The Weekend Tarot Reading — Sunday, April 8, 2012

By Sarah Taylor

Sometimes, after drawing the cards for a Weekend Tarot Reading and before starting to write, I’ll enter a few keywords about the layout into the search engine box in WordPress. This doesn’t happen often; keywords tend to emerge from the form of the writing, once the article is completed, and not the other way around — usually necessitating some mild mental gymnastics to encapsulate the reading’s meaning in searchable terms.

This afternoon, though — the cards newly laid out in front of me — the keywords practically wrote themselves, they came out so quickly. No thinking required. So I’m going to do things a little differently, based on this: I’m going to list the keywords, and use them as the structure for today’s reading. They reflect the order in which the cards presented themselves, from left to right.

Keywords:

graduation, learning, rest, regrouping, meditation, preparation, divided allegiances, love triangle, pain, suffering, community, celebration, inclusion, integrity

This means that the reading has a linear quality to it, even though I write with the understanding that everything is brought together to inform how we are, and what we do, in the present moment.

Graduation, learning — Six of Wands

Something has been achieved — this is true no matter whether it is obvious, feels inconsequential, or our perceptions of what has been going on are muddied to the point where we feel unable to take a step back and see things with perspective. The Six of Wands represents a moment of graduation in life, where we have emerged from a time of learning into some light of recognition. The message here is that this recognition is deserved. We are not frauds; we might not feel like the applause is justified — but it is. In some arena, we have acquitted ourselves well. Perhaps it is time to recognise it in ourselves too.

Having said that, there is something else to bear in mind with the Six of Wands: the man is young, and therefore this is a graduation on to something else. Just as a graduation from school or college is the end of a phase of preparation for the next stage of our lives, the reason we have gone through what we have in the Six of Wands is to prepare us for something that we are moving towards. Our development in this field is not over; it is time to apply what we have acquired and see where it takes us next.

Rest, regrouping, meditation, preparation — Four of Swords

And so, after the graduation ceremony comes the period of rest. Unlike summer break, however, resting on our (hard-earned) laurels is not indicated; this rest is active. During this time, it might seem like we are withdrawing from the world, or from a particular mode of existence, but that is because we are being given the opportunity to seek wisdom by going within and connecting to a higher part of ourselves.

The Four of Swords denotes a time of recuperation that is prescribed rather than simply suggested. We would do well to heed its prescription. The three swords suspended above the resting figure are faded into the background — disengaged for now. However, they become active participants in our experience in the Three of Swords. We can tap into and sense — intuit — their activation in our lives. Here, we have a head’s up. We can acquaint ourselves with them, with their potential energy, while they are neutral. We can feel them pressing down on our consciousness; we can perhaps learn to live side-by-side with that energy for now, so that we know and understand what we are dealing with when they become enmeshed.

The fourth sword beneath us is the one that stands separate — it feels to me like a form of energetic homeopathy: a little bit of what can wound us is what also heals us. This sword is ‘with us’; it mirrors our spine, it is imbued with the same golden hue. It is the sword of insight and reason — the energy of the Ace — but here it feels a very personal insight, a personal sense of reason, given that it is lying with us, rather than standing separate from everything as is the single sword in the Ace of Swords.

Go within, seek wisdom within, find a place of inner rest even if for moments. It will equip you with something valuable.

Love triangle, pain, suffering — Three of Swords

Here, the three swords that were in the background in the Four of Swords have now become active in the foreground of our experience. The Three of Swords represents a ‘love triangle’ in the broadest sense of the term — that of divided allegiances. This is most readily translated into relationships (especially the ones we tend to consider ‘primary’) because relationships are undoubtedly the prevalent mode of encountering this division. The heart at centre is testament to this.

So, it seems that life is preparing us for an encounter that asks for the light of insight and consciousness. We have both of those: the Six of Wands, followed by the Four of Swords, have ably equipped us for just such an occasion. When the Three of Swords meets us, it has a quality that is immediately diagnostic. We will feel a pull that can draw us into pain and, if we doggedly pursue that path of pain without consciousness, further into suffering, which is when we attach to pain in a way that wounds: there would be no wounding, after all, if the swords were detached. That is really what is at the heart of the Three of Swords (pun intended): attachment and suffering — ours and others’. Someone, somewhere, has a belief that is so strong it claims ownership of the matter at hand.

It is here that I see a parallel with last weekend’s reading, which indicated a choice and our ability to engage a degree of love that is mature and centred. This week seems to be telling that same story from a different angle: that of our thoughts and words. Is what we think we are seeing the truth of the matter? Are our beliefs holding us hostage, pressing down on us as hinted at in the Four of Swords, now with the potential to cause pain? Or do we believe something different — perhaps something new? Is there a thought more in alignment with who we are that is supportive rather than destructive? If so, it might be more subtle; we might have to exercise a deeper sense of awareness to find it. That awareness is what we have been getting in touch with in the Four of Swords, in spite of what hangs over us.

There is a sense of perfection in the events that have been leading up to this; we are better equipped than we might conceive. We can go within and find our own wisdom again in that moment when we need it. All it takes is a step back in the heat of an encounter, and we can reach for it and hold it. When we hold it, we heal the situation in the Three of Swords, because, by holding it, we have integrated a part of ourselves. Perhaps, then, we can see the Three of Swords for what it is in that moment of contact: that it was really a division within us that we had projected outwards.

Community, celebration, inclusion, integrity — Three of Cups

I drew a qualifying card to contextualise the Three of Swords and to clarify direction: the Three of Cups. Transformation from one Three to another, where conflict becomes harmony, reflected in the three words ‘community’, ‘celebration’, ‘inclusion’. We have come full-circle: the blue sky in the Six of Wands re-appears after its absence in the Four and Three of Swords; the Cups link with the Cups in the previous week’s reading — a reminder of what is key here: love. The way to this love is through acting from a sense of our deepest truth, our integrity, which transforms pain into healing. When we do so, we realise that this love is something that has been with us all along.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
(1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

 

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