The Weekend Tarot Reading — Sunday, October 30, 2011

Editor’s Note: 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. You can visit Sarah’s website here. –efc

By Sarah Taylor

Go within. Use what you have. Draw on infinite resources that you can access without relying on others. You do this in partnership with yourself, and your Self. When you do act, however, you will find that there is support out there that is waiting for you.

I wrote earlier this week that tarot doesn’t take any holidays, and this reading bears that out. On Wednesday, I drew six cards to illustrate the first part (the ‘cross’ aspect) of a Celtic Cross reading.

On the horizontal axis, the middle card — Card 1, the Current Situation — and the card to its right — Card 6, the Near Future — were the Four of Swords and the Nine of Wands respectively. Here, we seem to have a development of this progression, as another card intervenes to add a piece to the puzzle. This card, the Seven of Pentacles, also seems to want to work with the energy of Card 2 — the Influencing Factor — in the Celtic Cross reading, which was another Seven: the Seven of Wands.

So, to recap, in the Celtic Cross reading of 26 October, we had: Current Situation — Four of Swords, Influencing Factor — Seven of Wands, Near Future — Nine of Wands.

In this Weekend Tarot Reading, we have: Left — Four of Swords, Centre — Seven of Pentacles, Right — Nine of Wands.

Some great symmetry going on. What does it mean? This is my take on it — much of which will be mirrored from the earlier article.

The Four of Swords is about a time of introspection and withdrawal from the outside world. This doesn’t have to be complete withdrawal, but there will be a noticeable shift from a state of activity to one where there is the invitation to ‘move within’. It is a moving within that is optional, of course, but which has a certain sense of necessity about it if the protagonist wants to move forward without dragging the past behind him.

A good example of this is the battle-weary — perhaps wounded — soldier who needs to open himself up to care and rejuvenation on all levels if he is to be at all effective when he goes back out into the fray. There is little point in going back out if wounds haven’t been given a chance to heal; they will only hold him back — he will be facing old problems again. The Four of Swords is the step that we can take to avoid this. Bathed in the diffused light of a hidden Sun — a source that is felt but not entirely known — we can surrender to a repose that imbues us with something we would not have found otherwise. We don’t actively seek it; we stop, and it finds us — and when it does, we will be able to identify it and to use it when we go back out into the world.

In the next card, an inner conflict of something rising from beneath suggested by the Seven of Wands has now become the Seven of Pentacles: Something that we can, indeed, now work with. The Seven of Pentacles suggests the beginnings of something that can sustain us, but which is fragile. The land surrounding the vines that the figure tends to is not conducive to life; it feels parched and barren. But the figure is producing something of value nonetheless.

The yellow light bathing the figure in the Four now manifests in the seven pentacles that he is pausing to look at. These are the fruits of going inside. The figure is now animated but focused, attentive. He can already start using what he has created: One Pentacle lies, ready, at his feet. There is the indication in this that the pause of the Four will not last for much longer and that even now, with small beginnings, there is the opportunity to put something to work. Not everything, however: six pentacles are still on the vine, and they are going to need all of the nurturing they can receive in order to reach fruition. As I mentioned, the land surrounding the figure is arid, but his sleeves and legs are a rich blue which ties into the blue vegetation in the middle-ground behind him. Blue suggests water, but this ‘water’ might not be immediately identifiable, ‘hidden’ as it is in objects that are not obvious sources. He can work with the land to feed his crop, but he needs to understand first that it is he who is the source of what it requires.

This is about the investment that we have to put into ourselves if we are going to grow. No-one else is going to do it for us. It might feel like we are receiving little outside support in terms of resources. That is because all the support we need is to be found inside. We were put in touch with that support as the resting figure in the Four of Swords. Once we give ourselves the support we need, we get the support we want.

Finally, we come to the Nine of Wands. Look at the figure: He’s had quite a time of it! Sleeves rolled up, bandage around his head, he is wounded and he means business, guarding himself, as he seems to be doing, against the eight wands lined up behind him, his shoulder out, his eyes looking askance. He clutches at one wand as if reluctant to give it up — holding it back and away from the others.

But what exactly is he fighting? In the Seven of Wands, the wands were indeed coming up actively from below; there seemed to be a reason to fight, even if what the figure was fighting was an aspect of himself and something that, at its core, held creative potential. Here, the Wands have emerged and are now lined up. They stand at the threshold between foreground and background: the former is uniform, safe, but lacking in life and vibrancy; the latter bathed in rich green and blue, denoting life, clear skies — a natural ‘blank canvas’ on which to paint one’s identity in the world.

The wands also hold the yellow that bathes the soldier in light in the Four of Swords. Yes, in the Nine of Wands, it is more subtle and mixed in with hatchings of red — spirit and body, perhaps. But it is there, and it also covers the tunic that the figure wears. And look at his legs and feet: two shades of green. They seem to want to meet the land that lies behind him.

To me, the conflict that the figure engaged in before he met the Four of Swords has rendered him defensive. Understandably so. He sees the wands — he remembers taking arms against them — and he is just waiting for them to play up again. He is, in essence, at a point of choice, a threshold between past and future. What if he were to trust? What if this might feel the same, but it is his experience that is colouring reality? Look at the opening between the wands immediately behind him. What if he were to join forces with the wands and put the wand he holds in this space? What if he were to do this after stepping through the gap and into the landscape that holds creative potential?

This speaks of something that might feel old, but it is new. It speaks of alignment and of the creativity that can emanate from that. Yes, there is a risk involved; but the figure hasn’t gone through the Four of Swords and the Seven of Pentacles to come out ill-equipped for the new adventure that waits for him.

Neither have you.