{"id":60780,"date":"2012-08-26T14:55:55","date_gmt":"2012-08-26T18:55:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=60780"},"modified":"2012-08-26T14:55:55","modified_gmt":"2012-08-26T18:55:55","slug":"the-weekend-tarot-reading-sunday-august-26-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/reading-tarot\/the-weekend-tarot-reading-sunday-august-26-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"The Weekend Tarot Reading — Sunday, August 26, 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

“You will be able to recognize facts and call by name things which other people would prefer to sweep under the carpet. This entails a great responsibility on your part. Be sure never to express your insights heartlessly. But when you are fully in contact with Love, use your sword without sparing yourself or others.”
\nGerd Ziegler, Tarot: Mirror of the Soul<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Alchemy. The alchemy of thought, of clarity directed energetically — in other words, of intent. This is such a dynamic reading that I’m finding it hard to step away from the vitality enough to encapsulate it in words in a way that does it justice. Once again, it is a reading to intuit and to interact with visually — it is by immersing yourself in it that you will derive the most accurate meaning it holds for you. But I will try and equip you as best I can for that moment of immersion.<\/p>\n

\"Ace<\/a>
Ace of Swords, Two of Wands, Art from the Thoth Tarot deck, created by Aleister Crowley and painted by Lady Frieda Harris. Click on the image for a larger version.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

First, let’s look at the word ‘alchemy’, embodied in Art (also known as Temperance), the fourteenth card in the major arcana<\/em>. This word has come up several times over the past week in conversations I’ve had with others. But what does it mean? Historically, alchemy is the process of turning base metals and elements into gold. The more I read up on this process, the more I have understood that this is a literal pursuit as well as a metaphorical one, even if the process itself is shrouded in mystery. However, I am going to focus on the metaphorical meaning of alchemy because it is the one with which I am more familiar and personally involved.<\/p>\n

If traditional alchemy is the transmutation of base matter into gold, then psychological alchemy is the transmutation of base experiences into something altogether precious. “Base” can mean formative, such as the experiences of childhood. It can also mean raw, vulgar, corrupted: anything that we find hard to digest in ourselves, which we consign to the shadows — some of which are also experiences formed in childhood. In psychological alchemy, our personalities and experiences are the base matter, our psyches are the labs, and our devotion to self-transmutation is our task.<\/p>\n

Alchemy offers us a chance to see life differently. To an alchemist, base matter is the only route to gold. Likewise, to a modern alchemist, we are our own raw materials, the unmitigated crap – the breath-taking beauty – thrown our way essential ingredients, the pressure cooker of life a cauldron in which we can re-create who we are.<\/em><\/p>\n

The result: the gold of individuation.<\/p>\n

We become golden when we shine in the way we are meant to shine, and we do that through a process of purification, chemical reaction, and buffing ourselves with experiences and people that rub against us and offer us a means of smoothing and polishing our rough and burnished edges.<\/p>\n

One of the things that we are equipped with through this process is the gold of insight<\/em>: the Ace of Swords. Swords represent the intellect, and the Ace is intellect in the service of the divine. We further our own evolution, and the evolution of others, when we hone the sword of insight and learn to wield it in such a way that it becomes a precision instrument.<\/p>\n

When we can do this — when we can stop using our intellect, our beliefs, and our words as weapons to maim and wound — we meet with Dominion: the Two of Wands. We claim our energy and understand our creative powers to the point where we are able to harness them and use them. And we have wisdom (the Ace) and experience (Art) on our side.<\/p>\n

Several months ago, I referred to Wands energy as sometimes being like a kid with a box of matches. Not here. Dominion has us all grown up, knowing the right conditions in which we can strike a match, knowing how to hold it once it is lit — more importantly, having something worth igniting and which will burn purposefully and constructively.<\/p>\n

This reading stands out among the more recent ones because there are no Cups. I would say this is significant in that we have been equipped in previous readings with the awareness of our own emotional natures, which are primarily receptive, and we are moving into territory where we prove ourselves in the fires of will. We have been shown what we can be; now it is time to take that knowledge and apply it. Hold that blade of keen vision in front of you. It’s time to exercise wisdom in the service of love. Spare no-one the truth. Not even yourself.<\/p>\n

If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free\u00a0tarot spread generator<\/a>\u00a0using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread.\u00a0This article<\/a>\u00a0explains how to use the spread.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Sarah Taylor “You will be able to recognize facts and call by name things which other people would prefer to sweep under the carpet. This entails a great responsibility on your part. Be sure never to express your insights heartlessly. But when you are fully in contact with Love, use your sword without sparing yourself … 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\/60780"}],"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=60780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60780\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}