The Weekend Tarot Reading — Sunday, August 31, 2014

By Sarah Taylor

True power is something we are given; it isn’t something we get, or we take. This is the message of the Four of Disks in this week’s reading — and in the reading as a whole with all three cards included.

True power is conferred, and it is something we can then choose to use. That choice is based on our alignment. If we relate to nothing other than the material world — the physical world that we can see, feel, hear, taste and smell — then the power is self-centred. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just that our power is then limited.

We know this kind of power is at play when it is used as a show of force, or withheld from others for fear that they will gain the upper hand. It is the power we see played out daily in political posturing on the global stage, in our wars over ideologies and resources. It is the power that we experience when we stake our own personal claims — holding to our point of view out of principle, for fear of seeming weak or inadequate. It is the power that gets us something in the short-term. But at what cost?

When power is “Self”-centred, on the other hand, we are aligned with something greater than ourselves, and the power we hold is one that we needn’t cling to, nor is it something we feel compelled to use as a show of force, or to keep something from others. It is a state of being where we are acting from a place of balanced resourcefulness.

The four disks in the card are in formation around the figure at centre. The figure at centre — you — is sitting, ‘foursquare’. What you are sitting squarely inside are two experiences: one from the near past, and the other emerging ahead of you.

On Sunday, July 20, the Death card appeared to the right of the spread, signifying back then its imminent appearance in your life. Now, six weeks later, it is the first card, indicating that that moment of shedding a skin and dying to a way of life has passed. But its effect remains. You have emerged, in one key respect a changed person. You have emerged from a chrysalis and you are moving into a new experience.

So what will you choose? How will you sit foursquare in your own power, now that you understand that “you had the power all along, Dorothy?” Has your perspective of unmistakable and irrevocable change changed the way that you also see “power?”

As the road ahead clears, along with the skies, what stands in the distance is one of four symbols at their highest potential. The blade of the Ace of Swords reaches into the heavens; the hilt sits on the earth. The card is a visual depiction of the power of the Ace being offered as a bridge between the world of spirit and the world of matter. In this case, what is in front of you are clarity of thought, and insight. It is the flash of inspiration, the bright idea.

Aces are the pure, infinite expressions of their suits. They differ from cards two through ten in that they are non-incarnate: they cannot be brought fully into the physical world. They are archetypal. As such, you meet them in limited form. When they are presented to you, you draw from them what you are able to take; you use them in the ways that you know how. But first, you must take hold of them.

What better card to prepare you to take what is offered in the Ace than the Four of Disks? You know what authority feels like. It is your authority that is responsible for shaping your environment. But tarot, like life, is all about change. Without change, the authority of the Four of Disks concretises into inflexibility, and greed. When we cling to power, we cannot move, and we are not able to release what we are holding in order to welcome in something different, and perhaps better.

So, while enjoying your position, are you still open to releasing something in order to take advantage of the gift of insight that is heading your way?

The key word here is humility, which, when it comes to power, is the difference between authority and tyranny. And it comes back to alignment. Pure self-interest at any cost prevents us from seeing the possibility inherent in changing our position. Interest that is aligned with our Higher Self, on the other hand, opens us to new experiences — ones that could change our path forever, and in ways we could not have imagined, sitting there as we are, on our thrones, sure of everything around us.

What you cannot be sure of is what might be coming if you hold to what you have lightly, releasing it if need be, and waiting. That’s an act of faith. That’s what the Aces call for. Are you ready?

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Death (Scorpio), Four of Disks (Sun in Capricorn), Ace of Swords (the pure, infinite element of air)

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.