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
At the end of last month, I wrote an article on the Aces in the Rider-Waite Smith tarot deck: this was all about the quality of each suit in potential — its ideal, its promise to us.
This week, we enter the world of the Twos, where potential is brought into the physical world that we inhabit. The Twos are about duality. It is where we get to work with the mode that each suit expresses: creativity (Wands), emotions (Cups), thought (Swords) and resources (Pentacles).
I also believe that it is each suit expressed in its simplest physical form — our life experiences have not as yet added the layers of complexity that become apparent as we move through the numbers towards the court cards.
The Twos in the minor arcana are also connected to their trump equivalent: The High Priestess. As card number 2 in the major arcana, The High Priestess sits at the gateway between spirit and matter. As the intermediary, she receives messages from the non-incarnate, and brings them into the world. The High Priestess is a midwife. What she assists in birthing takes its first steps in the Twos.
Let’s look at how the idea of first steps manifests in each of the four cards…
The Two of Wands
A man stands on the parapet of a castle. He is well dressed, so I am assuming that the castle is his. In his left hand, he holds one of two wands, its base resting on a crenellation; in his right, he holds a globe. Behind him, the other wand is fastened to the wall with a metal bracket — held in place while his attention is focused elsewhere. Below him lies what seems to be a small village. Does it belong to him?