The Free Radical

“Oh, here we go again… How can you believe in that tarot crap!”

In a material-based paradigm, in a Newtonian worldview seeking objectivity, the employment of tarot decks is assuredly idiotic. Fortunately, I don’t inhabit such a scientifically unsupportable and terribly outdated framework for reality.

The traditional tarot is a succinct language of deep, rich symbolism. Its full lexicon contains 78 ‘words.’ Admittedly, the language is truncated, finding an absolute limit in the size of its vocabulary, but each word in the tarot language is a symbol couched in infinite meaning. It is an interesting tool.

My conscious mind, my ego, is a tightly-woven reality filter which only lets in the tiniest fraction of the reality available to my senses. (It’s the same for you.) The subconscious mind is a reality processor about a million times more efficient than my ego. It accumulates a million times more data, organizes it about a million times faster, and understands about three-and-a-half-zillion more things than I do (plus or minus 6).

Sometimes I like to ask questions of this quiet genius within. Or, if my questions are too linear– too constraining, I just ask for general insight instead. The traditional tarot is the bridge I use between ‘us.’

Recently, I was desirous of penetrating the murky depths of the collective unconscious of Earth’s humanity. Intuitively I have been feeling the tumult of the collective mind for several weeks already. The collective mind– which is ultimately responsible for shaping our shared reality according to our collective agreements about reality– has become most active. For those anticipating and embracing change, this is great news; for those having difficulty adjusting to alterations in their comfortable trance… well, not so much; it might even suck.

When I consult the tarot, I get to choose all the parameters of the reading– how many cards to draw, the perspectives of their positions within the reading, the timeframes involved, etc. For this reading I employed the traditional 11-card spread with the short-term outcome (position seven) coinciding with the upcoming full moon and lunar eclipse on October 8th, and the longterm outcome (position eleven) coinciding with the following new moon and partial solar eclipse on October 23rd. As I’ve said, this is ‘crunch time.’

This is the image of the collective right now, the Prince of Swords. Though you might not know it from looking at him, he represents ingenuity– perhaps somewhat fittingly for a naked man wielding a sword. The collective is brimming with ideas right now. Fortunately, the historic expertise of the collective is in turning ideas into our shared reality. That’s what it’s always done. What’s new right now is the sheer audacity of some of those ideas.

The pervading energy which surrounds our naked swordsman is one of balance (2 of Swords). When balance comes a-knocking, a rest or a break from the usual ways of thinking, seeing and doing is called for. The challenge for the collective is to ensure that all viewpoints are included.

Blocking the progress of the collective is that age-old nemesis, competition (5 of Wands). We’ve been so bred and indoctrinated to the ‘virtues’ of competition that quite a portion of the collective still believes that fighting each other at every level and opportunity brings out the best in all of us, more so than co-operation and working together would. Go figure.

The foundation of this now moment lies in the hands of the Princess of Wands. She can be an immature and impulsive little bitch! She can be very blunt in her enthusiasm and spontaneity though, so let’s hope she’s got a smidgeon of growed-upness tucked away in those frivolous skirts. All-in-all it looks like our current foundation is decidedly unpredictable.

What lies behind us is victory, the 6 of Wands. And what this suggests about what lies before us is… er… um… victory. Okay Niels, what gives? The very definition of victory is being transformed. In the past, victory was declared when one triumphed over another; all victories were very temporary. The new shiny and buffed chrome-plated victory is one where everyone triumphs; it is the final victory. It is the type of victory which ends competition once and for all. (Competition was represented by the 5 of Wands; the very next card, the 6 of Wands, is victory… coincidence? I think not.)

The 5 of Hearts is a nasty card. It represents disappointment. The thing of it is, though, that here in the sixth position, it calls forth a visualization which overcomes all disappointment. We are instructed to visualize ourselves walking towards the bright future we desire and indulging the feeling of already being there. (Hm… where have I heard that sort of thing before?)

Oh 2 of Hearts, you romantic dickhead! What have you got to do with all this? Romance? In the collective? Really? Yup. It makes perfect sense. The collective is transforming its internal relations– all of us with all of us. By the light of the full moon on the eighth, the collective will have finally fallen in love with itself. The era of self-loathing ends. Yay!

Now, the persona that creeps out onto the world stage however– that consummate actor– is the worst of the worst, the 10 of Swords. Ruin. Okay Niels, tell us the upside of ruin. No problem. How liberating is it to know that the worst has already happened? That’s what this card in the eighth position means. We begin to act from the empowered perspective for the first time when we acknowledge that the worst is past us. Ruin isn’t hanging over us; it’s done; it’s finished. I call that good news.

The 10 of Pentacles speaks of protection. Traditionally, what have we needed protection from? Each other. Our sad, genocidal need for protection from our neighbours comes to a swift end in the realization that we’re all one family. Yeah, some of our relatives are bat-shit crazy, but they’re still family; you still set them a plate at the table… just don’t give them the good silverware, and nothing too sharp!

Our hopes and fears are centred around feelings of frustration (7 of Pentacles). We hope that this is the true end to our ongoing frustrations with the state of the world, but fear that our hope will turn toxic again. It’s up to us. If all we’re doing is hoping… it’ll turn out badly. But we’re wiser than that. We won’t empower our frustrations; we’ll keep moving, stepping beyond… and…

Uh-oh! The final outcome is one of opposition, the 7 of Swords. You didn’t really think it would be easy did you? The opposition we are encountering/creating will likely be very strong. Through persistence and self-examination we stand to overcome fear, prejudice and deceit. We will likely have to give everything we’ve got in order to prevail. And you know what happens as a result? We all grow as individuals in our understanding, especially in understanding of our inherent power. Nothing will be given freely– unless you’re tight with the astral charlatans who’ll promise you a bite from the sun… but that’s just a partial solar eclipse. Don’t fall for their chicanery. You are already all you need to be and more. Allow it to be called forth. Just look at you, big strong human!

And that is what my subconscious mind wished to impart to all of you. Have a nice evolution!