By Sarah Taylor
There are both grace and swift, profound change indicated in this week’s reading, mediated by a young man on a horse proffering a pentacle. Who is he? Why is he here? How does he fit into the scheme of things?
My first response is that, as a court card, he doesn’t necessarily represent a particular person (although that is possible), but rather an aspect of personality. It is this aspect that links two cards that might otherwise seem poles apart. They aren’t; this reading makes that clear.
The card on the left is The Star, associated with the sign of Aquarius, the water-bearer. The Star is an interesting card in that it is transpersonal: an archetype that lies outside the purely human realm. If you look closely at Pamela Colman Smith’s illustration on this card, you will see something similar to the Ace of Cups: the idea that the streams flowing from the vessels are self-replenishing. The figure in The Star isn’t refilling the urns from the pond; it is the pond that is being refilled by the urns.
This defies earthly laws, and rightly so, because The Star transcends earthly laws, much like the Ace of Cups. The urns are replenished through the flow of something more than water. The flow is the flow of cosmic energy that we encounter and can align with when we have been opened up to it.