The Weekend Tarot Reading – Sunday, Jan. 16, 2011

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

This week’s tarot reading is about bringing something into balance in preparation for events that are apt to move swiftly.

The Queen of Pentacles makes her second appearance in as many weeks. (She also turned up in the Weekend Reading on Jan. 2.) There seems to be a need to emphasize the qualities that she embodies — though this time instead of her working in harmony with the Queen of Cups, she is partnered with her masculine counterpart, the King of Pentacles.

The Queen of Pentacles (like the King) understands the laws of the physical world, and has learned to live within her means: she knows and works with the principles of sustainability — that being in the world and thriving in it is about balance. She is wealthy (evidenced by her dress and gold crown), yet she holds her Pentacle forward, as if in offering, denoting stewardship rather than ownership. There is a sense of detachment from material things. She is regal, yet she is humble: her throne, though ornate, is fashioned from stone; her ‘court’ is the natural world; a rabbit roams freely at her feet. She seems to meld into the landscape, her green veil folding into the grass, the red in her tunic mirrored by the flowers. It is as if she were made from the earth itself — Eve, reinstated in Eden.

Next to her sits the King. The blue mountain ranges behind them match up where the card edges meet, suggesting a strong, enduring but subtle bond between them. They are not facing each other; both are focussed intently on the Pentacles that they hold. They are together and yet detached. They hold their Pentacles gently, rather than clutching them like the man in the Four of Pentacles. Perhaps they have learned that possessiveness works both ways, and that when they let go they, too, are liberated.

The Queen holds sway over the countryside, while the King is associated with the town. The Queen’s robes are plain, while the King’s (though still natural in design) are ornate. The Queen’s soft shoes give way to armour with the King. The King’s throne is dark, the Queen’s lighter and less brooding. They are entirely complementary, working together as two sides of the same coin (Pentacle).

This is balance in human form, and it is boldly stated. There is little that beats the pairing of a same-suit King and Queen to describe the call to assume responsibility in a way that is tempered, integrated, inclusive and co-operative.

And the call is even more pointed because of the Eight of Wands. The Eight of Wands describes something being set in motion. Will it happen whether or not that balance is reached, or is it triggered by it? Perhaps it isn’t ours to know. Perhaps we don’t even need to know. My sense is that the emphasis here is on the Queen and the King. The Wands will take care of themselves. Once the Wands are in mid-flight as they are here, they have left the hand of those throwing them. There is a feeling that all has been done and, at the point of letting go, it is now about trusting the process that led up to the Wands’ release.

Do what you can, and then let go: the lesson learned by the Queen and King is contextualised here.

What is it that you need to do to assume responsibility, and what is it that you need to let go of? My suggestion is that if you are reading this, then you will know. It might be a call to take on the mantle of adulthood, to work collaboratively yet autonomously, yet with consideration for those things that are there to support you. That’s when things really start to get moving.