Water. The well of being from whence all creation flows. The milky way as the river of stars, the cosmic flow of currents.
These past couple of monthly auguries here have been hinting and circulating around the theme of water, this is either a reflection of my current preoccupation with water or maybe it is both. By both, I mean that the theme has been present around me while I’ve been thinking about it as well, creating a self-reflexive connection. Within the Caribbean folk spiritism† experience found where I live, and what I’ve encountered in several spiritual houses, there is a stringent emphasis on water. An example, spiritists are always encouraged to keep in their homes a fount of water on a white altar to cleanse before prayers, whether morning, evening, or afternoon prayers, la boveda. Moreover, every misa or spiritual gathering of any sort begins and ends with cleansing before a fount. Before and after the prayers, before and after the mediums begin their work, before and after the music, there is the cleansing through water.
And why this emphasis on water? We drink water, we use it to clean our bodies, to clean our homes and daily utensils. We use it to refresh ourselves on hot days, and to nourish our crops, plants, flora. There is something primal about water, maybe this is tied to our arising out of the primal waters. I think of the ocean teaming with life, now also teaming with heaps of our own trash. Then there are the arteries that feed the ocean, the rivers of sweet water. What’s more, thinking about the heaps of trash floating in waters, something that is blatantly evident in the waters of this island where I live, my mind is drawn to musings of pollution. How polluted, both material/tangible and symbolic, is the state of our waters?
Image from Pixabay.
And the question keeps ringing out within me, “What is the state of our waters?” How clear? How murky? How often do we shed and cleanse before the primal waters? The spiritual fount is a centerpiece that regulates the state of spiritual development of the spiritist. I see it as a thermometer and a conductor, but what are we conducing if our waters have been polluted? If we haven’t been attending to our waters, cleansed our waters?
“Water is the fluids used by the Saints and Spirits as a portal, [which] they pass through from the realm of Spirit, and manifest their currents in the material plane. [Water] It is used to give them clarity, to quench their thirst, freshen their fertile paths, and cleanse themselves.” -Sancista Brujo Luis, Luz y Progreso
I can see how these vessels that hold water are portals, how the water contained within reflects the primordial waters wherein all Spirit arises and moves. I’m reminded of the all important emphasis of baptism by water, a rebirth by water, wherein the body enters the waters and arises anew different, changed, drenched in the dew of Spirit. Making contact with the primordial waters to be reborn. What are we birthing in our waters? What are we transmitting and is simultaneously being transmitted back toward us through these potent portals?
Image from Pixabay
Moving within these themes puts me in mind of looking at my own symbolic waters, and by extension wondering at the frequency we as a collective cleanse our waters, cleanse our bodies, minds, and spirits through these waters. Perhaps these musings arise out of being in the midst of summer, the hot months, at least in the northern hemisphere. How often do we look into these areas in our lives? I don’t pretend to offer solutions nor answers here, I’m just sharing what’s been occupying my mind of late. I find myself every morning, after the morning showers, standing before the fount of water, cleansing, and clearing; observing the waters, both within me and the external waters. Attempting to decipher the currents, taking lessons from John the Baptist, the Headless Saint and Prophet, seeking if only a brief connection with the divine through the revealing waters. Enjoy this full moon in Sagittarius, may there be clarity.
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†So many challenging words, and I really dislike categories. So think about this in loose terms weaving with it Catholicism, Saints, Mighty Dead, Spiritism, and the colonized Caribbean experience.
–Luz y Progreso, Light and Progress: A Handbook for the Developing Medium Within the Puerto Rican Espiritismo Criollo de la Mesa Blanca System, Sancista Brujo Luis, Rattling Rocks Publications, NZ, 2015.
June and summer are officially here, it is uncommonly hot and the sun beaming down has become relentless. As I type this I hear a cacophony of honking horns in the distance. An example of the madness heat creates when concentrated.
I’m also at this month’s augury which will be brought to you by the recently republished Gill Tarot. While shuffling the cards and getting ready to divine for the message, I was simultaneously listening to The Astrology Podcast’s June forecast. My hands were hesitant to deal out the cards. I was thinking that they would all turn out to be swords or batons, with a cup blocking resolution. To my surprise this wasn’t the case. For a second I considered re-shuffling. I doubted the cards, and the moment. Why these cards? Isn’t June celestially prognosticated to be a difficult month? But, I could not re-shuffle and repeat the process, on principle. And so folks, here you have this month’s cards, shaded by cool plants.
The Gill Tarot by Elizabeth Josephine Gill, published by US Games Systems, 2018.
For clarity’s sake, the cards are 6 of cups in an energetic red wheel against a vibrant yellow, the rooted king of disks become a tree himself, and the enigmatic lovers calibrating their fates.
The Gill Tarot by Elizabeth Josephine Gill, published by US Games Systems, 2018.
So, let’s talk about June. Here, all directions point left, toward the spiraling 6 of cups. The king himself even seems to hold the circling gyre of cups, conceiving (as stated in the keyword) his next steps, the next move. With the lovers, a card that is about dividing and deciding, about re-calibrating, evidently it is as if the king is considering his next move. Unequivocally, the next steps do have to be carefully considered. In the realm of the formidable and the solid, how do we move our pieces to achieve our desired ends? Conversely, when facing the spinning wheel, how do we interpret the patterns?
The colors in the cards are vibrant, colorful, and warm, with the gentle blue of the king giving subtle contrast. There are no jarring polemics in play this month, superficially at least. But there is the tension of execution, how to dynamically distill our desires?
The Gill Tarot by Elizabeth Josephine Gill, published by US Games Systems, 2018.
Clearly, we are directed toward how we guide our emotions, desires, and wants.
Speaking of the cards at face value, they are about taking what you hold close and bringing it into spirited movement, allowing the form move at will. Thusly, granting your desire the necessary form to evolve. The Lovers pull, redirect and realign, shifting decisions and rectifying. In turn, the King in his formative position holds the sphere in contemplation. This is were you (we) are this month, in the king’s position. Contemplating what, you may ask? The quality and distillation of your desire. When I say desire, I don’t simply mean sexual. The word here embodies a force that daily drives you, the passion that propels your steps to keep moving and going with purpose and direction. It is the drive that fills your spirit and which nourishes.
This month of June is for attending to this force, how it moves, and seeing that your decisions and steps are genuinely led by it.
Lastly, be especially attentive to messages/whispers from above, as the month looks to be full of potential for this kind of communication. Which can cross your path as a synchronous moment, as a hunch (gut feeling) or as the calm inner voice that offers a different perspective.
At its most basic, tactile, and visual, a sword is an instrument, a weapon with a pointed edge used to cut. Swords are sharp and bring pain and division to whatever encounters its sharp edge. Held aloft if protects from the other, from what is at the other side of the pointed edge. It can also be carried on oneself.
To protect, injure, or cut, the sword is held and thrust forward, giving it a forceful, assertive, and authoritative quality.
In the past•, this suit has been assigned to soldiers, nobility, and the law. Given the nature of the sword, as an instrument of war, in defense and offense, I find this connection precise for a foundational framework. Moving beyond war entails extracting more from this base.
Approaching the suit, involves understanding the dynamics of a sword in action. A sword in action means one of the following: it is cutting, it is defending, or it is dividing. It is a forceful action requiring discernment and alacrity as a wrong move or an incorrect judgement can be detrimental for the desired outcome.
When I align this perspective of the sword in action with approaching the suit in its entirety, I extract the qualities the suit itself has to offer. Emanating from the sequential order of the suit, from one to ten, is momentum, strength, escalation, choler, obfuscation, pain, and imprisonment.
The ace portrays a hand holding a sword aloft, with the edge pointed upward, piercing an empty crown with leaves hanging to the side. This is the killing of hesitation, a decisive action that moves the narrative forward in a forceful way. The two of swords generally sees a type of flower encased between two curved swords. Just as the narrative has been pushed forward, the two sees a coming together on an agreed plan of attack and defense. The open flower here is protected as well. Moving on to the three we find the situation at odds, an interference has imposed itself, the battle plans have gone awry.
The number four denotes a quality of stability, as a table has four legs, and a home traditionally has four walls. The four of swords sees the foundation of defense set in place. It is a stable position, encompassing, once more, a stemmed flower in the center. The four of swords can also indicate a house of law or government building. With the five we take a look at the heart of the matter. Just as we have four limbs and one heart, so the five has four limbs and one heart. Here there is a refocusing and realignment of the center, the purpose, whether for good or ill.
The six and seven sees an opening that leads to obstacles. With the eight complicating and suffocating the matter as the once healthy flower is left diminutive and trapped. The nine and ten sees the ending on a defeated note as two swords meet in the middle.
Now, where did I get all this? The swords are a warring suit, one of force and action, with a decidedly martial essence, demanding we ask ourselves, “How do I defend my self from others, and how do I protect my self and those I love?” Consequently, swords concern themselves in a twofold pattern with strategy and application, force and resistance. Swords are also swift in reaction, and this is derived from the tool itself, which is swift in reacting and in cutting. When there are only a handful of swords on the table, one can generally consider the strategy unambiguous. In turn, when there are many swords on the table, confusion ensues, strife, anger flares up, and warring begins. There is danger afoot.
My initial approach is strongly bound up with function. Specifically, what swords are vis à vis my self, as a participatory event with the image. Modern life nullifies general sword use, but one is still able to know what it is to handle a sword. It is from this focal point that I begin to pull the threads of potential meaning for the suit. What does it mean to hold and wield a sword? Moreover, what does it mean from the perspective of the sword wielder, as well as for the other that looks on at the sword wielder? In other words, meaning here is participatory and dynamic, instead of just unidirectional.
Enrique Enriquez’s excellent compendium of interviews, En Terex It: Encounters Around the Tarot Volume One, published by Eyecorner Press includes an illuminating conversation with Jean-Michel David, tarot scholar andeducator, and here is a snippet I find harmonious with what I’m illustrating:
“In my local courses, I usually bring along an accurately weighed replica of a mediæval sword. Similarly, in both my online and local courses, I suggest going to a zoo (or, better if you have the opportunity, a safari) to actually observe and behold a lion. To visit, when opportunity arises, European museums and come as close as possible to an actual Imperial crown – and to wear a replica, or even a real one, and be seated wearing such. To engage in Lectio Divina.
There’s no way that the suit of swords, or, in order of those cards I just mentioned, Fortitude, the Empress or Emperor, or the Papesse, remain imagery of something remote. Seeing the card image anew becomes a living experience…”(142)†
(Of course, this applies to the entire 78 cards in the tarot, or any other divinatory tool for that matter.)
With Enriquez adding a couple lines ahead, “meaning is experiential.”
Bringing all this back down to earth and to ourselves, encountering the suit experientially means engaging with the suit (whichever swords come up in the spread during a reading) from your own perspective as the reader coupled with the question. Asking yourself reflexively and with a keen eye for the cards on the table, “How do these swords interact with the other cards?” Furthermore, “How do these swords contextualize (frame) the question?”
When the reader and the question interacts with the cards in this suit, the related fields of possibility unfold, and the numerological progression becomes the weighing factor. The amount of conflict, action, strategy and force will be descried by the amount of swords on the table and what they are pointing toward.
Taking this one step further, swords do not remain at the merely martial level. To be martial involves several elements, such as, vigor, strength, precision, strategy, and mental acuity. Therefore, the suit of swords does not remain at the level of pain and discord, it extends to encompass the possibilities encapsulated by the weapon itself. In other words, when encountered in a reading swords can denote the range of significations encapsulated by the weapon itself, from the functional, such as swords being a weapon that brings pain, to the characteristics inherent to the wielding of the weapon. Hence my suggestion, begin with the function of the image, then pull the threads of meaning from there outward.
To mirror one of the 21 trumps…
Justice calls forth, with her balance and sword, an upright virtue of discernment. With the balance she weighs the seen and unseen. While her sword cuts through all that is superfluous, unwavering. She is resolute in her actions. Inclined only to what is equal and just. Despite not being a warring spirit, she is one of decisive action, adamantine in firmness, qualities that illustrate the suit of swords. She also embodies the nuanced characteristics of the sword in action. Justice is both martial and sagacious. She does not act out of not knowing, her actions are grounded in knowing. She executes the action of cutting, enforcing her sword to act and to cut, to divide. Yet she does so in conjunction with her balance. The balance here can be taken to indicate a weighing of what will and will not be cut, of possibilities. Taken as a whole, Justice embodies the art of discernment, in that she knows (through the act of weighing) what to cut. Where she manifests the more virtuous qualities of the suit itself, is in commanding the martial impulse into subjection of a weighing and balancing act, making all things equal. Afterward, the cutting can begin.
If you’d like to encounter other ways of reading the suit of swords, then I wrote a little ebook some years ago on the suit of swords focusing on the magical path. You can download it by clicking on the image below. (Please note, it is formatted in PDF 6×9)
Jean Noblet Tarot de Marseille, reproduced by Jean-Claude Flornoy, editions letarot.com, Marseille, 2014.
The next part in the series will be on the suit of cups, Heart of Life, which will be posted next month leading up to the summer solstice.
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∞If you’re catching this post/series midway, Animating the Tarot Pips, the introduction along with a master list (with links) of the installments can be found here.
∆ All images from this series, unless otherwise noted, are taken from pixabay.com
•”The sword represented the sovereigns and all the military nobility.” Stuart Kaplan, Tarot Classic, U.S. Games, Inc., (Stamford, CT, 1972) 38. Excerpt taken directly from Robert M Place, The Tarot: History, Symbolism, And Divination (New York: Penguin Group, 2005) 29, kindle.
† Enrique Enriquez, En Terex It: Encounters Around the Tarot Volume One (Roskilde: Eyecorner Press, 2012), 142.
Looking back, April was a month of action and movement, a month of beginnings being put into play. Ideas erupted into the forefront, each fighting for attention and implementation.
In contrast, this month of May foretells to be one of healing and connection, with an especial Taurean† flavor. This might sound frilly but the abundance of cups is pronounced. Generally for me, May is a month of warm weather, it is for the releasing of all the retrained energy from the rainy cold months, the beginning of summer and of days becoming longer. All these ideas are put into perspective with the spread of cards for this month.
Fantarocco di Franco Anichini, published by Modiano, Italy.
The fool here looks foolish, frolicking and wild, not really paying attention to where he’s going, the cat looks exasperated by this fool. Yet somehow this same fool has found his way into cool waters. Excess might have led this fool here, but that is beside the point. Now that the fool is in these waters a re-balancing is taking place. This month finds us mediating our exasperation and anxiety with cool waters. While the fool wanders aimlessly, and maybe a tad naively, we find ourselves learning that too much lack of focus, leads nowhere concrete. It is better to move forward at a steady pace, letting guidance come from the heart instead of from the desire to grasp at more than we can handle.
Fantarocco di Franco Anichini, published by Modiano, Italy.
Between the ten and four of cups is the shifting, here we shift from high gear to a stable gait. I want to say, down to earth and sensible. This month, indulge in what is sensible, in what provides balance. This is the time to explore what grounds you, and how you find your balance. The fool here is having his heart and spirit re-aligned, in like manner we should seek to re-align and re-asses our trajectory so far. This year has given most of us quite a rough start, with this season now upon us, cleanse and find your focus anew.
Fantarocco di Franco Anichini, published by Modiano, Italy.
The page of cups above gives us the advice we seek. As a youthful cup bearer, the page is attuned to hear and receive the opportune messages from the heavens. This page recommends we keep our ears ready to hear with our heart. This month we will find encouragement from those around us, and we will be heartened by the uplift that this yields for our bodies and our lives. Relish the kind words from others, keep hope close, for that is what will fill our cups and give us the fuel for the rest of the year.
In turn, the bottom card warns us against confinement and overexertion. I’ve always found batons to emphasis structure and materiality, as these are batons, wooden sticks, that when stacked create homes, furniture, etc. These particular 5 batons indicate what we should avoid doing, something quite opposite to the page above. Do not fasten your attentions on the daily grind and work so rigidly that you close off those around you. This separation is like a veil that closes you off from receiving the warmth and encouragement from loved ones, while also confining your self and your body to strain.
Follow the Page’s path, which is one of sweet waters and of being attuned with self and spirit. Stay grounded and re-asses the path covered so far, while looking ahead to the coming months.
I hope everyone’s May unfolds with blessings, and peace, peace is always good.
Also, stay posted for the next installment in my Marseille Tarot series, Animating the Tarot, which will be The Suit of Swords: Armed Force.
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† As in the zodiacal sign of Taurus, an earth sign ruled by Venus.
Natalia Lee 