The Weekend Tarot Reading – Sunday, Jan. 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 tells you how to use the spread. You can visit Sarah’s website here. –efc

By Sarah Taylor

Fermentation. Clarity. Conjunction.

After a necessary period of ‘being in the dark’, remaining still, and trusting on those abilities that lie beyond the five senses, it is time to take what we have received and bring it into the wider world — that world where our lives touch those of others.

When I looked at The Moon having drawn the three cards for this week’s tarot reading, the first thing that came to me is the word that opens this article: fermentation.

“Psychologically, the Fermentation process starts with the inspiration of spiritual power from Above that reanimates, energizes, and enlightens the alchemist [read: anyone who is on a conscious journey of self-development]. Out of the blackness of his Putrefaction comes the yellow Ferment, which appears like a golden wax flowing out of the foul matter of the Soul. Its arrival is announced by a brilliant display of colors and meaningful visions called the “Peacock’s Tail.” Fermentation can be achieved through various activities that include intense prayer, desire for mystical union, breakdown of the personality, transpersonal therapy, psychedelic drugs, and deep meditation. Fermentation is living inspiration from something totally beyond us.”  — alchemylab.com

The Moon is a time when our inner world is set into a different relief. Things that we’re used to seeing clearly are shrouded in shadow; feelings and sensations relegated to the background in everyday life start to make themselves known. This is symbolised by the creatures in the card: the dog-like figures have ceased their usual activity, transfixed by the moon, while a crustacean — denizen of the deep — crawls on to the land.

This is a necessary time of connecting with those parts of the psyche that are often missed or otherwise ignored. When The Moon comes up in our lives, it can be challenging and we can feel ‘weirded out’ — especially if we are not used to giving them space to communicate with us — but The Moon also marks the process of becoming whole.

And then comes the shift. The golden drops of The Moon are transformed into the water drops on the Ace of Cups. The light of consciousness becomes an outpouring of emotion. The body of water in The Moon which held the secrets of the deep that then emerged on to the shore, is now nurturing life on its surface in the Ace. The lilies and lily pads speak to me of renewed vitality, supported by the lake around it and fed by the waters flowing into it from the Holy Grail above. The Moon has now become Cup — a divine offering of love. The period of fermentation was needed in order to connect with the “inspiration of spiritual power from Above”, which now “reanimates, energizes, and enlightens” us.

Look at the hand in the Ace. The cloud that envelopes it also seems to be the source of the rainbow in the Ten of Cups. The period of darkness, followed by watery inundation. The flight of a dove. Then finally the appearance of a family — two adults, two children — on dry land. The adults’ hands are raised, exalting a rainbow of ten Cups; the children dance beside them. I have the strongest impression that the story of Noah’s Ark is represented here. The forty days of rain and the absence of land — of grounding — being the ultimate test of Noah’s faith. The lake has now become a river, simply part of a larger picture of life that is there to support them. The progression has been one from the strange, to the divine, to the human. Have we become more human and more integrated in this process? Is that what this is about? Is this the joy that comes from knowing and meeting the darkness and the flood with its gift of renewal? What seems certain is that the message is one of hope, and it is a powerful one.