'The future is perceived as a menace, but this can be put right with a change of approach.'
- Yoav Ben-Dov
That card hits the nail on the head. Today we are meeting with our independent surveyor to discuss the condition of the house we are in the process of buying (or not), with particular attention to works that were carried out on it some four years ago. His advice will largely determine whether we proceed or walk away, and quite rightly as that is the purpose of a building survey.
This Page of Swords holds his weapon ineffectively on his shoulder, blocking his view of the future and turning his face away from it. I myself have been feeling quite anxious, my mind whirling with the 'what-ifs' of the future -- what if we pay too much, what if something goes wrong with the house that we should have seen or known about, what if we lose our jobs and can't make the payments, and all that sort of thing.
'The weapon may symbolise not a weapon, but a barrier or hindrance, such as negative thoughts,' Ben-Dov writes in The Open Reading. 'The feet pointing both directions indicate indecision.' Do they ever! But hopefully today, they will be set on the right path for our greatest good.
'Hindering factors can be used as useful tools or weapons.' Well, the survey itself has been a trigger for a lot of my anxiety -- and this is apparently quite a common response to a building survey, which makes your little dream home look like a house of horrors! But I can see how it can be used as a tool to point out where improvements need to be made so there are no nasty surprises (or fewer at least) after we move in, and can be used perhaps not as a 'weapon', but let's say 'leverage' in renegotiating price to reflect true value of the structure and property.
I'll be so glad when this stage of the game is done.
Samhain marks the mid-point of the Air Tide (the period between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice). The Air Tide, to me, is the 'season of the witch' -- it is a season of winds, swirling leaves, rustling treetops, electric storms, hanging mists, and glorious sunsets. At this time of year, I invariably find myself studying, reading, and immersing myself in learning projects. This sort of thing reaches a kind of zenith around the middle of the season, at Samhain, one of the four Celtic fire festivals (agricultural festivals). So this is the reason, for me, that I consider this the 'Witches' New Year'. We remember absent friends and family, particularly those who have passed beyond this veil. Also, in the old Celtic calendar, Samhain marked the beginning of winter, and I believe that is another reason some consider this festival a 'New Year'.
All I know is, this time of year always sees me feeling stirred up in many ways. I take stock of my direction, where I've come from and where I'm heading.
The advice here is to review past goals and set new ones. So...let's see what the cards have to say about this. I've asked five questions, in honour of the five-pointed star:
1. What should I know about my past goals? Page of Swords
2. Which goals should I keep in the new year? 4 of Coins
3. Which goals should I abandon? 5 of Coins
4. What new direction should I go in? Devil
5. What can I do to support achieving my goals both old and new? 4 of Cups
Lovers' Tarot, Jane Lyle
My past goals were mostly in my head and never got off the ground. The goals I should keep are those focused on maintaining the status quo in the material plane. I should abandon the goal of trying to feel comfortable in the material plane -- by that I mean, the goal of NOT feeling like 5 of Pentacles. Uncertainty is okay. In fact, I found a song about it yesterday. I'll just share it here:
'Be like a bird who, halting in her flight
On a limb too slight, feels it give way beneath her,
Yet sings, sings, knowing she has wings,
Yet sings, sings, knowing she has wings.'
(This turns out to be based on a quotation by Victor Hugo: 'Let us be like a bird for a moment perched on a frail branch when he sings; though he feels it bend, yet he sings his song, knowing that he has wings.')
Life is precarious; it is not certain. We long to feel that there is a solid foundation beneath us, but there is not. At any time we could lose a loved one, we could lose a livelihood, we could lose our health. But whatever falls from under us, we won't plunge to our destruction. We can survive whatever ground or support disappears from beneath our feet.
What new direction can I go in? The Devil tells me to say 'F*ck it.' In fact, I just checked out a book from the library last week called 'F*ck It: The Ultimate Spiritual Way', by John C. Parkin. 'Up there so high in our Perspective Machine,' he writes, 'we realize our lives are just like that of a firefly. Except the air is full of seven billion fireflies. They're glowing beautifully for one night. Then they're gone. So f*ck it, you might as well REALLY glow. And there we go. Did you taste it? That was the brief taste of freedom. Sometimes it doesn't last very long, but it's an unforgettable taste. Personally, I've always tasted it when I've contemplated the utter meaninglessness of my own existence. It's a rush of freedom and it tastes good. If my life means so little, then F*ck It, I might as well go for it and just have a laugh.'
So how can I support this new devilish F*ck It philosophy? Refuse to be upset by trifles. The number 4 means 'things stay the same', and if Cups represent emotions, then that shows a pretty stable emotional response. Four of Cups in fact may be the ultimate F*ck It card. Four has the elemental affinity of Fire so 4 of Cups is Fire of Water. It takes an active choice to decide to say 'F*ck it.' :)
Well, at least I've got my new motto for the year.
The Dreamer Princess is the Princess of Swords. It's important to make a distinction between tarot Princesses and tarot Pages. They aren't exactly the same thing. An RWS Page of Swords is characterised as a studious young person who enjoys playing devil's advocate and challenging those in authority to debate, someone who is always questioning why. Armed with this knowledge, the verse assigned to Dreamer Princess may puzzle:
Her leaves are whispers on the wind She will tell them how and why you sinned She gleans her knowledge from the earth And dreams of what its gift is worth...
- Emily Carding
That doesn't exactly sit well with our contemporary RWS vision of the Page of Swords as earnest and questioning student, but look what Crowley says about the Thoth Princess of Swords:
'The Princess of Swords represents the earthy part of Air, the fixation of the volatile. She partakes of the characteristics of Minerva and Artemis, and there is some suggestion of the Valkyrie. She represents to some extent the anger of the Gods...The character of the Princess [of Swords] is stern and revengeful. Her logic is destructive. She is firm and aggressive, with great practical wisdom and subtlety in material things. She shows great cleverness and dexterity in the management of practical affairs, especially where they are of a controversial nature. She is very adroit in the settlement of controversies.'
You look at the figure in the card differently now, don't you? She's got a lot of power, this one. She's no student. She's in control of what she unleashes -- but is she in control of the consequences? Can she really control where those leaves go, or does she just think she can? She might just be a little too big for her britches.
'If ill-dignified,' continues Crowley, 'all these qualities are dispersed; she becomes incoherent, and all her gifts tend to combine to form a species of low cunning whose object is unworthy of the means.'
We've all got the gift of telling, but should we always unleash all we know? Should we say everything we think? Can we control those leaves once we set them loose on the wind?
The Buddha's teaching about right speech has been rendered by some unknown person into this memorable verse:
If it is not truthful and not helpful, don't say it. If it is truthful but not helpful, don't say it. If it is not truthful but helpful, don't say it. If it is truthful and helpful -- wait for the right time.
A reading for Summer Solstice. I found this spread at a blog called Indigo Spirit Tarot. It seemed like a nice spread, so I thought I'd try it out here as my Summer Solstice reading.
1
2 ............... 3
4 ..... SUN..... 5
6 ............... 7
8
1. Live with passion. Embrace the power of the Sun.
2. Upcoming possibilities. The door to success is opened by...
3. Time to play. Enjoy this gift.
4. Time to be serious.
5. Welcome advice.
6. Beware what lies in the shadows.
7. How to improve, now that you're aware.
8. A burden lifted. Let it go.
I've chosen to read with Tarot Illuminati (Erik C Dunne, 2013) because -- what's more appropriate on Summer Solstice than a little illumination?
1. Embrace the Sun - Princess of Swords. 'If the Princess of Swords is anything,' writes Kim Huggens in Complete Guide to Tarot Illuminati, 'she is firstly the power of invention and secondly of revolution.'
2. Upcoming possibilities - Five of Swords. We often look at this card as indicating defeat, but there's no reason not to sometimes see ourselves as the ones having the upper hand. Kim Huggens supports this, writing, 'If the other cards around it are positive and supportive, it suggests the querent has a unique advantage in the situation and they need to make the most of it.'
3. Enjoy this gift - Eight of Wands. This card suggests that whatever I start in the coming months will progress swiftly. I have the gift of fast movement and swift progress. 'Often this card indicates that the querent will be involved in a number of events that could be described as synchronicity, carrying them forward in a series of coincidences that they could never have expected,' Huggens writes.
4. Time to be serious - Ace of Pentacles. Time to be serious about good hard graft, and reminds me to cultivate, process and make use of all my resources to be applied in each situation. I'm seeing it as saying don't get ahead of yourself. Be methodical. First things first.
5. Welcome advice - The Empress. The Empress advises me to nurture myself, my life, my surroundings, my projects, and other people. She advises me to indulge my creative impulses, which, like childbirth, require sometimes painful effort to reap the rewards.
6. Beware what lies in the shadows - 3 of Swords. Huggens makes an interesting point about this card. It is not the card of personal heartbreak, which is better reflected in 5 of Cups. Rather, this card represents the suffering of existence, 'the profound sadness felt when seeing the state of the world and the suffering of mankind,' as Huggens puts it. It represents existential angst, a feeling with which I am quite familiar.
7. How to improve, now that you're aware - Death. I suppose few cards confront and dispel existential angst as effectively as the Death card. Acceptance.
8. Let it go - Five of Pentacles. 'Worry is a self-destructive behaviour that perpetuates the cycle of lack and loss,' writes Huggens. 'It keeps us firmly in the past or in the future, and never in the present: we rarely worry about this moment, right now; we only ever worry about something that has happened in the past or what may or may not happen in the future. As such, worry does not allow us to take proper action in the present.' So clearly I need to let go of worry about lack, loss, deprivation, hardship, instability, etc.
Looks, it's the Knave of Knives, or Page of Swords, from Robert Place's Vampire Tarot. She's called the Nightmare of Life in Death, and she comes from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem, 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner,' first published in 1798 in Coleridge's pivotal collection 'Lyrical Ballads.' It only ushered in the Romantic Period! It's from this poem that the phrase 'albatross around my neck' originated. But it also happens to be the very first appearance in English literature of a vampire. (The first vampire in English prose was Lord Ruthven. Nightmare Life in Death came earlier.)
You probably read 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner' in high school, unless you went to a state school in the UK after GCSEs came in, in which case you probably only read Simon Armitage and whatever other bits and bobs were in your AQA handbook. (I'm no fan of the methods and curriculum of English teaching in the UK, which is why I quit.) If you're American (or went to a grammar school), you may have vague memories of reading a LONG, sing-song poem with the words 'Water, water everywhere nor any a drop to drink.' That's the one.
The Page of Swords from Neuzeit Tarot (AG Muller 1982) seems to show a man rescuing his family from the torments of industrialisation. At least I hope he's leading them to the sunlit beauties of nature, having taken this last look over the cliff at it. His children seem to be imploring him to move on, while his wife has already turned her face toward the future and and is moving happily in that direction. I hope he isn't about to drag himself and them off the cliff to certain doom! The scene could be either of those (or neither!).
The LWB says that swords represent the power of consciousness and intelligence, but also that they point to 'the ways of our ancestors and the wars they fought.' They are a 'tool of consciousness which we use to defend and conquer our dreams.' Hm. Goes on to say that Page of Swords is the 'keeper of the values of his people' and he can do either a good or bad job at that. Well, that is sort of the story I saw in the card, too. He might be leading them to freedom or dragging them over the edge to destruction, depending on how you look at it. There doesn't seem to be a hint of the usual 'adolescent' nature of the page -- unless you count viewing things as this black and white as an adolescent viewpoint, which I suppose it is.
There is surely something between the Garden of Eden and the Dark Satanic Mills. We have to strike a balance in the world. We have to live in the world, so we are going to leave our mark on the earth. That's just the way our species has always been. It's what has helped us to survive as a species, and to become the dominant species of the earth. We didn't set out to do it, but it was just our problem-solving skills, our ability to conceptualise, symbolised by the swords suit, that has both made us a success and that could well lead to our self-destruction. Perhaps it is this realisation, an adolescent stage of self-awareness, that is represented by this card.
Okay, an adolescent stage of self-awareness that sees things in black or white, right or wrong, good or evil, beautiful or repulsive. I will take today's card as a warning to use discernment today, but not to go too far with it.
What a beautiful card we have today from Pearls of Wisdom Tarot. So often Swords cards are depicted as cold, devoid of emotion or awareness of beauty, connection to the earth. These are not absent from any of the cards in the Pearls of Wisdom Tarot. The suits are balanced.
It's the Page of Swords today, and the first thing I notice about it is the huge fat raindrops falling around the figure, and the rainbow and blazing sun in the sky. It is actually raining this morning -- maybe I'll see a rainbow today. In England, it's not at all unusual to have full on rain showers coming from a blue and sunny sky. Thus, I have seen some of the most spectacular rainbows of my life here. Where I'm from, rainbows are a rarer occurrence, and you never see them as large, as fully formed, or the colours as vivid as here. Something I'm sure to do with the mild, temperate climate we enjoy on this North Atlantic island. Conditions are just right for frequent rainbows. People here don't take much notice of them, but I will stand dumbstruck on the street for up to 10 minutes or more, if I have the leisure time, just staring at a rainbow. People passing me will look over their shoulders to see what I'm staring at. Crazy lady.
This Page of Swords kneels on the ground, leaning his forehead on the butt of his sword. The companion book suggests he is not able to lift it yet, which is an interesting idea. He has reverence for the sword, though, and also holds a small dagger in his other hand. The sword connects his third eye to the earth, and contains a spiral pattern that reminds me of kundalini energy. Around his neck is a strand of pearls with a golden disk pendant, sun symbol. His clothing is made up of pink and blue, and trousers are the colours combined to create purple. The daffodil and the purple coneflower are present. The companion book suggests that the daffodil stands for chivalry and the coneflower for skills and abilities -- both wonderful associations with this page, or knight in training. I love the feather in his cap.
The runes are tiwas (on the left) and sowulo (on the right). Tiwas points upward to the Norse god, Tyr, who is associated with law, heroic glory, justice, and all that good stuff. Very knightly aspirations. Sowulo (also sowilo) is 'sol', the sun. As you would expect, it stands for wholeness, fulfillment, enlightenment. The page draws energy from the earth, using the sword, his natural tool, into his third eye, the portal for higher wisdom. He draws upward, aspiring toward the heavens and higher planes. What balance we see in this card, amazing for a page. What a cool kid!
I always thought the Page of Swords was more thoughtful than the other pages, more analytical, and of course more in tune to right and wrong - he can get very fired up about issues and likes to engage in earnest debates, to challenge ideas. He's the kid in class who has not only read the textbook but has developed his own thoughts about the material and can eloquently express them, anticipated counterarguments, or even arguing from the viewpoint that opposes his own, just for fun. But I never thought of him as being this grounded and in tune with the om. But now that I think of it, if any of the Pages would be, I guess he'd be the guy.
I'm seeing this card as a warning today. The Princess of Swords here is defending something, leaning back against it, something she is trying to keep from crumbling down in dust around her. What is she defending? And why is this card a warning to me?
The Swords suit is the suit of the intellect, and the Golden Dawn links it to Ruach on the Tree of Life. (The theory is, we've got three components: Nephesch, our physical bodies and existence, Neschamah, our spirit or cosmic consciousness, and Ruach, our intellect or ego, which lies between Nephesch at the bottom of the tree and Neschamah at the top. It is our personal identity, the 'I', the 'Self'. And it can cause lots of trouble, because it thinks it's the only one here, and it can get very defensive.So, the Princess of Swords is defending her identity, and her identity is made up of many illusions. But -- they're all she's got. Or so she thinks.
'When we identify with the Ruach,' writes DuQuette, 'we also separate ourselves from the higher parts of our souls that represent greater realities and levels of consciousness than our Ruach can comprehend. Consequently, the Ruach does everything it can to keep its grasp on our identity. This is why Eastern mystics warn that the mind is a great enemy.'
And just who is it who fights on behalf of the Ruach? 'When the battle begins, the Ruach naturally sends out its finest swordswoman -- a warrior princess who manifests everything that is inherent in her lord, the Ace of Swords, a mighty champion of the mind -- a Minerva, an Artemis, a Valkyrie --the Princess of Swords.'
In my case in particular today, I see her as a warning to stop working against myself by identifying too much with the details of my ego, or as Eckhart Tolle calls it, the 'false self':
'Identification with thoughts and the emotions that go with those thoughts creates a false mind-made sense of self, conditioned by the past: the "little me" and its story. This false self is never happy or fulfilled for long. Its normal state is one of unease, fear, insufficiency, and nonfulfillment. It says it looks for happiness, and yet it continuously creates conflict and unhappiness. In fact, it needs conflict and "enemies" to sustain the sense of separateness that ensures its continued survival. The false self lives mainly through memory and anticipation. Past and future are its main preoccupation. ... if you continuously miss the now – resist it, dislike it, try to get away from it, reduce it to a means to an end, then you miss the essence of your life, and you are stuck in a dream world of images, concepts, labels, interpretations, judgments – the conditioned content of your mind that you take to be "yourself." And so you are disconnected from the fullness of life that is the "suchness" of this moment,' says Eckhart Tolle.
I did this all day yesterday, worrying and making up stories in my mind, through 'memory and anticipation'. I certainly spent a lot of time stuck in a 'dream world of concepts, labels, interpretations and judgments.' The Knight of Swords presented himself to me, and I took his shadow side. And so in drawing the Princess of Swords today, I see myself fighting to defend the 'little me' stories I made up all day yesterday. I even said to someone yesterday, 'I feel like I'm digging my own grave.' I spent a lot of time regretting decisions from the past, and anticipating woe in the future. This card today warns me that I will continue to defend this fairy story today if I don't watch out. And the ego doesn't want me to realize its stories are all made up. It wants me to keep feeding them, because it thinks that's all there is. If I wake up from delusion, what will there be?
Thankfully, there are higher, different parts of myself. I can watch Ego from outside itself, and step back from it.
I have to admit I have no idea where deck creator Philip Permutt gets his interpretation of Page of Swords in today's draw from The Crystal Tarot (CICO Books 2010). However unlike the usual Page of Swords interpetation it is, though, it is uncannily fitting with the cards I have been drawing lately, and with my current life situation. Listen to this:
'You have been working hard, and your previous actions will lead to success, but you will still need to be prepared and flexible to deal with challenges ahead. You are wiser now, having learned from your own mistakes.'
While that sounds nothing like the Page of Swords, it fits perfectly with the fact that I have been doing yoga twice a day for the past nearly two months and had to take a break yesterday because my left hip was protesting madly! I believe I overdid some side bends and in other ways just pushed too hard on Saturday. So strange, isn't it, that things like this happen, when a companion books says something unusual that seems to fit nonetheless.
Anyway, if I didn't have a companion book with this deck, I would of course fall back on my prior knowledge of the more traditional view of the Page of Swords, which indicates a bit of youth, a bit of hubris, a bit of self-righteous intellectual arrogance, a bit of loving to play devil's advocate. The Page of Swords is like that kid in class (it could have been you) who enjoys catching the teacher out in a mistake, or likes to ask questions that can't be answered. The Page of Swords is talkative, intellectually curious, easily stirred to take up causes, has a keen sense of justice, would have been at the forefront of youth protests during the Civil Rights movement, things like that. I always liken the courts to fictional characters, and this is the Lisa Simpson card.
Thinking about the meaning given in the companion book, it's true Lisa Simpson does learn from every mistake she makes, everything she observes. And yet, it never seems to blunt her keen energy for truth, justice, right, or her need to learn more and to try to make things better.
I wonder if drawing this card today means I will have my Page of Swords fire lit in some way? Hmm.
When I woke up this morning, I thought of a phrase from one of my favourite books, 'Anne of Green Gables': Today is always fresh, with no mistakes in it.
It's Beltane and we've got a card today with the sun sending out huge beams across the entire sky! And along with it, the wind sending leaves whirling around our Airy Princess of Swords, or Dreamer Princess in Emily Carding's Tarot of the Sidhe. I remember reading somewhere that Beltane, or May Day, used to be a day when people would take out their old winter bedding (probably some sort of bag or mattress stuffed with straw or wool or a combination of things gathered the previous summer), mats and the rushes or mats from the floors and burn them. Very practical; one can imagine all that bedding from the winter being pretty used up and ready to be replaced with fresh! Even though we don't need to do that anymore, we can continue the spirit of that ritual by looking at the things that perhaps used to make us comfortable but which are now outworn and ready to be replaced, and light our own Beltane fires to figuratively burn them away.
Tuesday with the Halloween Tarot by Kipling West
Another court card today, we have Page of Bats, or Page of Swords. Instead of holding a sword, though, this page holds a pair of sunglasses and looks back over his/her shoulder toward a bat hovering there. One notices at once that symbols of the other suits are all over the Page of Swords: a ghost on the scarf (Cups), a pumpkin on the jerkin (Coins). The only thing missing is an imp (Wands). The bag is gaping open, but I cannot make out what is inside it.
I suppose the deck creator included symbols of other suits because, of all the pages, this one seems most in command of herself and to a degree of those around her. She uses her wits. The Page of Swords is known for playing devil's advocate, she enjoys debate and argument, and do to this effectively, you have to be able to anticipate the opposition. There's no other way to do this than to understand them. This understanding comes through observation. She's taken off her sunglasses to get a better look around her. She wears the symbols of the other suits because she can twist an argument to appeal to these audiences, at least long enough to get her point across. She's a clever little thing.
Do this. Don't do this. Outcome. (Touchstone, 2009)
I've been stressed lately, for various reasons, but when you add them all up, it's a lot to take in! I've got redundancy worries, joined a new union, switched my gas and electric supplier, taken on a tarot project with Tarot Association of the British Isles (TABI), I've stepped up my exercise regime, and I'm reading a book about meditation practice that is, as it says in the title, 'Unusally Hardcore'. So I asked the Touchstone Tarot, how should I deal with all this? And I drew 3 cards: Do this. Don't do this. Outcome.
So I'm supposed to 'do' 9 of Cups. Strangely enough, the first thing I notice about this card, other than the fact the chap in it looks like he's had a good sip from each of those nine cups, is that there is a bowl of cherries on the table. Which instantly brings to mind the song: 'Life is just a bowl of cherries.Don't take it serious...
Life's too mysterious
You work,
You save,
You worry so
But you can't take your dough
When you go, go, go
So keep repeating "It's the berries."
The strongest oak must fall
The sweet things in life
To you were just loaned
So how can you lose
What you've never owned
Life is just a bowl of cherries
So live and laugh, aha!
Laugh and love
Live and laugh,
Laugh and love,
Live and laugh at it all!'
~by Ray Henderson, 1931
Message received! Lighten up, the tarot's telling me. Take it easy. Find something about the situation to enjoy. Or just find something, somewhere, anywhere, to enjoy. At the end of the day, what will most of it even matter?
Billy the Kid
Then ... what should I NOT do? Page of Swords. Just look at that guy. He reminds me so much of the famous photo of Billy the Kid. He's just so cocky! He's got his head tilted to the side with that 'Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough' expression on his face. Don't mess with me, he's saying. But bring it on!, he's also saying. I can take you. I think the message here is, don't fight it. Don't defy the universe. Don't be belligerent. Don't have an attitude. Don't think you can outsmart the situation you're in. No mental fisticuffs or even full-on gun fights of the mind will help you in the situation you're in. Nope, surrender is best.
And what will be the outcome if I stop fighting it and learn to enjoy the journey? Seven of Coins. What a lovely maiden, like something out of a Vermeer painting. (Actually, she's by Raffaello, from a painting called 'Portrait of a Woman', 1507. I looked it up in the handy Touchstone Tarot companion book. ) Doesn't she look placid, though. She's patient. She's waiting for the plants to grow, and come to fruition, and that's all I can do, as well. That's all any of us can do, really, in any situation. Be patient.
So okay! I get it. Chill out, don't fight it, be patient.
