Court Card Guardians for Putin and Zelenskyy

In my last blog post I shared the Major Arcana birth cards for the Presidents of Russia and Ukraine. We saw that Putin is governed by 16 The Tower and that Zelenskiyy is governed by 6 The Lovers. When I looked at the Majors who would go on to be their companion cards through 2022, I was surprised to see that they were both served by 14 Temperance. However, it’s important to note that they both reach Temperance by a different route!

Since this is a blog about court cards, I also looked at the birth court cards for Putin and Zelenskiyy. For Putin, that Tower card morphs into the King of Wands and for the Ukrainian President, The Lovers translates as the Knight of Cups.

When we look at The Tower and the King of Wands, it feels very noisy, energetic and very destructive. The King of Wands is usually a character that I feel very warmly about, but as the invader of another sovereign state, I am inclined to focus on the King’s less attractive traits. I freely acknowledge that all the things that make me usually love the King of Wands; his glamorous, expansive, charismatic and passionate personality – are probably what endear him to the Russian people that support him. But such a fiery person burns for only what can be achieved by (and for!) himself alone – burning bright, setting a torch to everything that comes into contact with him, toppling the edifice. But he also illuminates himself so that all the world may see him. And while he hopes that they see a noble and heroic warrior (shirtless, riding a bear or whatever the hell it was) what the world actually sees is someone consumed by their own ego, ambition and actions. Someone prepared to turn a country into a burned out wasteland. The King of Wands is not a natural team player; this is leadership through assertion at best and aggression at worst.

Zelenskyy’s Knight of Cups and The Lovers feels like an appropriate pairing too – but in a different and less frenetic way. While The Lovers feels like choices being made, the Knight of Cups has made his choice and rides off into the sunset with his bride. In this case, his country. The Knight of Cups is always a character who looks like he’s on a quest by love and for love. Let’s face it, the entire world is a wee bit in love with Zelenskyy. Of course, that motorbike will be noisy too – we just have to hope that someone switches off Putin’s amplifiers lol!

Now, both Presidents will have the same Guardian card for 2022, but how well do their birth cards sit with this year’s model? With a total of 14 giving us Temperance as the Major Arcana card, we can look at the table of court card number allocations and see that The King of Cups is numbered 14.

As a guardian for 2022, the King of Cups shows us that this is a year for diplomacy, for leadership through empathetic understanding. Hmmm which leader do you think will be more attuned to that? How do the Presidential birth courts look next to their year card?

No idea what is going on with this photo. Have tried to rotate it a billion times.

For Putin, the King of Wands must learn to act in a King of Cups manner for the year card to work in his favour. That assertive aggressiveness of the Wands’ King needs to be tempered (oh, there’s that Temperance reference again!) into the heart-led qualities of the King of Cups. Which I don’t feel is very likely at all, do you?

For Ukraine’s Zelenskyy, his Knight of Cups birth card matures into the King of Cups, his Airy Knight nature which could feed so much of the King of Wands fire is transmuted into fire itself – but not the all consuming, all devouring passion of the King of Wands. Instead he becomes a leader whose strengths are in sympathy with his birth card energies – he cares about other people and that’s not going to change at all. But Zelenskyy will grow to be a strong adversary to Putin.

The battle itself may show Putin’s strength, but the battle for hearts and minds is most definitely won by Zelenskyy.

What do you think?