Today is the Autumn Equinox and the ringing of this celestial alarm clock that tells us that the sun is heading south across the equator and that our nights will, once again, be drawing in.
Interestingly, the period where the hours of almost equal light and darkness takes place (for me here in Scotland, anyway) on the 25th of September, but hey, what’s a couple of days between friends?
At the end of July, I presented at TABI’s Tarot Conference in Birmingham, on working with court cards. Today I want to share with you a snippet of the work that we worked through at Conference: using the 16 courts as Guardians to the festivals on the Wheel of the Year.
The Guardians of the Autumn Equinox are The Queen of Cups and the Knight of Cups. This abundance of watery energy means that this is a wonderful time of year for focussing on our relationships – with others and with ourselves. It is also a perfect time to pay attention to our dreams and our drive to create – art, books, music, children.
The Queen of Cups offers us the gift of empathy, love (all aspects of it), and letting your emotional core influence all aspects of your life in a way that you might be reticent to do at other times of the year.
Her challenge to us is to recognise when we turn that emotional connection with others into something that is selfish or manipulative.
She asks:
Where can you improve your relationships with family, friends and colleagues
Consider your self-care – are you investing sufficient time and resources?
Are you aware of areas where you may be pushing emotional buttons to get your own way?
The Knight offers us a slightly different focus for the relationships in our orbit. His knightly nature is associated with the element of air, so he brings in a more cerebral note to his Guardianship and it can be used to support the Queen – if her emotionally orientated approach is not improving the connection with someone that you hope for, try flavouring your approach by adding a dash of Knightly logic, common sense or even double-check that you’re successfully communicating exactly what you mean!
The Knight’s challenge to us is different from his Queen’s: The Knight cares about his journey sincerely and with his whole heart. He’s not some fly-by-night to take-off in a fit of pique or hubris. The Knight’s challenge to us is to ensure that our questing and challenging nature pursues a worthwhile goal. When he is an active card, we should not be pushed out of our adventure by our need to maintain strong relationships with people. For example, you are going off to college (your worthwhile goal, right?) and your excitement is overshadowed by concerns about relationships that will be strained by your new adventure. A little sadness is healthy, but deciding not to go or amending your choices because you don’t want to upset your boyfriend is not.
He asks:
Are you willing to introduce adventure to your relationships?
Where are others proving challenging?
How well are you communicating with those around you?
If this kind of approach to working with the courts sounds like fun, why not sign up for my newsletter and get first notifications on when my court card e-book is going to be available? In it we look at the elemental DNA of the cards and how that helps us find other information that can be useful in interpreting court cards!
Stop being confused by court cards! Start being excited by the possibilities! Become a court card adventurer along with me 🙂 The Tarot’s Court Cards are my specialist area. They talk to me. Not LITERALLY though ….
