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 is a reading about making a choice, and the consequences that come from that. There is a clear and logical progression, and although I tend not to approach three-card readings in terms of ‘past-present-future’, what is clear here is that the second and third cards stem from the first: they are contingent upon it.
The Devil represents a point of decision where that decision is not made entirely freely. The Devil comes into play when our decisions are driven by our imbalances, by the shadowy corners of our psyche, by desire that comes with a price attached to it. Perhaps all three of these are simply a different way of saying the same thing.
The number of (human) figures in each card moves from two, to one, to five. The Devil often speaks of a situation made in relationship to someone else, but it is also about the relationship that you have with yourself. As a result, something is coaxed out of the darkness so that it comes into the light of consciousness; and this experience is frequently a painful and uneasy one. Once the moment of The Devil has passed, we are then left to sit with the confusion and chaos. This process is one we do alone. When we are in despair, no-one is able to share that with us. We feel isolated and lost. The chains that once bound us to someone or something have morphed into the nine Swords that now weigh down on us from above, dominating our experience.
Swords represent our thoughts and mental processes; and it is our thoughts that shape how we experience our environment. When I look at the Swords, I see that they are leading my eyes off the right edge of the picture, as if the tips are embedded in the neighbouring card. There is a knock-on effect here, where the individual touches the collective. Our inner experience now manifests in the world around us. We draw our battle out from within and project it on to others. This is usually an unconscious process, emphasized by the figure in the Nine of Swords, hands over eyes. While everything seems to stand in our way, while everything feels like an uphill struggle, and strife becomes the order of the day, we remain unaware that we have brought this perception with us. Our eyes are still covered, even when we believe we are seeing clearly.
So The Devil has bound us to a course of action that stirs things up rather than calms them down, and we experience that disruption internally as well as in the world around us.
And yet …
By leaving the reading at that point, we run the risk of falling victim to the same narrow viewpoint that the figure sits with on his bed of despair. Perhaps we have the advantage of perspective when we stand outside the cards, and it is this stance as observer that I’d like to offer here.
Because it is the attachment of judgement that I believe is the real sticking point in this reading. What if the decision that was made in The Devil were, if not necessary, then valuable? Internal imbalance demands equilibrium, and sometimes the path to that correction does not run smoothly. It can be uncomfortable, agonizing, heartrending. But I would like to suggest that if life does not contain its share of discomfort, agony and heartbreak, then we are not doing it correctly. Binding ourselves in judgement about what we should do, how we should feel and how we should think can distort our experience by adding suffering to pain — and that doesn’t simply affect our thoughts, but also our ability to function creatively (the Wands in the third card).
Who’s to say which decisions are the ones that ultimately liberate us? We all face The Devil and its fallout in our lives. It is where and how we choose to wage the ensuing battle that seems more significant.
Jere – I’m with you with regards to what The Devil represents. It’s another part of us, plain and simple.
Thank you for your take on the Knight of Swords. I think I’m going to go back to the Thoth and have another look …
— S
Just finished reading your interpretation of the spread Sarah. I’ve some bones to toss.. first, The Devil,.. now, in a Judeo-Christianic sense this is a pretty scary card,.. being ‘programmed’ into ‘duality’, a good chunk of us flinch at the thought of ‘autonomy’, ‘this is’ The Devil. Noone in their right mind would question ‘God’, except Lucifer. ..And, the only question it truly had was not a question at all, but a decision to ‘follow its Own path to That Source’. I perceive The Devil as an excellent resource for us humans to incorporate into our lives as a standard of ‘self-responsibility’, a space we create for ourselves to LIVE ‘this lifetime’ IN this body, and to continue on the path of learning those Soul lessons which call us here in the first place.
Yeah, my stamina sucks these days.. that took enough out of me to write..
I do want to comment on the Cruelty (9 swords: Thoth) and Strife (5 wands), especially conjoined in ‘this’ pull..
..Perhaps again.. 🙂
Jere
(always ‘here’, just not so responsive sometimes.)
..Thoughtform-construction initiation.. That’s the short of it for the Knight. This is a cardinal quality, not much room for adjustment, as well as the “not so planned” capacity (and mental [swords] at that.).
For the long, I see the correlation between Pluto in Capricorn, and the ‘altering of socio-political standards, that has long been brewing under the surface but, ignored for so long that it’s busting out in the unaware’. Too me, this is the oppurtunity to live a lifestyle that is in synch with my higher ideals, while creating a space for others to explore their deeper core selves/values. THe Knight of Swords describes a situation of ‘Mentality forging ahead, regardless of consequence’.
I’m still bakin’ on your pull,.. I’ll be back (probably.? 🙂 )
Jere
I was really intrigued by this reading and by Eric’s “no way out” interpretation as well. A few years back, I pulled these exact cards in readings for myself during a time in my life when everything that could have spun out of control did just that. On top of everything else happening at the time, I had also just started a job in an office with an outrageously controlling and abusive group of people – one of those places where it was apparent on the very first day that taking the job was a grand mistake. As I pulled these cards repeatedly in tarot, they were always followed by The Hanged Man as an outcome card. I really had to surrender to the situation in order to bide my time to make a plan to leave, but even with a plan, it felt as if there was no direct way out. The nine of swords card always intrigued me though because of the way swords appear to form a ladder that could lead the figure on the card out of misery if only he/she would look up!
Hey, Sparky, I’ll do my best. 🙂
mikey – I love your interpretation, and I agree wholeheartedly that it is the awareness that makes the difference here. (I laughed at your being so taken aback by the length of what you wrote; it never seemed overly long to me!)
Amanda – I did skirt over the Five somewhat, didn’t I? The only legitimate reason I can think of is because I made the deliberate decision not to try and find a resolution to deal with the Five. I could have dealt with it differently. The Five feels exactly as you described it, actually! Too much faff, not enough collective action. It is the Nine that has my focus, because I always believe it comes down to the individual.
aword – thank you for your astute insights, which have added another layer to the reading. The astro glyphs seem to me to describe that meeting point that Eric often focuses on about the individual meeting the collective. He is covered by the cosmos. This is not only a personal matter. The carving does, indeed, look like the figures are fencing. Perhaps the figure on the bed is the one who has been toppled and brought down. A forceful blow.
Yep, Mystes – a pentagram. So near and yet it is not complete.
Jere – what do you see the King of Swords meaning in your reading? I’d be interested to know if you return to read this.
As the weekly reading, again it synchronises perfectly with my life. My partner & I made an offer on a house(devil), he & the owner have still to compromise a price. They both quite adament they wouldn’t budge. Stalemate, & yes I certainly felt it was all over, had a big cry!!(9 of swords) But it not so! Just a battle of egos! Sensibly they would agree to disagree, & meet in the middle, but I believe they’re both enjoying the tussle.(5 of wands).
Anticipating a triumphant reading from you next week Sarah!!
Amanda — “a bunch of guys on booze or acid attempting a barn raising” is about the funniest thing I’ve read in weeks!
..Haven’t read the piece yet but, I will in a moment when I zen-out enough to focus outside myself..
I just pulled three cards from the Thoth deck, (being reminded after pulling that it’s tarot day at P.W. by some intuitively remindive force),.. I janked Death, Disappointment, and The Knight of Swords. It totally makes sense, beyond verbiage for me.
I wanted to point out that the Death card in the Thoth deck is cutting it’s own cords of attachment to the structured realm (life), with the scythe that harvests the Life-Providing grain.
Scorp and Libra..?
Thanks for playing! I’ll read the piece and bake on the (very) interesting pull.. Devil, 9 and 5. Swords and Wands on the Path.
As always, Love and Peace!
Jere
Amanda: “(and i could swear the shape the wands are in reminds me of something, but for the life of me i couldn’t say what.)”
Nice. It is an almost-assembled pentagram. Can you see it? Play with it for a minute and it’ll come: the almost-vertical wand on the far left is the third ‘stroke’ of the star.
My input using the technique of observation you’ve trained us in Sarah; I found it interesting that the patchwork on the quilt is made of of the astro glyphs. I cannot make out what is carved into the frame of the bed but it wants to look like a man in a fencing pose with a seated man among some trees. I suspect it is meant to represent something pertinent.
The boys in the last card do appear to be playing a game; the one in foreground in blue dots (like dots of sky) is holding his staff as though he is about to engage in a dissertation, while the fellow in orange appears to be knocking blueboy’s staff with his own in an attempt to engage him.
The others in similiarly engaged but with different stances. It’s sparring and not in the form of fight practice. In the form of a game. There is no effort to win. Only to engage an action if one feels like it.
Anyway, for sure all seems to fit. Thanks, Sarah and all.
so eric — if you tend to think the 5 of wands is a “game” and sarah describes it here as “our ability to function creatively (the Wands in the third card),” did your assessment of “no-win” come from:
the figures in that third card don’t really look like they know what they’re doing. somehow they don’t really look like they’re fighting (only one stance looks ‘martial’) *or* playing to me (no clear pattern to my eyes) — more like a bunch of guys on booze or acid attempting a barn-raising.
sorry — realize this may not add anything terribly useful to the conversation, but i was a little perplexed by how little attention the 5 of wands got in the initial reading. though mystes and mikeydom make some great points.
(and i could swear the shape the wands are in reminds me of something, but for the life of me i couldn’t say what.)
wow. sorry, first post of this sort. didn’t realize it would look that intensely and obnoxiously long on the page.
In this case I feel like the fact that the struggle is happening at all becomes the resolution.
I’ll explain: I have often seen the devil appear as a perpetual negative tendency or a pervasive force that the querent is blind to because it seems so obvious to them.
It’s such a deeply entrenched historically accepted structure (Saturn/Cap right?) that it doesn’t even occur to oneself that it is something that can be deconstructed.
In this case, the 9 of swords becomes the wakeup call. Cold sweat, mid-night, Oh crap! THAT is what I’m afraid of! THAT is what is controlling my life.
My favorite thing about the 9 is that even though it is such a gnarly card, I like to remind people that “it’s probably as bad as you think it is” as opposed to the 10 of swords, which, for me, is like the drama queen card.
So the 9 is the person who, as sarah said, is waking up to the manifestation of the Devil. They have a clear intellectual understanding (swords) of WHAT THEY ARE UP AGAINST. If it were a 10, they would have the same awareness, but they would milk it, “OH! The devil is ruling my life! I’m unconsciously ruled by the darkest forces and bonds within myself! It’s SOOOOOO Terrible!” Indulgence of the Devil.
But in this spread the 9 seems to be a waking up to the previously obscured shady forces of the Devil. Waking up in the dark, with an inner awareness of how to increase the light.
The Five is then the return to the outside world (from the bower of the 4 of wands) with the mind made up that you are going to do something to increase the light, based on the awareness from the wakeup in the 9.
This would give the fighter(s) in the 5 a reason for fighting, but this is against my usual interpretation of the five as being an exercise in futility – not a real fight, but more of a sparring, where no one knows who’s on whose side or why why why we are fighting at all (familiar much?).
The trick then is to not blindly engage in the sparring, but to put up with it (since it’s happening anyway) while maintaining an awareness of where the real fight is, which should be unleashed when the timing is clutch.
Based on that, I would say this spread reinforces some of the personal/political themes that Eric and everyone talk so BEAUTIFULLY about, especially in regards to the AZ shootings.
Maybe it’s a message for personal conduct in the midst of the poop-storm that is descending as we speak…
If these events have stimulated any inner awareness of what we are up against, any of that super sensory intuitive KNOWING about Where the fight is, what the fight is, and what the terms are, we must be Be careful not to engage in empty banter once we’ve come out of the darkness. Don’t let your awareness recede into the crowd.
The crowd is about to surge, mixed up mismatched sides and all, and it will be very very difficult to hear the truth, let alone speak it, if we engage willy nilly in the din of the 5 of wands.
BUT This doesn’t mean we can avoid the fight. I think the spread is saying that we have a responsibility to plumb our own darkness, grow our own light, and hold on to that awareness for as long as possible, especially now as the poopstorm is about to start splatter raining. Otherwise the awareness will recede back into shadow material devil land and we will just keep waking up to the same nightmare. I think the spread is urging us to hold on to the truth for as long as possible. Maybe there’s not a resolution there, not right now, but that seems pretty accurate to me.
I would not describe 5 Wands as struggle, but more as a game.
The other resolution that I see is the one where we are able to step outside the cards and observe them. It’s a stepping away into another plane, rather than a step in any specific direction along the same plane. Okay, I’m getting metaphysical here, but sometimes I find that detachment in moments of great intensity can help me to see a bigger picture – not one where I’m battling the detail.
(Oh, and Fe: thank you!)
Eric? “The spread as it stands is a kind of no-win. The strongest card is XV – Devil, which is not saying much. There are no cards present that point the way out of the debacle.”
Hmm… From slavery to despair to struggle: I definitely see a progression. But I’ve had a *lot* of contact with people so trapped in depression, so addicted to remorse that when they finally rouse and pick up some kind of tool (stick, wand, paintbrush) and wield it, this is a major breakthrough.
Struggle is an outcome I can live with in this suite.
The spread as it stands is a kind of no-win. The strongest card is XV – Devil, which is not saying much. There are no cards present that point the way out of the debacle.
Vis a vis Capricorn, I am doing my best given all circumstances to write the 2nd draft of Light Bridge for that sign.
Here is a bit.
There have been other times in history when it was easier to speak to the theme of leadership. At the moment we live in a time when we perceive our leaders as betraying us, be they in corporate or government spheres. In our time of unmitigated hypocrisy, it’s rare to find an authentic example of integrity. It would seem that when there is, we can soon enough expect them to fall from grace. It’s tough times for the whole concept of leadership, and there seems to exist a lack of understanding of what it’s even about; and if you’ve ever been there, you know it can be a lot of work and responsibility.
Eric – are you referring to the meaning of the cards, or of the layout, when you mention the lack of resolve? If it’s the latter, I would usually address this in a one-to-one reading by pulling an additional card/s with a specific question in mind.
In fact, I actually considered this for a moment this morning; and then questioned my need for a resolution.
The problem with the spread structured as I see it is that there is no resolve. It’s heavy on Mars and Saturn energy with no way out suggested — not with these cards as they appear. There needs to be some movement and rethinking.
Sarah:
Your cards are as much connected to the Planet Waves slipstream as each and every one of us who post here. Thank you for the reading.
Eric – yes, I didn’t draw the cards inquiring about it specifically, although I did draw the cards with a request that it be relevant to whomever chooses to read the article.
Wow. That’s just how I’m feeling today. It’s in the air. I think I’ll visit the Zen temple tonight.
It seems obvious that this reading ties into the weekend’s events in the States. It’s a succinct picture of what is unfolding — even though the cards were not drawn inquiring about it.
For those who want to take a look at the USA Sibley charts, natal and progressed, here is a link:
http://planetwavesweekly.com/resources/chart131.html
ef