It has become almost a tradition for me to do a tarot reading in order to both frame the year, and to inspire my outings. This year I had not felt the need to do a reading until March. This surprised me, but I went with the feeling. Now was the time.
As usual I let my spirit guide (and now my ‘new’ ancestral guide) help determine which cards would best describe and depict my coming year. We chose the “Camelot Oracle” cards. Given the relationship that has been established with Arthur so far this year I wasn’t surprised. He was clearly going to be my central figure, my Camelot resident for this year.
I used the supplied sheet with its eight points and I drew cards that I wanted to link in to the eight Celtic festival dates. In this post I will describe the first set of cards drawn for Imbolc through to Summer Solstice.
My guiding star
My archetype – the card I would use as the central fixed theme for the year – was obviously King Arthur. To me he represented a fixed point in many ways this year – he represented the cardinal point North, the Pole Star, The Great Bear fixed constellation, and qualities such as strength, steadfastness and leadership. Like the Pole Star I might think of him as a “guiding light”.
Next I drew cards for the eight points in the year from Imbolc to Winter Solstice. The first set of cards came out like this.
Imbolc – Bors at The Wells
Imbolc has already passed, so there was a means of checking the interpretation for this card. Bors signifies a spiritual achievement mixed with an earthy sense of home and family. I felt like last year had been a success spiritually, and seeing the chink of light appearing in Bors’ hand made me think that this spiritual energy is once again opening up for work at this time.
The Wells may refer to Arthur’s Well that I spent time at on Imbolc a few weeks ago. That fits nicely, and links the place with the archetype as well.
Funny, too, that I had just been through a period of having my family come up to stay. What did we do? We went to play in the mud at a local adventure trail. It made me laugh thinking about all of the puddles and holes we jumped in, and the location is The Wells. Amusing coincidences.
Spring Equinox – The Maze at Sarras
When I began to draw some of the cards associated with places I stopped for a moment. Did the cards signify some quality of the place; were they talking about my “‘path”; or did the small symbol at the base of the card have some significance? For many of these cards I chose to focus on the symbol. Only when the path card coincided with the path listed on the underlying place did I see that as more significant.
When I drew the Turning Path card at Sarras equating to the time of Spring Equinox I knew that The Maze was the important concept here.
I was being shown the concept of the long journey which was heading closer and closer towards the enlightenment point in the centre providing the right decisions were made along the way.
Sarras is an interesting place:
“After they achieve the Grail the knights Galahad, Percival, and Bors return the object to Sarras aboard Solomon’s ship, but they find the residents fallen back to paganism” (source: Wikipedia)
See also The City of Sarras poem, by Ernest Rhys.
Do I have to return something some treasure to this spiritual place, or find one there? Let’s see in a few weeks time.
Beltane – The Doubtful Path at The Hermitage
Of all of the place cards, this was the one which fell right on the layout. The Doubtful Path card was at The Hermitage which is associated with The Doubtful Path. Therefore, I think the message her is that this is the image to contemplate at the beginning of Summer.
I foresee elements of doubt creeping into my spiritual journey at this time. The symbol of the bowl on this card represents a container holding my spirit: it is cracked and leaking! The path is winding and not certain. It leads to a place of contemplation where consideration needs to be given to the questing and the direction of the spirit.
Summer solstice – Questing Beast at Joyous Gard
According to John Matthews – the author of the Camelot Oracle deck – The Questing Beast signifies the following:
“…its presence in any reading or journey indicate that a new beginning is about to occur, or that a course of action must be followed to its conclusion.”
For me, the card appears to signify a new quest at Summer Solstice. The “Follow The Great Bear” quest must have concluded by this time, then.
Joyous Gard is the place of love and destiny. Quite what this means in terms of a new quest is open to interpretation, but the destiny element seems to fit with the new spiritual quest aspect. And I do love new quests!
I’ll leave the first half there for now. Join me in the second half post for my interpretations of the next set of cards. Quite a story with those, I can tell you!
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