Spirit Walk Up Tarot Sacred Mountain
The teachings found in the Element Cards, the minor arcana (Ace through 10 only) focus on lessons experienced in mundane or everyday life. These lessons are presented as a “spiritual walk”. When the spiritual walk begins, we are standing at the foot of the Sacred Mountain of the Tarot. Each face or side of the mountain is connected to an aspect of ancient wisdom and spiritual evolution.
We begin our spiritual walk by climbing the Sacred Mountain of the Tarot step by step, learning to explore the four elements of our lives: mind, ego, emotions and body. In the east we enter the landscape of the mind and meet the first sacred element: air, represented by the Sword of Illumination. The suit of swords represents the Mind, the attitudes we have in life. Emphasis is placed on learning to balance this masculine energy by centering it and beginning to “feel” with the mind. The ancestral wisdom of the air reminds us that life experiences, whether supportive or problematic, occur in pairs; if we can experience happiness, at some point in our lives we will experience sadness; love-hate, success-failure, birth-death, win-loss. By understanding this basic nature of life, we learn not to “lose” our heads in any given situation, but to remain calm and centered.
The second side of the Holy Mountain Tarot is the fire/wands lesson. Here we enter the landscape of ego willpower. Wands represent willpower/ego or little self, emphasizing the masks we wear and how we use our power. This suit teaches us the ancient wisdom to be aware of our control problems, learning to find the balance between the ego and the Sacred Being, warning against the excessive use of control, as well as warning against the surrender of personal power.
On the west face of the Sacred Mountain of the Tarot we enter the landscape of the heart, connecting with the lesson of water/cups, which represents the emotional body. This feminine element is directed towards the heart center and relationships. The ancient wisdom taught here is to learn to “think” with the heart, achieve emotional balance, and move into a sacred relationship with oneself before others.
Finally, the fourth side of the Sacred Mountain of the Tarot is the suit of the earth, the landscape of instinct: the body, which contains the coin, or the “gold of the Fairies”. The suit of pentacles embraces the lessons of the other three Elements by merging them into the ancient wisdom of the cycles. Here we learn the natural law of giving and receiving, moving to an abundance mode, based on nature instead of extreme materialism. Through the natural laws of this physical realm, issues related to prosperity and poverty consciousness are explored, and respect for nature and our natural resources is emphasized. We are reminded to get back in touch with the primeval earth.
To better understand the Sacred Mountain of the Tarot, let’s look at it as if it were a wheel, which is connected with the seasonal year. Using the compass or a circle divided into four parts, each part is connected to one of the cardinal directions: east-south-northwest. Each Element suit has a place on this wheel, in connection with a cardinal point of energy. In the East we have the air suit/swords element; in the South we have fire/wands; West is water/cups, and North is earth/pentacles. The use of Tarot correspondences is very helpful because they provide additional material to draw from when giving a reading.
For example: if you wanted to know what season an event might take place in, the Ace of each suit could be used to determine the season, ie Spades would be spring, Wands-summer, Cups-autumn, and Pentacles-winter.
A predominance of fire/wand cards in a reading could give an indication that something is happening around noon, with air/sword cards indicating early morning, water/cup cards indicating late afternoon, and earth/earth cards. pentacles that indicate the night. Correspondences add depth to a reading. They become food for the mind. They cause a deeper psychic attunement.
The Tarot system is ideally a system designed for self-transformation. As already reviewed, each side of the Sacred Mountain of the Tarot belongs to our basic life. We learn the lessons of each suit of Element and deal with what we have learned from our perspective of life, of “being there”. In essence, each suit represents an aspect of the human relationship, be it with oneself, with others, with the planet or with the Spirit.
Air/Spades is a suit that has gotten a bad rap because it comes across as the most negative cards in minor secrets. This suit contains messages of danger, warnings, frustration, sadness, depression, death, accidents, hostile forces, and setbacks. However, the swords contain a very important teaching, which is why they are the first suit of the Tarot. While they are what we might call our “wake-up call”, when an air card appears it is because we tell ourselves, get out of it. One is reminded that there is choice. One can choose to experience the negative aspect of the card or look at options and make changes, thus moving in a different direction.
The fire/wands deal with the basic understanding of power-willpower, ego-politics, trade aspects. The wands represent conflicts, personality conflicts, successes and failures, winning or losing. Basically the wands represent the games of life, the face we show to the world, the mask we wear, our claims, attitudes that we sometimes use to cover up our own feeling of insecurity or fear.
The water/cup suit is about the heart, emotions, love and good feelings. However, sometimes the cups will also highlight the imbalance within our emotions, where we sink, where we wallow in self-pity. They also deal with the relationship with oneself, relationships with other people, from family relationships to romance and work relationships: children, romance, sex, love, marriage, etc.
The earth/pentacles move into the physical, the possession aspect of life, money, inheritance, real estate, gifts, the cycle of giving and receiving, as well as our stinginess and ability to share. Understand if we function in abundance or scarcity of consciousness.
Learning to walk spiritually with the Tarot promises a great understanding of WHO you really are.