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
After a period of challenge, a moment of grace opens the way to a greater sense of ease, support and nourishment.
Where some three-card readings develop an idea or theme in a progression from left to right, this week’s reading starts with the two outside cards, and unites them in the card at the centre — The Star.
Both outer cards deal with challenge. The Ten of Wands — also known as “oppression” — depicts a man labouring under the weight of his load of ten wands. Not only do they seem heavy, but unwieldy: it’s all he can do to keep them in his grip, while they fan out before him, blocking his view of what lies ahead of him. A demanding bunch of wands indeed. However, although he has his work cut out for him, there is the implicit presence of choice. He is choosing to carry them; no one is behind him, forcing or cajoling him. There must be something that he gains from this, a purpose to his actions.
In the Five of Pentacles, a man and a woman pass underneath the stained glass window of a church. It is snowing, and the woman seems cold, pulling her threadbare shawl around her neck and shoulders. The man is on crutches, his lower right leg in bandages. Both seem absorbed in their respective plights, the man looking at us as if silently asking us to acknowledge his predicament or to offer assistance. In contrast to the Ten of Wands, there seems to be less choice afforded the figures in the Five of Pentacles, their situation more immediately precarious. They seem to have missed the option of seeking refuge and sustenance in the church behind them, focussed as they are on us and on the way ahead of them.
Be that as it may, the images are united by a stark sense of isolation, where the figures are left to bear the burdens of their conditions alone. Humanity seems out of reach.
My eye is drawn to the brown-red of the man’s tunic in the Ten of Wands, and the blue of the man’s tunic and the brown-red of the woman’s shawl in the Five of Pentacles. I look at The Star, where these colours reappear as the urns that the figure of The Star carries in her hands, and the water that flows from them. The burdens of isolation and deprivation are transmuted in The Star in a moment of grace.
This, to me, feels, if not the same, then related to the idea of Temperance that I wrote about last week. In this reading, the human condition is touched by and becomes part of the divine. We are both matter and spirit. We toil and struggle because that is what we feel we are called to do. We are thrown out into the cold, our wounds and ailments raw, our protection against the elements scant. We are unable to look up and see the support that is coming towards us (the town in the Ten of Wands); we don’t look around us and see the glowing window.
And then The Star takes centre stage. The Star transcends humanity, and in so doing unites it. We move beyond our pain and suffering. We are administered a healing balm. We are brought back to ourselves, which opens the way to coming together with others. The town draws closer; the church throws open its doors. Our burden is relieved and our wounds are attended to — what is delivered from above is given to us on Earth.
After a period of being so caught up in toils and trials that you have been able to see little else, this is the indication of the potential for something new. It might have been a rough ride, but I’d like to suggest that there is a metamorphosis here that wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for the experiences in the Ten of Wands and the Five of Pentacles. What seemed meaningless at the time might have brought you to this very point of transition. The next step is yours. Where are you going to go?
Charles – I, too, found the reading difficult in both senses. I was thinking this is perhaps due to two reasons: first, I can identify with the challenges associated with the outer cards, and it is hard to invite them into consciousness, especially the Five of Pentacles, which seems to be so overtly about suffering.
Second, I find The Star very hard to put into words – perhaps moreso than any other card. Temperance was different in that I could put it into words, but needed an example to make it real. In the case of The Star, I am finding that it only really makes sense if you *feel* it rather than describe it. It defies description in many ways – and perhaps it is meant to.
Therefore, I’d suggest that the middle card is felt rather than understood on any mental level. If you then extend that to the two outer cards, it really is a very emotion-laden reading, with some sense of mystery at its centre. That mystery might just be the presence of the divine.
Jere – I love your interpretation-in-a-nutshell.
Stellium – I think it’s a Sacred Ibis. It is a bit of an acrobat, isn’t it? It held great significance for the ancient Egyptians.
is that a heron in that tree? the legs are a little short..but..
it must be v. lightweight, it’s standing on the leaves!
impressive!
(it’s the little things..) like that cute little snail the other time.
thanks Sarah!
🙂
Life can seem like drudgery sometimes. The beginning may be difficult, as well as the end. But in between, there’s a glimpse that we are beyond all of this. And there is comfort in Understanding.
..It truly is our time, whatever burdens or hardship we may endure, We are the (wait, what is it,…), “..makers of music, and dreamers of dreams..”. Ahh, there we go..
Peace, Love, and Happiness
Jere
This is kind of a tough reading. Not necessarily in the sense it’s tough to read (which it sort of is). But the message is tough. Even the elemental reading is tough: Fire-Air-Earth. Fire and Air are friendly, Air sustains the fire and we get warm air. But Air and Earth are antagonists, I see an image of a violent sandstorm. Ow I’ve got sand in my eyes!
I always read the 10W as the guy is trying to get his wands to the town, he is focused on the ultimate results of his burden, even though it is too heavy for him. He might not make it at all but he sees no way to lighten his load and accomplish his result. What he wants to do, he can’t even start until he gets his burden to its destination.
The 5P, I often read as “togetherness in adversity.” Their togetherness gives them more support than they would get inside the church. They are ravaged by the wind and cold, but will endure it to be together. Hmm.. I never noticed before there’s a bell around the neck of the crippled man. Perhaps this is some sort of warning to flee the sickness he represents? In any case, these people are being treated like pariahs, like lepers unfit for human society. But even in this adversity, they find fellowship with each other.
Ah, but the star in the middle, I keep thinking of the Crowley version, and how she looks down on the earth and must think “what fools these mortals be” and shines her protective rays down on them. In RWS, she pours an endless stream from her magical jugs that are inexhaustible. The Star represents hope, and the stars representing the luminaries (planets) say that while the life goes on, the stars keep moving through the skies with the seasons. What influences we may suffer from today will always change tomorrow.
We may identify with our burdens, or we may identify with those who are as pitiful as we feel we are. We may feel our destination is too far for us to reach, or that we will not be accepted. But the Star offers hope that our we can carry our burdens. OR we can turn our back to it and it becomes a symbol of hopelessness, that hope is for others but we have been excluded, and will wander without any destination but the grave.