Spread and positions:
- Starting point: Ace of Swords
- Work towards: King of Cups
- Challenge: Knight of Swords
- Tools: Moon (reversed) clarified by Queen of Cups
December. Not only the end of a year but also a festive season for most parts of the world. A time for introspection as well as socialization. Quite a busy time overall, that perhaps would excuse that I write about the month while being halfway through it.
Coming to the cards, this month there is a theme of intellect (Swords) and emotions/ even sub-conscious (Cups/ Moon) each running high speed on respective high-ways. In fact there is a theme of clarity on both fronts.
It seems there will be a dawning of some truth in an undeniable way. They say that the truth arrives all at once, or not at all. This powerful sight of truth can make one lose one’s balance and sense of proportion. It can make one reckless (Knight of Swords), perhaps fiery in one’s words or actions including extreme steps.
The entire Swords suit is about intellect/ knowing and also has a cutting quality to it (well, swords!). Many cards of this suit show distinct pain. What is the relationship between truth and pain?
It is just occurring to me, looking at my life so far, that the two do seem to arrive hand in hand. Perhaps the pain comes from looking at having created edifices to things now emerging as not-truth. Perhaps the capacity and willingness to sit in pain allows the truth to show itself.
A discipline I am part of, asks me to examine how the body knows before the mind does. It seems to me, that at times, when the body knows, there may be an attempt to ‘protect’ the mind from the intensity of the knowing. The visceral knowing creates an alternate chain of emotions or reactions before the mind can glimpse the ‘truth’.
It may sometimes be easier to declare a war (externalizing of pain) than to re-build one’s internal reality. Every time I look at the Knight of Swords, I get the feeling he’s just been told something that falsifies his entire life story so far and now he’s pissed at the world, and he’s going to externalize that pain.
The energy of the swords seem entangled with the external, but the experience of truth is internal.
In time though, he will calm down… he will need to come face to face with his emotions (King of Cups), and no amount of rationalizing will work. He will need to assume responsibility for how his life is going to be thereafter while allowing his Cup to swivel with emotions, and understand how to honour them.
The cards are advising to channel more of this King of Cups energy this month. Swords charge, Cups hold. Contrast the image of the Knight of Swords with that of the King of Cups. That says all. The King of Cups is acutely aware of many feelings within himself and others, his stance indicates alertness or even eagerness to act… yet he knows when, how and how much to say and do. He is aware of the enormity of his impact. Most of what he does is holding space for everyone’s emotions.
I typically let there be a few days between the time I first do the monthly reading and initial notes, and this post. Typically in the days in between I tend to ‘coincidentally’ bump into more material around the thoughts I am with. One such about ‘anger’ as specific emotion and clarity (I believe it is from a book called Spectrum of Ecstasy):
“…. it is only possible to transform anger into clarity because they are already the same kind of energy… at a deeper level, clarity is just anger whose channel has been unblocked, so it runs clear. Or more accurately, anger is only clarity that has been bottled up so it turns stagnant and rotten.”
Now what is this truth that keeps getting referred so far?
Each person may have their own answer. As for me, I have been wondering how December, which is holiday season and family time, is often described by people as ‘stressful’… one hears if all the time in the west and also increasingly among what have been traditionally community-oriented segments to the East.
A strand I am picking up… increasingly people are living away from the stakeholders of their early life, including parents, friends etc. They create new personas, new identities, in many cases indeed evolve into versions vastly different from the ones that first set foot out of home. Their new experiences shape them (which they notice) in intimate interaction with their earliest wounds- which they likely do not notice and in fact may have unconsciously crafted ways to forget completely.
When they come back to these early stakeholders after stretches of time, they find old scripts playing which created their earliest self as also the wounds which their current superstructure covers so well. But now everyone is talking directly to the wound. Perhaps deepening it without the slightest realization. Imagined slights, tempers flared- all the melodrama associated with the festive family table, may be ripe.
What is this wound made of? What heals it? I believe the answer is the need for love, and love itself.
In a group setting recently, someone asked what makes it so difficult for people to stand in their place and ‘receive’ the applause after a speech rather than walking or almost running away. I said it was the danger that- in the moments between their finish and the beginning of the applause- they may discover the part of themselves that wants the applause, the positive stroke of another.
The need for love. The wound. We have cultures built around hiding this wound. The current dating culture, I am told. The upbringing of children in many parts of the world… the late life plans of the old… workplaces… everywhere.
The more it is buried, the more it rears its head in insidious ways.
The Moon card talks directly to the hidden parts of self. It refers to the stirring of the unconscious, and in this reading the Moon (reversed) as a tool, indicates that there is opportunity for this dark shadow matter to become visible. (The shadow matter in this case not being the need for love which is universal, but the shame associated with it that pushes it down).
The way this card fell made me unsure of whether it was to be read upright or reversed, and hence I asked for a clarification, which came as Queen of Cups, which indicates psychic awareness, loving attention to all aspects of self and others.
You can witness the wound (Moon, reversed) so that you can give it empathy (King and Queen of Cups,) rather than let it trigger you unawares (Knight of Swords).
The more we can stay in this space of loving awareness, and capacity to hold the emotion for what it is without jumping to conclusions, the more the little creatures from the dark side of the mind (see Moon card) would feel safe to show up above the surface.
This month the cards do not so much pose questions, as they ask us to meditate on the energy of the Queen of Cups- she who could hold a sword in one hand and a cup in another, appreciating the unique sorrow as well as strength of either like a mother.. and give them attention and love. This attention creates more strength, a more peaceful strength and possibilities for transformation.
PS: Happy Holidays! As for me, I am awaiting delivery of two new tarot decks (well, one Tarot and one Lenormand deck). Everyone knows what that means… things are heating up, baby!
