The Weekend Tarot Reading — Sunday, November 24, 2013

By Sarah Taylor

We have a very clear set-up this week, describing a sense of distance — antagonism, even — between the masculine and the feminine (or two people embodying masculine and feminine qualities respectively, depending on whether this is taking shape internally, externally, or both), where each entity seems to be preoccupied with something that causes both to separate from each other, rather than identify as a complementary whole.

I have mentioned in previous articles that I often see the woman in the Nine of Pentacles as a queen-like figure. In essence, given that the Nine of Pentacles is close to the end of the pip cards (Two through Ten), she is a Queen-in-waiting, yet to come into her own as the fully fledged ruler of her domain.

This idea of Queen-in-waiting is apropos given her polarisation with the King of Wands: they stand as two ends of a see-saw, with the Three of Swords acting as fulcrum between them. Will one tip the other one up, the power balance between them losing integrity? Or will they find a way of coming to rest as equals? The key lies in their personal power and in the resolution of the conflict in the card that both separates and unites them.

More than that: the greater part of this responsibility actively rests with the feminine principle (the Nine of Pentacles), given that she is the one who is being called to step from her current circumstances and into her role as a ruler.

This idea of rulership is not a ‘ruling over’ someone or something else, but the idea of self-rule. The woman in the Nine of Pentacles is currently trapped. I know many tarot readers see this card as eminently positive. I do not. I see it as being a strong indication of what is asking for transformation and liberation. She is being asked to transform and liberate herself. Much like the falcon sitting in her hand, she is bound — by codes, the trappings of protocol, the strictures of a setting where she is seen but not heard, where she is unable to fly free on the currents of the wild. She has everything she could want, but little that she needs. The falcon is fed, watered and kept; it is unable to be what it is at its core.

Will she stay where she is, tame, pretty, propping up the riches she has accumulated? Or will she remove the mask(s) and release the bird and herself to the skies? Will she be like the snail who moves at her feet, answerable to no-one but itself? It moves slowly, yes, but our judgments about how quickly it is progressing — how quickly we are progressing — can be deceptive. The snail, you see, is already home. It needs nothing more than it has, and what it has doesn’t weigh it down: it enables it to feel secure no matter the outer circumstances of its life.

And so we meet the King of Wands — ruler of the masculine principle of fire, eros, creativity — who sits, looking away from the other two cards. He is a ruler without a consort, a consort who is waiting, holding in her the choice to consider her next move. Both figures in the outer cards are being invited to clarify the most important tasks that face them as individuals in their own right: correct focus in the case of the King; freedom of self in the case of the Nine. What bars them is the melee of swords that separates them.

The Three of Swords comes into play when a thought has a thought about itself. So, we start to weave inner plots and intrigues, which become more complex as we progress through the suit until we find ourselves at the Ten of Swords, lying underneath the thoughts we have created, defeated, witnessing the dark night of the soul, waiting for the skies to clear.

In the Three of Swords we witness the first skirmish. The skirmish is around how our thoughts lay claim to physical real-estate — here, how we order our thoughts when it comes to our emotional connections with ourselves and others. But all is not lost. There is time, as painful as it may seem. We have not yet reached the point where we are rendered immobile by our thinking.

What if the King were to reach back with his left hand and carefully draw the sword closest to him from the heart at centre? What if our heroine were to let go of her pentacles and do the same? What if they were then to remove the final sword together — the Ace? They would be working towards a common goal, their energies aligned. The outcome: the liberation of ideas around interrelatedness.

Without the feminine, masculine fire consumes itself or burns out, with nothing for it to react with or to play into. Without the masculine, feminine earth is lifeless, unable to regenerate. Like an alchemical base substance, alone they are useless. They need a complementary opposite.

When both the masculine and the feminine look within and turn towards each other, willing to bring their unique strengths, to co-operate and coalesce, their reuniting frees us from inner conflict and the conflicts we project outside us. Our hearts and thoughts have a new focus, from which we are able create something new that is greater than the sum of its constituent parts. In short, when we are (re)united, we can create nothing less than gold.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: King of Wands (the fiery aspect of fire), Three of Swords (Saturn in Libra), Nine of Pentacles (Venus in Virgo)

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.