Off with his head!
This week on Fortune’s Wheelhouse, we greet an old friend. For me and probably for many of you, the Queen of Swords is special. As tarot readers, more of us identify with her than we do with any other card (I ran a poll once, is how I know). I bought my first tarot deck on May 3rd, 1997, and she was the first card I ever saw in a reading, and the first card I pulled for Card of the Day. She’s tough, she’s clear-eyed, and she’s wicked smart.
Friends, many of us are finding the news cycle harder and harder to take. It seems like voices of reason are being drowned out. It seems like voice of victims are being ignored. It seems like our worst nightmares keep coming to life. Perhaps worst of all is the despair - not knowing what you can do about it.
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I fought the Law, and the Law won! Here comes that intimidating brainiac, the King or Knight of Swords. His is an incisive, restless mind, quick to take up pursuit and flexible to a fault - yet once he makes up his mind, no mercy will temper his decision. Representing the first two decans of Gemini (and the last one of Taurus) in court and everywhere else, he sees a world in black and white, one whose rules must conform to his will.
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A few weeks ago I had the chance to interview my friend and fellow Llewellyn author, Andrew McGregor, about his new deck, The Orisha Tarot. Before receiving the deck, I knew little to nothing about Lucumí, Orisha tradition, or the wider world of ATR (African traditional religion.) But from my first Orisha Tarot card of the day pull - the Ace of Disks - I was drawn into the complex web of a faith where divination, magic, belief, deity, and community commingle in ways I had never before experienced.
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What do you do when you get the 10 of Swords? An extra post on our Fortune’s Wheelhouse Patreon blog this week has the answers!
It’s just some of the Patron-only content we produce for Fortune’s Wheelhouse. You can access all of it by becoming a patron for as little as one dollar! www.patreon.com/fortuneswheelhouse
In this week's episode of Fortune's Wheelhouse, we face the unthinkable, the dreaded, the horripilating 10 of Swords - Lord of Ruin! (We had to get there sometime.) Who does not shudder to see this card, even in the cheeriest of readings? Here at the end of thought and reason, the contrasts of light and shadow are stark and brutal, and the consequences of choices made in the 8 and 9 of Swords are all too clear.
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Be afraid, be very afraid! We have arrived at the Lord of Cruelty (or if you like your fear extra crunchy, the 'Lord of Cruelty and Despair'), the 9 of Swords. In this sharpest of swords cards, Mars governs the middle decan of Gemini. The portentous moment we faced in the 8 has reached critical mass, and something must be cut away. One twin dies that the other may live, but oh how cruel the choice.
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So I’ve made some decisions and I’m making some progress! on the tarot course and I thought I’d do a quick update for all those who have been patiently waiting. The course will be a bit more ambitious than what I originally envisioned!
This week on Fortune's Wheelhouse we arrive at the three cards of Gemini: the 8, 9, and 10 of Swords: dreaded by many and relished by few! Yet the cards of the twins are full of uniquely human dilemmas and insights. The questions they ask, and the challenges they pose, offer answers to the riddle of the human condition. The 8 of Swords, the Lord of Interference or Shortened Force, poses perhaps the biggest one of all. Its associated major arcana are the Wheel of Fortune and the Lovers - in other words, the potent confrontation of fate and free will.
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