I spent the weekend at some friends’ birthday party, inna fabulous fifteenth-century mansion just outside Edinburgh. Because I am poverty-ridden, other people were paying for the accommodation, so I earned my keep as the cocktail barman. And while I’m there, why not do a few readings for folks as an extra service?
I’ve been playing with the Celtic Cross lately, and none of my querents had a specific question they wanted to ask about, so this was an ideal opportunity to get some practice in. I find that the Celtic Cross is a great way to get some general information about the state of the world, and quite often it’ll surprise me by providing some specificity when there was none initially present. Keeping it simple, I opted not to draw a significator, letting the deck tell me what the heart of the matter was.
Reading the first
My friend S had no particular question, but I know she likes pretty things, so I drew using the marvellous Shadowscapes deck. It’s absolutely beautiful and one of my favourite decks.
So, S is the eight of cups, crossed by the Queen of wands. Behind her the eight of wands, before her the reversed Page of wands… grounding her the eight of Pentacles, crowning her the nine of swords reversed. There’s a distinct narrative forming here, and as I started to explain the positions, I could see S exchanging glances and nods with her husband across the table. I love it when that happens. It suggests that I’m on the right track.
Turns out that S had recently had the opportunity to start up a new craft-based business, and it had all gone south for reasons outwith her control. Interestingly, the Queen of wands in this spread actually represented a person, which isn’t something that usually happens to me—in this case it’s pretty clearly the dodgy lawyer in S’s way.
What struck me most strongly about this spread though is that the cross and the staff told two completely different chapters of the same story. The cross made one complete narrative, with a beginning, middle, and end: and that end, the Page of wands, suggested that it’s time for a new venture into something different. The staff told the story about the new venture.
I’m still working on my method of interpreting the staff. I’m not keen on most of the standard descriptions, which stray a little too closely into fortune-telling and arbitrariness for my tastes. I like my cards to flow in a coherent narrative with the cards around them. So I’m developing a technique where I apply the concept of the four Qabalistic worlds to the staff, with creative energies flowing down from Atziluth in the top position towards Assiah at the bottom, and materialistic energies flowing in the opposite direction. I’ve not fully fleshed this out yet, and I’ve not developed a good way to explain it, which should be pretty obvious by now. When I do, you’ll be the first to know.
In the base position, representing the physical world, we have the ten of wands, which gives another indication of completeness and finality to the abortive endeavour described by the cross. Immediately above that, the Ace of swords, with its associations of newness and fresh ideas. Taken together, they tell us that the old venture must be done with before embarking on the new one.
Above that, the ten of cups reversed, and then, crowning everything in the Atziluth position, the High Priestess reversed. As I’ve said about the High Priestess before, she can be secretive, and often reminds us that there’s something she knows that we don’t. In this case, I discovered that the new creative venture was a book that S was writing, and the plot hinges on a central mystery. From this initial mystery did the entire endeavour flow.
I didn’t expect this tarot reading to take the form of a mind-reading session, but I like it when the cards can surprise me like that.
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