The Weekend Tarot Reading — Sunday, January 13, 2013

By Sarah Taylor

The elements at play in this week’s three-card reading are fire and water — and the message is indeed a little steamy. Having noted that, it is also worth noting what steam is able to achieve: locomotion, or the act of moving from one place to another.

Here, it is a movement from the Two of Wands to the Three of Cups, via Lust, who acts as intermediary.

At left, the Two of Wands is a suitable initiatory power to be setting the reading into motion. If the Ace of Wands is potential energy — in other words, energy that has yet to be drawn down and incarnated on Earth — then the Two is what happens when it is transferred into the human realm and we get to work with it.

Because Two of Wands energy is close to source energy, it is fiery, and more ‘slippery’ to manage. It is less dense; it burns brightly. It can be harnessed, but it takes discipline and experience to make the most of it, and to ensure that no-one, or nothing, is unintentionally burned in the process.

Summed up in a few words, the Two of Wands represents will that we can direct. It is forceful, authoritative, creative, masculine. Have a look at the card and you’ll see what I mean: the wands themselves are red, vivid, set against spiralled rods of flame. In the background, however, we have blue. This to me signifies the presence of a coolness that is needed to work with it to greatest effect. Not cool as in cold, but as in level-headed.

Blue is the first indication in the reading of the presence of water, which comes into its own in the third card. Here, the two colours don’t meld, but co-exist. There is a fine balance. This calls to my mind the major arcana card of Temperance — the fire sign of Sagittarius that is also focussed on the element of water. We embody the archetype of Temperance when we are able to balance opposing forces inside us — which in turn creates something new from the coming together of these opposites: consciousness.

Nevertheless, in the Two, we are working with a very particular substance, and we can direct it how we choose. What is almost certain is that it is going to feel heady (or, perhaps more accurately, loin-y). Especially when it is paired with its neighbouring card, Lust.

M. M. Meleen — creator of the Rosetta Tarot — writes that Lust “represents Lust as in vigor, the joy of strength exercised.” She also describes the cup that the female figure is holding as “the sacrament of sexual union.” So, seen in combination with the Two of Wands, Lust first takes shape in this reading as a card that is unequivocally both carnal and erotic. There is a certain sense of opening to a potent stream of procreative verve that has the potential to eclipse all other subtleties of meaning in the card. And ‘lust’ is not the whole story that the eleventh card in the major arcana has to tell us.

Going back to M. M. Meleen’s words, Lust is “the use of the force of will to conquer the lower nature.” And by ‘conquer’, I don’t take her to mean that it is repressed or suppressed out of existence. Rather, much like the seven-headed beast that the woman rides, it is harnessed. Her physical authority, her hand resting on the beast’s mane, is enough so that she can ride the currents of will in a way that is powerfully creative.

And to what end? The Three of Cups: Abundance. The Three of Cups is described in The Book of Seshet as representing “the waters of conception, the joy of fertility, and overflowing happiness — the three graces.” It is associated with Demeter’s celebration of Persephone’s return from the underworld, the world bursting back into fecund life — and this is further mirrored in Lust, which is associated with the earlier, Sumerian myth of Inanna.

Just as the Two of Wands is potential energy in the earliest stages of manifestation, the Three of Cups is what happens when our emotional natures are attuned to something that is greater than either the individual or the couple. The Three of Cups is about the harvest, and harvest is there to sustain communities as well as individuals. It is collective love in all of its permutations.

All three together, and we have the force of will harnessed and directed towards something that can be inspired, heart-expanding and abundant. Implicit in this is the caution to take suitable steps if we want to avoid running out of steam or jumping the tracks — in which case some grounding, maturity, balance and the appropriate exercising of power wouldn’t go amiss either.

Astrology correspondences: Two of Wands (Mars in Aries), Lust (Leo), Three of Cups (Mercury in Cancer)

M. M. Meleen’s website: www.rosettatarot.com

To purchase the Rosetta Tarot or The Book of Seshet: http://shop.rosettatarot.com/

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.