Meditations on a Tarot Reading: On Feeling Lost

I feel lost.

Not little-lost, like what street I’m on.

I’m talking about the big sort of lost.

I’ve been writing quite a bit about what I think about when I meditate on the cards. I’ve not gone into detail on how I use cards together, putting them into the context of a reading. The three-card reading I did to facilitate meditating on where I was presented a perfect opportunity to write through how I meditate on readings.

Layout

What do the three cards mean? In this case, I was thinking about the state of my mind, body, and spirit as I shuffled them. Since I was taught by tarot teachers that such things are important (layouts, thoughts while shuffling), I continue those traditions — but am aware that traditions need periodic refreshing, and aren’t the most reliable of things.

In other words, those cards could just as easily represent past, present, and future. The cards could also represent a way to explore my feelings — what are my resentments, my regrets, and my achievements?

Since tarot gives me a way of considering what my thoughts are on a situation without getting too overwhelmed by it, I focus more on what feelings and thoughts the cards bring to me. While I put a significant amount of weight on what I was thinking of as I was shuffling the cards, there are other factors that I weight more heavily.

The Cards

Initial Impressions

A couple of court cards and a major arcana tell me that there is a lot of energy going on.

Mind: Knight of Needles (Swords)

In more traditional decks, this card is known as the Knight of Swords.

The knights generally represent young, passionate energy that can border and easily fall into extremism. The knights are the sort of card to get things done and they represent people of action. I was taught that court cards can be interpreted often as people that embody certain characteristics. In fact, I was trained by at least two tarot teachers to select significators for readings from them, but I didn’t find the court cards diverse enough to effectively do that, and I didn’t like the idea of eliminating that possibility from the deck for the reader.

For swords, a suit of intellect, the Knight represents someone with an exceptionally sharp and ambitious mind. The pure ambition of the knight of swords can not be understated. This card shows a person that will stop at nothing to make something happen. Nothing will stop the Knight of Swords– and it’s that utter single-mindedness that is the double-edge on that sword.

Quite the card to get in the ‘mind’ position.

What I take from this, at least in the context of feeling lost, is that my mind is sharp enough to think myself through and get myself through this, and it’s a matter of finding what keeps me engaged and obsessed. So while my feelings leave me feeling lost, my mind knows what it needs to do. I have the passion to carry me through — it’s a matter of aligning that mental energy with my passions.

Body: Page of Matches (Wands)

In other decks, this card is called the Page of Wands. While knights represent people that are often between 25 and 35, pages skew younger. Because of the title ‘page’ they often represent messengers or messages.

The page of wands represents someone with new, unbound energy when it comes to initiative and inspiration. My husband and I joke about how many of the cards in a tarot deck talk about a new start, and the page of wands is one of them (perhaps the reason there are so many ‘new start’ cards is that life is also full of opportunities for a new start!).

The Page of Wands indicates a desire to know, to change, to grow, and to go out in the world. It is a card of the curious, of the new explorer, and of eagerness.

For the Page of Wands, life is an adventure and opportunity. Appearing in the ‘body’ position of this particular reading, the page probably indicates my desire and need to start down a new path towards fitness, and instead of seeing things in terms of limitations, to understand that I change and impact those limitations. The important thing to remember with the Page is to not become too expansive too quickly, or to start down too many paths. The best way to use this energy is to focus it. I see a lot of focusing on calisthenics that will help me to rehab my back and help me to feel strong again.

Spirit: The Sun

The Sun is… the sun. The sort of power that it radiates will amplify its importance through a reading, and a spirit filled with such positivity will help the mind and the body fall in line.

The Sun as a card often indicates that things are going to get better. The Sun has long been a symbol of radiance, success, and abundance for mankind, and in the tarot, and these resonate throughout the card. The Sun in the spirit position emphasizes that I can tap into this abundant potential in the spirit. The Sun invites us to connect with our own light. This is a time for my spirit to abound in the light, and look at the truths that it has to offer. Much like other cards in this reading, The Sun is a card of energy.

The Sun is just one of those good, positive cards. With the Sun in the spirit position, it indicates not only the sort of energy that I will need to face my own feelings of ‘lost’ and insecurity, but it also indicates that I am on the right path.

Final Thoughts

Overall I feel very positive about this reading, and that it’s almost like my tarot deck is trying to give me a little pep talk. Since I don’t look to tarot to divine what will happen next, I look to it for concepts that I can meditate on that will help me through. In this case, I think that having the Knight of Needles, Page of Matches, and The Sun all indicate that I have all of the tools I need to be successful, it’s time to put them to work and align them with the things that I love.