Tarotscope

The Tarot’s representative for the sign of Capricorn and for Capricorn season is The Devil, the 15thmacrocosmic card. As Capricorn’s counterpart, The Devil card carries some heavy earth (material) energy, and as a macrocosmic (Major Arcana) card, The Devil reminds us that whatever heaviness we are carrying, we are not carrying it alone, we are not solely responsible for attending this weight (though we do have our part to play), and we alone cannot lighten this load.

The Devil is the Tarot’s way of reminding us that even though all of that is true – we are not alone, we are not solely responsible for the changes we know are necessary – it is also true that we have agency, that we are not, as many a traditional Devil card image would depict, chained to an evil-doer and bound to either do their bidding or face eternal damnation or some other horrible consequence. In the context of a Tarot reading, if this card shows up after a good shuffle and pull, it often indicates that we are feeling forced into something, or that we feel as though we don’t have any control over our circumstances. We know we need something to change, but we are unable to notice or choose the changes we can make, right here and right now, that can loosen the chains that bind us to the conditions we know aren’t right for us.

I would love to rename this card something like the Cycle Breaker, because it is about shifting deeply embedded behavior patterns – the ones we keep trying to chip away at, the patterns that are self-destructive, and that are also intimately connected to our sense of self, to our very core beliefs about who we are and our sense of purpose and belonging in the world. I read The Devil as a reminder that the changes we know are right for us but that are infuriatingly difficult to make and embody are likely this difficult because they are our ancestral patterns living out through our bodies.

We carry the threads of the ways of those who came before us, whether we want to or not. (And here I want to clarify that when I use the word “ancestor” I do mean those who have contributed DNA toward our bodies, but I also mean those who have contributed love, nourishment, care, ideas, beliefs, values, and other essential ingredients that also make up who we are and influence how we live.) A lot of what we carry forward from those who lived before is good and right, strands we feel proud to weave in with the threads of the generations coming up after us, and a lot of it is oppressive, stuff we have the opportunity to drop right here and bury, burn, or compost it so that it doesn’t cause any more harm.

The Devil asks us to look at the places in our lives where we feel unfree, where we feel as though we have no choice but to continue in this way that is not aligned with what we know to be right for us, and especially in those places, to earnestly ask ourselves, to ask our guides, to ask our trusted elders and ancestors:

• How do we return to our power?

• How can we lean into the patterns that are good and right and away from those we no longer want to carry forward?

In traditional western Astrology, Capricorn is ruled by the planet Saturn, corresponding to The World, the Tarot’s 21st and “last” macrocosmic card. As the last, or the one with the highest number assigned to it, The World represents themes of culmination, completion, cycles closing, eras ending. None of these concepts have stark edges as our endings tend to seep over into new beginnings, and similarly The World card is usually about endings and completions, but its energy and messages are inextricably linked with The Fool, the first card of the macrocosm, or the lowest-numbered card, the 0 card.  

If the macrocosmic line (the Major Arcana) begins with 0 The Fool and ends with 21 The World, then it could be that The Fool is nothing and The World is everything. It could be that The World is the Whole, while the Fool might be the Hole. The World might be the collective, and the Fool might be the individual member of the collective. The World might be an overflowing cup while the Fool is an empty vessel, waiting to be poured into, ready and receptive. The Fool is a (re)birth, and The World is the culmination of a lifetime’s experiences. 

The World is fullness, wholeness, everything-ness. The World reminds us that we as individual bodies are more than the sum of our parts (our organs and fluids and bones), and that we, all together, are part of some Whole that is much greater than the sum of our parts, much more than just a bunch of bodies smooshed together on a planet. The World teaches us that while our brains tend to split complex ideas and systems into smaller, bite-sized, more manageable pieces, no one part is ever actually disconnected from any other part. We are The World, quite literally.

The World card also tells us that the world around us is the way it is because we collectively have shaped it this way, through our being and thinking and interacting with one another and with non-human kin. We are in turn, cyclically, shaped and reshaped by the world around us, by our human and non-human kin. The World is often depicted as a dancer, with one foot grounded and one foot raised, moving always, and without a care as to whether this is the beginning of a new spin or the end of an old one. The World is the continuity of spinning, the place where all the spins, all the parts, are able to be seen and felt as one. A planet on an axis AND a dancer spinning on one foot. 

My spiritual beliefs include that the Earth is one living being, and that every individual “thing” on the Earth is a member of the Earth’s body. The World card is my personal reminder of that fundamental belief. The World reminds me that I am not a mistake, that you, that no one of us is a mistake, or an accident. Every single one of us is a necessary component, a critical piece of the whole of the World. 

We are each other, we are the Earth, and we belong together.

Both the Ace and Page of Swords cover the quadrant of the sky centered on fixed Air, or the sign of Aquarius. The cards’ reach extends one sign in each direction, spanning Capricorn – Aquarius – Pisces (T. S. Chang). 

Aces are the phase of a change process when we open ourselves to the very idea that change is even possible. If the Tarot “pips” (the Ace – 10 cards of each Minor Arcana, or microcosmic suit) signify transformative processes, then the Ace is the moment at which we first open ourselves to whatever change we are hoping to make. 

If, for example, all our lives, every single day we wake up to an alarm, because this is what we were taught is the correct and best way to wake up, and after a lifetime of doing it this way we have come to believe that if we don’t set an alarm it won’t be possible for us to wake up in time to do the things we are supposed to do. We set an alarm even though we don’t really love it, because this is what we have always done, and maybe everyone we have ever lived with has also always done this. And then one day we meet someone who never sets an alarm and seems to wake up just fine.  And we think, “huh, maybe someday I could wake up without setting an alarm…” – this “huh, I wonder if…” moment is an Ace moment.

The suit of Swords is associated with Air energy, which I in turn associate with ideas, consciousness, thinking, theories, language and the expression of thoughts, intellect, truth, and the mind, among other things. We could interpret the Ace of Swords as “open to a change of mind”. As a seasonal card to guide us through all of winter (in the northern hemisphere), the Ace of Swords is a swirling rush of cold, crisp wind that lifts and clears away any old, scattered debris still cluttering our minds. The “debris” might be the broken shards of old, painful thought patterns, things we used to believe were the truth but have since learned otherwise, and still we sometimes find ourselves acting according to old, tired scripts. 

There is a period of time, before we embrace a new way of thinking or a new truth, where we waffle back and forth between the old thinking and the new. The Ace of Swords wants to help us clear the old way so we can make space for laying out a new thought pattern.

A Tarot Spread (or journal prompts) for Ace of Swords:

1 – what is one old belief ready to be cleared this season?

2 – what is one action I can take to support clearing my mind?

3 – what is one truth I am now ready to integrate?

Both the Ace and Page of Swords cover the quadrant of the sky centered on fixed air, or the sign of Aquarius. The cards’ reach extends one sign in each direction, spanning Capricorn – Aquarius – Pisces (T. S. Chang). 

The Page of Swords represents an intersection or exchange of earth (material) and air (intellectual) energies. All Pages, as earth carriers, give physical shape, body, and structure to their suit. The Page of Swords gives body and structure to ideas, thoughts, beliefs, theories, frameworks, etc. A Page of Swords season could be interpreted as a period of time for new ideas to take root.  Or it could be about being uprooted (or, maybe, uplifted) by an exciting new idea, some hard-won clarity, or the revelation of a liberatory truth. 

The Page of Swords wants us to notice that we can both be grounded and rooted in our bodies, our communities, and our homes, and still be open to new ideas, to revising long-held beliefs, to changing our minds. In fact, the Page of Swords knows that in order to have an open mind with the capacity to learn and, therefore, to change, we must trust that we are resourced. As a tree stretches its branches upward, it also reaches deeper into the earth. As we reach for new consciousness, for greater awareness, and for the changes that can come through learning, we also must reach deeper into that which helps us feel steady, rooted, and nourished. 

The Page of Swords heralds a season for becoming aware of embodied patterning, of attending to the shapes our ideas and beliefs take in the physical world, and of wrestling with the material realities, results, and consequences of our theories applied in real life. As we become aware of these realities, we may be motivated to change some of our thinking, to adjust our theories and apply them in new directions. 

The Page of Swords wants us rooted firmly in something steady and nourishing enough to let a strong wind shake information from our muscles and bones. This Page reminds us that we can draw truth from our bodies, if we find that sweet spot between loose and steady as the winds of change howl and swirl around us.  If we can sway without uprooting, if we can bend without breaking, we can weather any storm. 

A Tarot Spread (or journal prompts) for Page of Swords:

1 – what can I trust to resource, nourish, and steady me this season?

2 – what new ideas am I ready to bend toward?