{"id":53499,"date":"2012-02-19T14:00:48","date_gmt":"2012-02-19T19:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=53499"},"modified":"2012-02-19T19:21:27","modified_gmt":"2012-02-20T00:21:27","slug":"the-weekend-tarot-reading-sunday-february-19-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/reading-tarot\/the-weekend-tarot-reading-sunday-february-19-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"The Weekend Tarot Reading — Sunday, February 19, 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Sarah Taylor<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Five of Swords is an interesting card. The smallest element in the picture has the ability to evoke the strongest emotion in me: That of the hunched figure in the distant middle-ground. He is the last figure that my eyes tend to see, having first met with the man in the foreground before moving across to the figure at his right, back to us and cloak slung over his shoulder. Finally, there he stands, as if held in place by the tip of the cross-guard in the main figure’s right hand.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"King<\/a>
King of Cups, Five of Swords, Page of Pentacles from the Rider-Waite Smith Tarot deck. Click on the image for a larger version.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And in a sense he is<\/em> held in place, vanquished it seems after some kind of skirmish. He is skewered by — what? Grief? Remorse? Shame? Defeat hangs over him, much like the clouds, jagged tears in the fabric of a blue sky that looks as if it, too, has been rent by a blade. Strangely, the seas are calm. They, and the concrete surface in the foreground, remind me of the Two of Swords. Except now there is no peace, no alliance. The swords, crossed in the Two, have been drawn and added to, and someone is hurting, if not physically then mentally. Perhaps emotionally, too, but there is no place for emotions here — no way to comfortably deal with them. The figure is alone with his predicament.<\/p>\n

What of the figure in the foreground? Is he one of those who was involved? Or is he simply there to pick up after them? Given that he is wearing similar clothing to the other two figures, I take him to be a participant — and a victorious one at that. His flame-like hair and pointed features paint him as impish<\/em>, at best relishing his victory, at worst gloating at those who have lost. The Five of Swords to me is about opportunism and a lack of grace: Not only does he choose to express joy in the face of others’ loss; he adopts a ‘winner takes all’ stance and claims the swords for himself. This is the mental domination of one person over another — where intellect and analysis become weapons, the victim rendered powerless, isolated.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I’ve spent a lot of time on one particular card — so what happens when we start to look at it in context with the accompanying two cards, the King of Cups and the Page of Pentacles?<\/p>\n

Both of these cards not only flank the Five of Swords; they are court cards, each embodying a particular human incarnation of the quality of its suit. The Page is the more immature court card and has a closer visual association with the main figure in the Five of Swords — my eye keeps drawing parallels between the two — which makes him a logical first port-of-call. Both figures are dressed in green tunics and brown boots, with strong accents of red (shared by the King), and both seem to be relatively young.<\/p>\n

Moreover, their energies are young: There is the callousness of the figure in the Five, and the awe of the Page — both of which have the ability to shut down a sense of reciprocity<\/em> between subject and environment. Callousness precludes the ability to empathise, while awe negates the idea of equality: The Page has not yet struck a reciprocal relationship with his pentacle. Unlike the Queen and the King, who have internalised the quality of their suit, the Page sees his pentacle as ‘other’; he can barely believe he is holding it. Add to this the preponderance of gold-yellow in the card, and in an instant, my mind’s eye had conjured up an image of Gollum, ring-entranced, uttering the words “My precious!<\/em>” <\/p>\n

Is the Page mature enough to look after what he holds carefully? Can he appreciate what it is that it is offering him? Can he assume full responsibility for its possession? It is only once we have accepted the quest of the soul and embarked on the journey of the Knight, fought demons and dragons, slayed old kings, confronted the night, that we become fit to rule our domains and to approach our powers with neither doubt, nor awe, but a calm resolution. Remember: Gollum was possessed by The Ring, and not the other way around. The Page has yet to learn self-possession — a quality in short supply in the Five of Swords.<\/p>\n

Finally, I look to the King of Cups. Interestingly, I see parallels between him and the figure in the Five too: The cut of the jaw, and the straight, strong nose. But the similarity ends there. The King holds a cup and a sceptre, but at the expense of no-one. He doesn’t gloat — nor is he in awe of them, looking ahead as he does with impassivity and gravitas. Yes, his is the domain of emotions, but he isn’t ruled by them, feels no need to dominate them. He co-exists with them. The seas are alive, moving, carrying life and commerce. At the midst of all this, he sits — ‘of’ the water, but not in it.<\/p>\n

Is the King’s platform the higher ground that we seek in this reading — ironic as that may be considering its placement in the waves? Is that in fact what is key here — those waves? That water, connecting us to our feelings; the undulations of emotion that might rock the boat from time to time, but which remind us that we are, indeed, part of something vital, living, mysterious. Unlike thoughts, which are by nature conscious, feelings connect us to the depths of the unknown and unknowable. Can we find a home in that watery landscape of the King of Cups? And if we could, what, if anything, might change in the images of the other two cards before us? Maybe we need change nothing. Maybe it is we, as spectators, who have the option to change how we see things, and where we choose to put our energy.<\/p>\n

If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator<\/a> using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article<\/a> explains how to use the spread.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Sarah Taylor The Five of Swords is an interesting card. The smallest element in the picture has the ability to evoke the strongest emotion in me: That of the hunched figure in the distant middle-ground. He is the last figure that my eyes tend to see, having first met with the man in the foreground … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":470,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[183],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53499"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/470"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}