspects, and rules over the (inner) physical world, in balance both as a human and an intrinsic part of nature. He embodies dedication to the craft of creating his reality on the material plane.
Towards the right, The Fool is pulled to a younger energy — one that is romantic, idealistic, desire-driven. It is this desire that is prevalent, the Prince’s mind morphing into erotic fantasy, the feminine feathers on the Fool’s headdress undulating here over breasts, genitals.
As the airy aspect of water — representing the mind and the emotions respectively — the Prince loves to think about love. He is meditative, that strong is his focus on his desire. What he faces seems to be a contradiction: a female ‘mask’ over a male face. Androgyny. Ambiguity. The Fool becomes the object of the Prince’s desire, the Prince mirroring back a potential to the Fool — one of the marrying of desire with the Knight’s wisdom and empowerment as ruler of his (inner) realm, but in a way that might, at first, seem contradictory. It is an act of grounding fantasy in reality and the paradoxical point where the two meet.
From the nothingness steps the binary in the form of The Fool. Two co-existing potentials that he has yet to discover in himself look directly at us from both sides of his face. But what lies underneath — what is there all along — is the Fool’s essential Self.
What is life but that path that we step along to discover more of ourselves, whether consciously or unconsciously? This particular path of discovery holds its own truth for you in what you see in the two outer cards. It is these that are activating right now, and it’s your unique adventure to take.
Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Knight of Disks (the fiery aspect of earth), The Fool (Uranus), Prince of Cups (the airy aspect of water)
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.
… and the extremes show us the middle path too 🙂
Yes, how did the Knight of Wands get in there? I’ve corrected them.
Thank you Jere – (still last weeks reading) stay with the middle way then, leaving the extremes to either side?!
xxxp
I’m viewing the Knight of Disks to be an ending to some sort of perceived experience of reality. In a sense, it has come to completion, or gone as far as it can go within it’s given circumstance. The Fool, to me, speaks of a newly initiated journey, in which ‘heads or tails’ is yet to be sorted. The Prince of Cups speaks to me of desire being explored in order to satiate emotional fulfillment.
As far as the last week spread, I’m having a difficult time un-personalizing the read. Debauch, to me, always makes me think of the ‘morning after’ a hard night of revelry. It’s always a mistake (not that there aren’t lessons to be learned, but) it can be soberingly painful, and the promise of a ‘good time’ can possibly alter the alchemy, creating tension that cracks the vessel.
Thanks Pam, for the analogies.. It truly is somethng that confounds my Soul, but, I’m on ‘the Wheel’ now, and I have to figure out what it is, whether I want to stop it or not, and how I can (if I even should) get off.
Jere
Hello Sarah and Jere. (excuse me too for going back to last week)
I thought as you did: the broken crucible (broken or released) – so what about the cups card, is there a (two) way to the moon card from it – via the fabric in the two pictures (does it matter if it’s a bit superficial?, or do you just leave that lack of life (on both sides or on one but still the balance left right and if the right has no life? how to bring life there. Or the moon card is the regenerative life that comes even after complete destruction….)
Jere re violence (chez Jude), only small things to offer – ‘choose!’ from Kung fu (david carradine), the buddha thanking someone for his gift but no thanks (who came with the view to murdering him), and Dumbledore with Severus saving an old man from agony and humiliation. The few times when I have consciously completely put anger aside so that there was no colour of it anywhere in my view towards the other (not nazis I’m admit) just a desire for the best good for all, everything welled up simply and true. And Avril in Tiger in the smoke (something like) ‘anger dulls the senses’
If only I had an edit button.. (no wands). (This site used to kick me into the programming pages, years ago, but…)
I’ll bake on this spread for a bit..
Last week, the first card was a broken crucible. Either the material inside self-destructed (poor logistics), or was formed well and displayed a beautiful burst of energy (function). I’ve been baking on last week’s,.. and it truly is fascinating, but words are slow to manifest.
Shit!, I’ll be weeks behind by the time my mind catches up. 🙂
I do like the visuals on the Rohrig deck,.. I’ll have to look around.
Thanks for the thought-food,
Jere