Happy New Year 2020!
I’m getting to my January reading already 3 weeks into the month, but let me tell you that there’s big energy on the cards! My cards were unusually excitable during the shuffle, falling all over the place and repeatedly throwing up Major Arcana cards (i.e. the bigger universal forces at work). The falling cards were on themes of disruptive transformation (Tower card), awakening/ transitions (Judgment card) and endings/ profound transformation (Death card). The Death card showed up thrice! And eventually also showed up in the monthly spread itself (surprise, surprise!). Given there are 78 cards in the deck, the same card showing up 4 times is a clear call to, well, pay attention!
Coming to the reading spread itself, 3 of the 4 cards this month come from the major arcana. So what does the spread say?
Focus/ Starting Point: The Devil
Our attention is called to the area/s of our lives where we are in bondage to old patterns, addictions, obsessions.. and not acting from our highest self (The Devil card). There may be a feeling of being ‘stuck’ in some way or being chained to an unhealthy habit/ situation/ mindset.
In its imagery, the Devil card refers back to another Tarot card i.e. the Lovers. However here, there is an implication of subjugation of spirit and suffering. The Lovers card is essentially a card of choice, and the Devil is a card of stuckness.
The Devil card does not refer to love life specifically, but any area of life where one has become entrapped in ignorance, lower impulses or emotions like jealousy/ inadequacy, and materialism over and above the world of spirit. It’s a call to pay attention and recognize where our spirit feels chained.
Movement Towards: Moon (Reversed)
What is it that keeps one stuck? Perhaps fear, confusion, some undescribed/ unknown need of the unconscious (Moon card). The Moon (reversed) indicates it’s time for these stirrings of the unconscious to reveal themselves into awareness. Perhaps one will at least begin to see the chains that bind. Some clarity will emerge.
I sought a clarifier card here, which came as the 4 of pentacles (reversed)- further indicating some kind of fear or insecurity that’s being asked to be released.
Perhaps the forces of transformation will bring one face to face with the contours of one’s fears in getting unstuck.. one can either accept or resist the flow of change but in either case there will be a reckoning with what keeps one stuck and small. There may even be a heightening of struggle against the experience as one holds more strongly to fear and insecurity.
Challenge: Death
The Universe is challenging dysfunctional patterns and pushing towards release of the spirit. Death walking through the landscape of one’s life implies power of an inexorable force. There is an inevitability of transformation implied here, leaving only the question of what attitude one chooses to adopt in its wake.
The book ’78 degrees of wisdom’ draws attention to the attitudes of various people on the Death card. The king is struck down due to his rigid ego, the priest is able to remain standing owing to power of his faith, the maiden in her innocence kneels before death’s power but turns her face away at its terrible sight. Only the child in complete openness receives death, offering a flower.
This is not so much about the actual transformation but the exact moment at which we give up the old mask and allow the transformation to take place. Needless to say, it is not for the faint-hearted, and hence the visual of the card itself elicits terror.
The symbolism of death shows that only the true self will be carried to a new life. The word that keeps coming up to me is ‘shedding’. Something will begin to shed. Only the true core can be taken along.
Tools: 6 of Wands
This is the only minor arcana card of the 4 main cards, and it has the power to change our experience of events if not course of events through one’s attitude.
Notice the uncanny resemblance between the Death card and the 6 of Wands, especially highlighted by their positions next to each other in this spread. The 6 of wands is a card of victory and optimism. As a progression from the Death card it would indicate that what feels deeply threatening can be successfully encountered with the willingness to see, to recognize unhelpful patterns and the willingness to let go of fears/ insecurities in the face of call to transform.
There is potential to move from the shame and misery of the 6 of Devil (i.e. 1+5, card 15) to the pride and esteem of the 6 of wands.
The victory parade of the bright and whole person on 6 of wands may well be the true self that emerges having gone through the death cycle of what needs to change.
The cards this month are asking:
- Where in your life are you playing small/ your spirit feels chained?
- What old patterns are being put under pressure by the universe?
- What in you holds on to this pattern? What is threatened in giving it up?
- What is your attitude to inevitable forces of transformation?
