{"id":67080,"date":"2013-05-19T13:52:45","date_gmt":"2013-05-19T17:52:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=67080"},"modified":"2013-05-19T23:38:58","modified_gmt":"2013-05-20T03:38:58","slug":"the-weekend-tarot-reading-sunday-may-19-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/reading-tarot\/the-weekend-tarot-reading-sunday-may-19-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"The Weekend Tarot Reading — Sunday, May 19, 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

I wrote some time ago about my understanding of the Page of Wands as being like a child with a box of matches. Fire — so compelling and hypnotic. A single flame secretly taken to a pile of leaves in the backyard; the exhilaration of combustion and burning and the energy released. A naive joy at the power of creation, and the rite of passage into a world that will bring all aspects of fire to us: ignition, heat dancing into life, the sting of a spark, the recoiling at scorched skin, conflagration,\u00a0the reduction into ash, the rebirth and flight of the phoenix.<\/p>\n

\"Page<\/a>
Page of Wands, Wheel of Fortune, Knight of Pentacles from the Rider-Waite Smith Tarot deck, created by A E Waite and illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. Click on the image for a larger version.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This fire is the domain of the Wands suit in tarot, and the Page represents an aspect of our own fiery experience, whether an element of own personality or encountered through someone else. (The court cards nearly always indicate a person or a character trait.)<\/p>\n

However he appears, the Page’s signature is distinct: it is a nascent desire to bring something into being, the human expression of the drive behind the creation of the universe. It is erotic in the broader sense of the word:\u00a0it is the essence of life itself.<\/p>\n

Who knew that the Page of Wands holds all of this in his hands? The Page himself certainly doesn\u2019t. He has an inkling of its potential, but he has yet to put it to full work. In this respect, he could be compared to Mickey Mouse in The Sorcerer\u2019s Apprentice<\/em>, except here we\u2019re talking fire, not water. Hot stuff!<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, while he has yet to hone his considerable if embryonic skills, there is no shortage of enthusiasm and a willingness to learn that he can draw from. The Page doesn\u2019t get to become King (or Queen) without them — and he\u2019ll need both of them, and a specific form of discipline, to negotiate the next card.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Wheel of Fortune is chock-full of symbolism. At its simplest, it is about the ability to work with unexpected twists of fortune. These twists are very often positive in nature, but what tends to stymie or distort our perception of them is our inclination to hang on to the old even when it no longer serves us. Seen in terms of its imagery, this is when we cling to the outside of the wheel, trying to maintain a position that is fast becoming untenable. There are all manner of creatures on the outside that then become obstacles rather than allies.<\/p>\n

Now, if we were to move to the centre of the wheel, everything could work its magic without our interference. We could trust the forces that drive the motion of our lives and learn that the most valuable action we could take is simply to hold to ourselves. This is the discipline that the Wheel of Fortune implies: to find the stillness within, to trust it, and to keep returning to it at times when it feels like all around us is moving.<\/p>\n

The Page is being asked to learn to temper his beautiful fire with an emerging inner authority that allows him to flow with the changes inherent in his evolution. If this inner authority is ignored, there might be a tendency to go on the defensive and direct a flame or two at the very thing that is creating the forward movement — a certain attachment to the skill itself rather than seeing it as a means to an end. Put another way, when we allow space for a partnership with a wisdom greater than our own, our fire turns into something that creates life rather than limiting or destroying it.<\/p>\n

And out of the period of transformation emerges the Knight of Pentacles. As a denizen of the element of earth, he stands in contrast to the Page of Wands; as one of the last cards in the minor arcana<\/em> (the Page being one of the first), he carries the essence of the Page inside him. The Knight of Pentacles occupies a landscape that has been rendered fertile by the burning initiated by the Page, and which the Wheel of Fortune, like the ploughshare, has readied for planting.<\/p>\n

The Knight is steady — a sign that he has emerged from the changing events with a maturity and centredness that were only potentials in the Page. And the pentacle in his hand feels like the Wheel of Fortune in miniature: he carries with him an experience that he can use to seed something into life. Like the Knight of Cups last week<\/a>, he confronts something off the right hand of the card that we can’t see. What he cultivates has yet to take shape.<\/p>\n

For now, we have the forces of creativity and fortune as our allies: we spark something into life with our desire; we hand it over to the gods, surrender to what we have set in motion in this partnership, and hold to the stillness within. The ground is being prepared for our arrival.<\/p>\n

Astrology\/Elemental correspondences:<\/strong>\u00a0Page of Wands (the earthy aspect of fire), Wheel of Fortune (Jupiter), Knight of Pentacles (the airy aspect of earth)<\/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 I wrote some time ago about my understanding of the Page of Wands as being like a child with a box of matches. Fire — so compelling and hypnotic. A single flame secretly taken to a pile of leaves in the backyard; the exhilaration of combustion and burning and the energy released. A … 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\/67080"}],"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=67080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67080\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}