By Sarah Taylor
A last-minute, but very welcome, visit with family means that I have had to put plans for an article on The Magician and The High Priestess on the back-burner, simmering away until I have the time and space to delve more deeply into their relationship — something I have been exploring in my Hermetics studies.
This week, I am going to work along the same principles I did when writing the series on the shadow (you can read parts one, two, and three here), and invite you to consider a particular card.
This time, however, instead of using it as a focus for meeting with your shadow, this is about approaching the card with no attachment to a particular outcome — or, in the words of psychoanalyst Wilfrid Bion, “without memory or desire.”
The card in question is the Queen of Pentacles — one of the two senior court cards (her masculine counterpart is the King of Pentacles) in the final suit. Anything that is physical is ruled by Pentacles; it is the final stage in bringing something down from spirit and into matter. It might be worth bearing that in mind. Or maybe not. I’ll leave it up to you.
To do the exercise, simply take a moment to centre yourself, and then rest your attention on the card — either by using the larger image that you can reach by clicking on the Queen of Pentacles, or your own Rider-Waite Smith card, if you have one.
Take in the card as a whole, and then start to move into the card — the use of line, the colours, the details, what is in the foreground, middle-ground and background.
Notice your sensations: feel into your body. What is your body saying to you? How does your body want to connect with the card, if at all? Mirror the Queen’s position. How does that feel bodily? No feeling is wrong; no feeling is the ‘right’ one. You are not aiming to feel ‘Queenly’.