The Weekend Tarot Reading – December 26, 2010

Today marks a change to the format of The Weekend Tarot Reading, which feels fitting in the run-up to the New Year. Given that many of the mid-week articles focus on a single card so that we can build on our knowledge of the tarot deck, I felt that it was time to expand the Weekend Reading to three cards — not only as a point of differentiation, but also to give the reading more complexity. Think of it as an experiment of sorts — an invitation for synchronicity to step in and work with us. Let’s see how things take shape.

This reading feels spiritually significant, and it feels like an integration.

Given that two of the three cards are from the major arcana, the reading is not so much about the outer, day-to-day workings of life, but rather inner processes and transformation.

The first things that I notice in this reading are the figures themselves. All three cards have as their subject one lone individual that dominates the picture. Female, male, female. Seated, standing, seated. The background blue, grey, then blue again. Each has two ‘props’: The High Priestess her scroll and the crescent Moon, The Hermit his lamp and staff, the Queen of Wands a sunflower and a black cat. Together, the three figures and their symbolic companions tell a story.

The High Priestess works in the dream state. She is mistress of the liminal, that psychic space between spirit and everyday life. She is ethereal, and embodies the energy of the Moon, exuding a quiet luminescence. When she is doing her work, she travels to a source that is in but not of her, and brings its light to bear on the matter at hand.

This is not a weakness. In fact, this is her greatest strength. She is messenger for the non-incarnate world. As a result, she cannot completely exist in the physical world. She is a person who holds her greatest strength between worlds. It is a rewarding role, but it requires a leap of faith — both from The High Priestess herself, who can never fully plumb the depths from where her knowledge arises, and from those who come to her. So both operate on a basis of trust: trust that the source of knowledge is ultimately unknowable; and trust to work with and use that knowledge regardless.

However, being in the world demands more from us than The High Priestess is equipped for. While she exists on the outskirts of consciousness, our lives are constantly calling us to dive into it and participate more fully. This reading reflects that moment when we take what we have learned from our intuition and prepare ourselves to embody it and re-enter the fray of the everyday. And it can feel like a fray! A lot is asked of us to inhabit our lives fully. Because when we make this choice, we have to take full responsibility for ourselves — as individuals, as partners, as members of our families, a part of our communities, as a constituent of life on this planet.

This takes some getting used to, and often what we need before we take up this mantle, is to don the mantle of The Hermit. The Hermit describes the need for solitude, but not the solitude of The High Priestess who works at the gateway to the spirit world. No, The Hermit is solitary in the world. He does not operate by the Moon’s glow, but by lamplight — an all-too-human defence against the darkness of the shadows that push against him. The Hermit describes that moment in time when we are confronted with just what it is to be human, when the darkness we have ignored for so long rushes towards us and asks to be acknowledged. Here, he seems to be holding his lamp up to The High Priestess, as if momentarily looking back and remembering the security that was found before he had to grow up, leave the safety of home, and embark on his vision quest.

And yet The Hermit knows that this time of contemplation, like all things, is temporary. It is a finite, but necessary, part of the evolution of his soul, while the shadows are tended and integrated. His lamp may only offer a small flame, but it burns brightly and steadily. He has his staff (the human embodiment of spirit) for support. He is drumming up his inner resources, no longer dependent on outside assistance.

And the transformation reaches its fruition in the Queen of Wands. The staff stands upright at the same angle — only now it is alive, leaves springing from the top. The lamp has become a sunflower, symbol of the Sun and itself a source of beauty, vitality and nutrition. It also mirrors the colours of the pomegranates in The High Priestess. The Queen of Wands embodies elements of both The High Priestess and The Hermit. She is distanced from her roots in spirit, but she has not forgotten them. Her grey cloak hints that she has been through her vision quest, and the darkness that she sat with now sits with her: a black cat, conspicuous at the bottom of the image, independent and with its own mind, yet a companion.

It’s all well and good to be able to work with spirit, with our intuitive nature, with that liminal space between worlds — whatever we may choose to call it. But unless we can bring it into our hearts and minds, ground it and hold it, then there is little use for it. This reading is about making use of what we are, and what we have been given. The business of life is in the living of it, and the Queen is the epitome of the fine balance between spirit and matter, light and darkness, feminine and masculine. It is a powerful vision to hold for the New Year.