By Sarah Taylor
Interesting that even though we are meeting a new deck for the next five weeks of the Weekend Tarot Reading, we have a sense of something continuing in the presence of The Priestess, who was also at the centre of the reading two weeks ago using the Röhrig-Tarot. The Priestess as anchor to an experience that walks into your life on the heels of the Ten of Swords moment that came, or is emerging currently, into consciousness.
It’s transformation time now, though — or, rather, ‘transmutation’ time.
My sense is that you were brought face-to-face with a Ten of Swords matter in your life in order to clear it. It is the rearing of the monster’s head before it sinks beneath the ocean’s surface; and if you have used ‘right action’, it hasn’t disappeared out of consciousness only to resurface another time and in another form: it has become a part of the ocean itself. It has become a conscious part of you.
The Ten of Swords at its very best is a process of recognition, surrender to a process of healing, and the stripping away of a layer of belief that wounded more than it assisted, that held you back more than it eased your journey. Swords can either stand in your path, or they can clear it. It might be useful to ask yourself what, if anything, the Ten of Swords has meant for you, and whether you have been able to work with it in a way that furthers your own evolution.
What I will say is this: something has shifted. Something seems to have cleared. The Priestess remains at centre, but in this card her stance is more active — it is as if she holds the two cards on either side of her. This is a holding in consciousness. It is an intuitive holding, based on an understanding of both cards’ qualities and energies. The Priestess is naked, save for the veils that flow over her. A lemniscate (infinity symbol) is held over her closed eyes. She represents that part of you that meets with the Divine on the inner planes.
Yet, for all of her liminality, The Priestess is also Earth-bound: the two pomegranates are blood-red against a predominantly blue card. They ‘ground’ her in something far more physical. They are evocative of a vulva.
The card on the left is the Ace of Cups, also described here as Root of Water. Like The Priestess, this is a deeply feminine card. The Ace offers us the highest potential of its suit; Cups represent our emotional natures. Here, this potential is available to you, but couched in the form of woman: emotional energy that is creative, and pro-creative. The female figures formed from the two separate streams of water that run from the outer edges of the cup seem to be dancing. They, in turn, flank a lotus flower. Two half-Moons are topped by a rainbow. A further Moon rests above that. The Ace of Cups in this deck feels more sexual than most.
In this reading, we are meeting the Sacred Prostitute aspect of The Priestess.
To see the Sacred Prostitute primarily in terms of sex is to misunderstand her role; to see it in terms of sex at all is often also to misunderstand it. What comes first is what she is rather than what she does. She is a gateway to Divine love. The Priestess, more than any other card in the major arcana, is able to connect with spirit in order to bring it into physical reality. Here, she is connecting with spirit as love. Action follows from this, and is in service to this.
And so the reading asks the question: where is it that you are being called to embody the same principles?
Where are you able to meet with and demonstrate love that asks you to free yourself from the conditions that are so often placed on it? Where does “I love you, because…” become, simply, “I love you?” Where and how can you live that?
Because what is being asked of you here is to walk a path that demands a quiet certainty — one that is gained through a going within that is described by the final card, The Hermit. The Hermit is not a card of isolation as much as it is of separation from the influence of the outside world. It is wisdom that is found in contemplation of one’s connection to a core self.
The Hermit is the Magician all grown up. He has understood that magic for its own sake becomes empty and meaningless: soul-less. What time alone to face himself has given him is the insight that life itself is magic. We step into the world of The Hermit when we see through the innumerable diversions and illusions that seem to consume us when we are wholly focussed on what happens around us rather than within us.
In this case, The Hermit and The Priestess are partners working within you — the first, active, seeking to experience; the second, receptive, seeking to know. Together, they bring to Earth a form of love that has the power to transform your limited ideas of what love is, and to take this from the period of solitude and introspection that The Hermit has asked of you, and out into the world.
Astrology correspondences: The Ace of Cups (“Rules the Libra — Scorpio — Sagittarius quadrant above the North Pole, and the area of the Pacific” — M. M. Meleen, The Book of Seshet), The Priestess (Moon), The Hermit (Virgo)
M. M. Meleen’s website: www.rosettatarot.com
To purchase the Rosetta Tarot or The Book of Seshet: http://shop.rosettatarot.com/
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.
This really spoke to me:
“The Ten of Swords at its very best is a process of recognition, surrender to a process of healing, and the stripping away of a layer of belief that wounded more than it assisted, that held you back more than it eased your journey.”
Also, this, which Amanda said: “But then the end of the reading seems to suggest that this hermit period has already happened, and that we are being asked to seek experience externally instead already.” (This resonates with what I’m experiencing.)
Thank you for this reading, Sarah!
Sarah, I have always been amazed at how your readings always seem to highlight an important transit in my life! I thank you for your readings, it’s always a pleasure to read you!
This reading tells the story of this time. It touches my life, and it touches the place where my life touches the world. That may not make sense, but there are conversations going on in my life that will have an impact on the world, and this Reading tells that story. These conversation are going on all over the world. You are phenomenal, Sarah.
Amanda, you call attention to a push-pull at this Solstice. It is the time we are drawn within to the mystery, the darkness, to listen. Yet this Solstice seems to have a world wide Light, drawing outward.
Amanda – The first thing that came to me when I saw the image of The Hermit was that he “takes and walks”. I then had to make sense of that. If you look at the Moons above the Ace of Cups and The Priestess, there is an echoing of both of them in the Orphic Egg in The Hermit, which holds in it the birth of consciousness. So it feels like a transition from Hermit to world, and our experience can fall anywhere on that continuum. Moreover, this particular Hermit looks more active than many of his counterparts in other decks, which tend to be sparse and more hunched (i.e. ‘looking inward’).
And, yes, I got the week confused – I am referring to the WTR of November 25 when I mention High Priestess and Ten of Swords. Thanks for correcting that! Nevertheless, there *is* a link between last week’s reading and this week’s too, because in tarot The Hermit is the third stage in the evolution of The Magus/Magician — hence my reference to The Hermit being “The Magician all grown up”.
From a personal perspective, I do not see the Weekend Tarot Readings in isolation from each other, but rather as many strands in a complex narrative.
also — i was a little confused about the reference to the priestess & ten of swords, since last week’s reading was the star, the magus and the queen of cups.
i’ve changed that reference to read “two weeks ago” instead of “last week,” but was wondering if you see a through-line between all three readings? or does this week’s really connect more to the one from two weeks ago than it does to last week’s?
sarah —
at first as i was reading, the presence of the hermit made perfect sense in terms of our approach to the solstice in almost two weeks: that compulsion to pull our energy inward, to ground ourselves, to bring the light close in while surrounded by womb-like darkness and look within, to still ourselves so that we might hear our subtle messages to ourselves more clearly.
but then the end of the reading seems to suggest that this hermit period has already happened, and that we are being asked to seek experience externally instead already.
am i misunderstanding? or is there less of a contradiction here than my little linear-loving mind insists on seeing?
thank you!
“something has shifted. Something seems to have cleared”. Yes, something really big has shifted, I thought it had completely cleared too, but it hasn’t yet, still a way to go. Thank you, Sarah, for this extraordinary piece, where once again you describe and help me through a process I’m in the middle of. Love the cards too.