The Weekend Tarot Reading — Sunday, June 26, 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 explains how to use the spread. You can visit Sarah’s website here. –efc

By Sarah Taylor

Having visited your inner underworld, where you came face-to-face with an aspect of yourself that you were previously unable, or unwilling, to see, you emerge into the light of consciousness, worthy of recognition. Now you bring that experience on a journey that is emotional in nature, which calls you to assume authority over an aspect of your feelings. You have both the support and the tools to achieve this.

Looking at the cards today, there is little doubt in my mind that this reading is connected to the Weekend Tarot Reading last Sunday. Last weekend, we had The Lovers, The Devil and the Page of Cups; this weekend, we have the Six of Wands, The Lovers and the King of Cups.

My first reaction is that the Page of Cups from the reading on June 19 has matured, and that, to me, points to some form of integration of The Lovers and The Devil. To elucidate: I believe that the whole point of the tarot is that we embody all of the archetypes that the cards describe — it is just that some become more apparent than others at certain times in our lives, and at certain points along our journey, while others hold back or remain hidden.

To this end, The Devil is not a card to be avoided, but rather to be acknowledged and experienced as a part of oneself as much as anything else in the tarot deck. It is how we choose to experience it that is key to whether we can roll with the changes and maintain a balance, or shoot off on a trajectory that takes us to an extreme. We can either invite it in as a part of us, or we can deny and repress it — in which case it will express itself in ways that might take us by surprise and which run at odds with how we want, or tend, to see ourselves.

The Devil only becomes the fearful image in the card when we feed it. We do that by refusing to look at something about ourselves that we find shameful, embarrassing, perhaps frightening. When we turn around and face it with a degree of acceptance and non-judgement, The Devil becomes ally rather than foe, and its horror is exposed as the paper tiger that it is.

So here, it feels like that integration has started. It hasn’t been easy — it can be a profoundly hard and challenging process, where patterns get broken and bonds are snapped — and I feel that the Six of Wands acknowledges this. A victory. Bravo! Whether you’re aware of it or not, something has shifted, and something is new. The Lovers emphasises this. We come face-to-face again with the mirror of consciousness. There is the presence of grace: we are enfolded in the arms of a guardian angel, while being offered the opportunity to experience ourselves through another, or others. We have emerged from the underworld into the light of day. There is the potential for life and growth, and for the experience of ‘otherness’ that is offered by something or someone that we understand is separate from us, even while we are united by our divinity.

What’s interesting when I look at The Lovers is that the image depicts three of the four elements: earth, air and fire. The water is introduced by the King of Cups. An abundance of water. We are plunged into a world of feeling.

Look at the bottom left edge of the card, at the fish that we witnessed peeping from the cup held by the Page of Cups. Here, it is playing on the waves of the ocean — no longer a fish out of water. In the Page it was an object of curiosity and wonder. It still has a strangely alien feel to it, perhaps because of how obviously non-human it is next to the other figures in all three cards. To me, it represents the uncharted depths of our feeling nature — and an invitation to accompany it into its watery territories.

If we remember the way in which we integrated The Devil, we can chart our emotional seascape in a similar manner: by facing it consciously, not identifying with it to the extent that we are swept away and dragged under. In this way, we become King, profoundly linked to the energy of the seas, and yet remaining distinct from them.

The King’s throne rises out of the waves, solid and enduring as if it is firmly anchored in the seabed. His clothing incorporates the colours of The Lovers — there is the suggestion of conscious balance here too, not least because the trim on the King’s cloak, and his throne itself, pick up on the angel’s wings and its robe. More: divinity ‘out there’ has become divinity ‘in here’. He has assumed authority over his emotions and his life. He has earned the crown that adorns his head. The ‘passing out’ ceremony that starts in the Six of Wands finds fuller expression here. Where there was promise, there is now presence. Feel the waves around you; feel how far you have come.