A Tarot Reflection for the Spring: Returning to Source
How can we best capture the essence of the spring season, and integrate its potent themes of new-beginnings, renewal, and hope into our own, every-day lives?
For this, let’s turn to one of the spiritual tools I use the most in my practice: The Tarot.
If you’re unfamiliar with tarot cards, don’t worry, there will be plenty of resources to come that explain The Tarot from a multitude of perspectives, both esoteric and psychological.
For now, let me briefly reframe how we typically think of tarot cards:
Most would associate The Tarot with psychics, or fortune tellers, and despite some very coincidental, and eerily accurate personal experiences with the cards, I do not believe The Tarot can predict our future.
While it is indeed a very potent mystical tool, I believe that its true value lies in its use as a tool for introspection, for plunging into our inner depths, and amplifying the answers that already exist within.
The tarot connects us with our Self, with the entirety of our psychological being. All that we are consciously aware, and in control of, but also everything that we are completely unconscious and unaware of.
Instead of predicting our futures, the cards illuminate the inner, unconscious archetypes and dynamics at play in our lives, and how they influence our thought patterns, attitudes, and behaviors.
The Tarot can bring these themes out from the unconscious space, and into the center of our attention, where they can inform, empower, and guide us.
This morning I pulled two cards and asked the tarot: “How can we capture and utilize this archetypal experience of Spring to further our own inner rebirths and renewals? To set us on a path of self-growth this year?”
The Four of Wands - Rediscovering our Source
In the tarot, the suit of wands represents the element of fire, which we can easily relate to energy, activity, and passion.
So, in a psychological sense, the wands represent our internal mental energy, our internal drive, and the mental resources we have available to put towards a directed goal.
With both the cards for this Spring Tarot Meditation being wands, we know we are being directed to take a deeper look at how we relate to our own inner fire, and how we manage our energy. Where we source it from, what we choose to expend it on, and the way in which we express it.
The Four of Wands represents the intermingling of fires, of energy.
It is when we allow our fire — our ideas, passions, and desires to freely mingle, and interact with those of others, and thus find encouragement and inspiration among friends and allies.
It is a place of community, allowing everyone to partake, to contribute, and to be heard.
This Spring, we are being called to rediscover exactly what that place is for us. To find and return to our Source, and partake in the same rejuvenation and revitalization occurring in nature right now.
Coming out of the winter season, which had us cooped up inside, we need a breath of fresh air. A divine spark to come and reignite the passion, and fire in our lives to prepare us for the Spring.
The Sun is an excellent example of this. Just feeling its warmth on our bare skin is a magical, invigorating experience, especially after the long, cold Winter.
Similar to feeling the first rays of warm sunlight touch you, and knowing that Winter almost is over, you must find what the psychological equivalent of that feeling is for you.
Take a step back and evaluate the structures and routines in your life to make sure that you are being surrounded by things that inspire you, and further you.
The Ace of Wands - Harnessing our Inner Fire
Once we find our Source, and reignite that inner flame of passion and excitement, we are directed to focus on the Ace of Wands.
The Aces of the tarot are powerful tools, if we know how to wield them properly.
They represent pure potential, pure possibility. The Ace of wands thus represents the vision we form from this limitless potential. It is the meaning we derive from the life and passion we put towards pursuing that vision.
To wield that Ace of Wand properly requires willpower and intention. We need to have a clear idea, and purpose in mind, a distinct direction to channel our energy and effort towards.
That is how we make meaningful change in our lives.
We must hold fast to what motivates and energizes us, always keeping in mind the end goal, while being careful not to be too rigid.
Life and circumstance can force us to change paths, take detours, overcome obstacles and delays, but that’s life.
All we can do is roll with the punches, and do our best to stay on our paths.
Having a strong goal in mind, a clear idea chiseled out and defined, gives us something to return to when we need inspiration. A miniature piece of that Four of Wands ‘Source’ that we can always keep in mind when we need that extra bit of motivation to energize us.
Final Thoughts
When I decided I wanted to create this blog, to create a space to write, and share my thoughts of mysticism, and spirituality, frankly, I had no idea where to begin.
There are so many topics I want to cover, so much I want to talk about and explore, but through conducting this reading, I realized that in order for anyone to truly understand, and appreciate any of this, I needed to return to my own source.
To the idea that started my whole spiritual journey:
That we are inherently spiritual beings.
That religion has indeed failed us, but there is a way to practice spirituality apart from organized religion, apart from the restrictive dogmas and traditions.
Therefore, De Esoterica will explore spirituality and the need for mysticism in the modern world. It will address the need for spirituality, the problem with religion, and the mystic solution. Stay tuned.
