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Free Daily Tarotscope — July 16, 2014 — Ace of Wands

Ace of Wands

 Ace of Wands

Today — as Jupiter moves into Leo — for the first time in over 12 years — you want to be thinking about what you want to accomplish during this next chapter in your life.

The Ace of Wands is card of passion and raw unformed energy. It’s the spark of an idea that can be harnessed and then channeled into something tangible and real.

This version of the card pairs the William Blake painting “Ancient of Days,” which portrays God as an architect creating the world, with a quote often attributed to Goethe:  “Whatever you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

The Ace of Wands is a card of inspiration: it’s that fire that burns inside of each of us that even when it flickers or goes dim, it never completely dies out. It’s the spark of imagination, self-expression and passion that permits us to allow our “wildest dreams” to manifest — even if only in our dreams.

You can work with this energy yourself — depending on where this transit falls in your own natal chart. If you don’t know and would like to find out, feel free to post your birth date (as well as time if known and place of birth) in the comments section below, and we’ll be happy to tell you.

Free Daily Tarotscope — Feb 1, 2014 — Nine of Swords

Nine of Swords

Nine of Swords

Today’s card — the Nine of Swords — is referred to as the “nightmare” card, due to its association with overblown panic and fear. Often these are self-imposed: as in having gotten into a predicament of our own doing and now being forced to deal with the consequences. There’s sometimes a sense of impending doom associated with this card, also self-created. 

The Nine of Swords in this version comes from the beautiful painting Head of Woman by Italian Renaissance painter Leonardo da Vinci. Of course da Vinci was many things. He was a true Aries and renaissance man. The quote at the bottom: “The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us,” comes from the French philosopher Voltaire

This quote reminds us of the power of thought — of doubt, uncertainty and apprehension — to render us powerless against our own fears. The more we focus on our problems the larger they become, until they finally take over and become larger than we are.

This is the essence of the Nine of Swords. Not only do our fears have the capacity to paralyze us, but finding the courage to face them has the capacity to extinguish them. If we want to move forward, we’ll have to be brave enough to “take back our power” and face our fears head on. Along those lines, this card has always reminded me of this poignant segment from the Arthur Miller play After the Fall: