January 2006 - The World Server's Spread

A 3-Card reading for the World
By Christine Payne-Towler
January 29, 2006

For an introduction to the World Servers' Spread, see Arkletter 5

While shuffling my Golden Tarot by Kat Black, I was thinking about the recent economic and political moves in Iran that challenge both the West's dependence on Iran for oil, and the UN's sanctions placed on their budding nuclear program. I was also thinking about...

...the recent explosions that cut off the Russian pipelines sending heating oil into the state of Georgia and its neighbor Armenia. In light of how much misery is currently being endured during the terrible winter that's happening in Europe and Asia, as well as the scary and unstable situation regarding refineries in Nigeria, and ultimately all the people around the world who are in turmoil and suffering over the world's growing energy crisis, my question became "Is there something we little people can do in our own lives and locales to prepare ourselves for the shocks that seem ready to strike at our collective economic and cultural stability?"

#1 - The "World" Position - Six of Cups

This vision of sweet young children in the walled garden, exploring their world while still safely sheltered, sets off thoughts of taking refuge in a protected place. It suggests using the moment's seeming calm to strengthen and orient us before the next round of more-blatant challenges commences.   The idealism and freshness of childhood are recalled, as well as memories of the times when we still dared to dream. Here we see playful learning, secure experiments, and support for our uncertainties.

We have only to look at the Porta Celeste six of cups (which came up a few months ago) to see that there's something in the past that might still be valuable to us, if we can put it in context and not use our histories to stop ourselves in our tracks. Tavaglione's version emphasizes the Continental version, wherein this card often would signify both past and future as a way of reminding us that "those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it."

There's a very sophisticated suggestion being made here about the power of self-observation, which extends equally both behind and before us. By knowing what energies are impinging upon us from the past (including old identifications, roles, and projections) we can extend our wills to shape and condition the future more consciously.  To change our old programming, however, we have to face whatever emotional load is unleashed from reencountering our younger, more innocent, more vulnerable selves from the days gone by.  Often we discover that it's our own attachments, formed in the relative ignorance of our earlier selves, which make us keep holding on when it's time to let it go.

One of the repeating themes of this card through many decks is the simplicity of mind and lifestyle that represents childhood for many people. By definition in a technological age, "childhood" is the time before technology. Who among us can remember the days before we had e-mail, cell phones or even UPS? What about the time before you owned a car?  It is important at this time to reach back into the vaults of time, if only to remember what constituted "normalcy" before everybody's lives were invaded with high-tech devices that have sped up our lives, invaded our privacy and crushed our concentration. There might be lifestyle gems, activities and values to be revived, even entirely new goals to be aspired to, if we were only to look back and fish them out of memory.

Since this card is in the World position, it is suggested that this is a moment for us all to recall the beauties of spring, of youth, of the time "when the world was young."  In many ways our globe is suffering due to human interference, and so Gaia is asking us -- "don't you remember the way it used to be?"  There was a time when our lives were less hectic, when we still had time to hang out and learn about each other, when the nations weren't right up at each other's throats with deadly threats of global destruction....  No matter how fast the headlong plunge towards the unknown is going we must keep a window open to the past. Those dear days, which are enshrined in our hearts, will be able to come back into our lives again when circumstances are right as long as we don't allow ourselves to forget them.

#2 The "Fool" position:  Page of Coins

A main theme of this card is learning how to learn. The Page of Coins positions himself where he can watch where the value goes as business is done.  He doesn't mind being a servant in a situation where the true power brokers are gathered. It is clear to him that he can only become canny by being in the presence of canny people, so he learns their manners and habits, their styles of dress and preferences in food and leisure.  In particular, he learns where the well-endowed store their most precious treasures, and how they make their emergency plans. Just by being helpful, and then blending back into the wallpaper to witness the action, the Page of Coins is laying a foundation for his own future success. 

This position is always a challenge to read. Representing a state of transition or "betweenness," any card that falls into the Fool position takes on a kind of trickster valence. Shape shifting is the norm in this realm, so perhaps the Page is undergoing a kind of Pygmalion transition, from the gutter to the glitter. Equally likely, he might choose to trade himself down for a while, disguising his identity among the privileged in order to mingle more freely with the common lot.  Like all the Pages, the livery he wears in his service to the royal family serves as much to mask his identity as to announce it.  What you can know about him is that he probably has some behind-the-scenes information and clout that he could deploy, if one could but win him over and enter into his good graces. Perhaps the implication here is that by embracing more social mobility, while remaining helpful and open to all the souls we encounter, we will find those truly like-minded individuals with whom we can forge common cause for the long haul.

Apprenticeship, diligence and prudence are qualities often attributed to this Page. This person is in the act of fitting himself to the tools of his work, the way a blacksmith must grow certain muscles in order to control his hammer.  There is the sense of learning to "think like the Earth" with this card, as if the Page were meditating deeply into the consciousness of the land, the forest, and the animals around him.  An especially important attribute, shared in common with all the Coins royalty, is the ability to "think in time" across a wide span, including time’s compounding effect upon existing situations.  This Page has a fairly accurate grasp on the question "what would happen if...?," so all moves are taken with confidence and equanimity.

Another persona attributed to the Page of Coins is that of the gambler or chess player, scrutinizing his available moves and playing out the odds in his head. Give this Page credit for good sense with the numbers, whether in business or in pleasure. Because of this, I would wager that the situation this spread refers to calls for a thoroughgoing accounting and scrutiny of the fine print.  Now is a great time to check the books and see if all the columns are totaled and the figures match! 

Once in awhile you will see this card portrayed as an old man, grown bent and wizened under his long years of toil in the Master's garden. In this guise he can be seen to ask, "What was worth it?  At long last, and after all is said and done, what of all these adventures brought me lasting value, and which type of currency actually delivers true worth?"  His labors have resulted in orchards and vineyards, food for humans and animals, and also protected spaces for the wild things to hide in. Now he looks back across it all and asks himself "Have I worked hard enough to put this all in order, that it can pass on in the best shape for taking care of the future?"  If there were any Page of Coins question I think is pivotal to the situation of humans right now, that question seems to be the one.

#3 The "Magus" position: Horseman of Cups, Reversed

Here is the position we look to see how the ego, the sense of "I" can gain some traction during the tremendous shifts going on around us. Overview and a bigger-picture perspective are helpful, but the present is the point of power, and the Self is the center from which said power can be deployed.

This card announces the return of the Prodigal Son, after all those lost years, coming back to the true heart's home.  Here we re-discover the value we went seeking across the whole wide world, finding it right there at home where we left it all those years ago. The world-weary one returns, having traversed the world to gain perspective on his or her original self. Since this card is reversed, we can add in the subtle twist that this Knight could represent a nonverbal (and as such, as-yet-undiscovered) part of the Self, a part we used to grieve as "the one that got away". Take this moment to ask yourself -- how would you receive the "wild child" part of yourself if s/he came home to roost now, at this point in your life?

One of the strongest concepts associated with this card is "arrival," carrying the sense of settling an issue by arriving at a solution, just as much as ending a journey by arriving at the destination. Both concepts presuppose long uncharted routes with hidden hazards and unforeseen setbacks, requiring a lot of creativity and self-renewal to navigate.  After a trip like this, one is never the same.  Innocence gives way to wisdom, credulousness to intuition.  What one knows and feels by the end far outstrips what one originally thought and believed at the beginning of the journey.  This Knight is ripened in the cauldron of pilgrimage -- he makes the route he travels sacred through his continual sacrifice to the ideal he carries in his heart.  In this sense, he creates the destination he seeks, because he believes in it so much, it manifests within him!

Expanding on that idea is the Knight of Cups' association with the Grail Knight Parsifal, who serves the Grail by removing the veil from the chalice in the haunted chapel. The veil in the myth is a symbol for the garment of flesh that the soul wears while incarnate in this life. The Knight of Cups is the one who has the purity of soul to lift that veil and expose the hidden Glory within. Each one of us has the challenge to come home to ourselves, lift the veil of false identifications, and accept the Revelation that has been held in trust just for us.

To synthesize these three cards together in the image of the Three Worlds, what appears to be true here is that in relationship to the Vast Cosmos (World position), we are each but tiny glimmers of limited consciousness, mere "children" both temporally and spiritually (Six of Cups). If we remain humble and don't try to over inflate our egos with false entitlement (Page of Coins), we will be drawn into more useful and constructive associations, where we might even learn something truly new about ourselves (Fool). But we need to get busy with the practical applications of the learning we are acquiring, because time is short and it's long overdue that people learn the difference between need and greed! Ultimately what each of us can do on our own steam, no matter what happens around us (Magus) is to become more faithful to our self-defined personal Quest, whatever stage we are at in the journey (Knight of Cups). Who cares whether we are understood or joined by anybody else at the altar of the heart?   This is a conversation between Soul and Spirit, and the only goal is to reduce the distance between the two until they become ONE.

 

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*Christine Payne-Towler* 
Research: Esoteric Tarot, Literature and Practice;
Publisher, The Tarot Arkletters
Bishop, Gnostic Church of St. Mary Magdalene
Founder: Tarot University;
Author: The Underground Stream;

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Comments

[Maggie]

It would be nice if you tied it all together at the end to see how it answered your initial question/thoughts. It's not clear now how you have answered your own questions.

[Christine]

Hi Maggie --

To tell you the truth, that's what I thought I was doing in the last paragraph! But I realize in light of your question that you have created an opportunity for us to parse into the nuances of asking a question, so I'm really glad you asked.

The emphasis of my feelings as I framed the question and shuffled the cards was not upon the outer manifestations of oil shocks and energy-grid collapses that might be in our future. I was a young adult during the 70's oil crisis, and was active in Y2K planning in my area a few years ago. The question has never been whether such things would happen, but rather when, and how shall we feel about it, meet it, respond to it?

The question was shuffled from the angle of "what can the little guy do to prepare herself?", meaning in cognative, emotional, and/or psychic ways. I did not state that explicitly enough to have it show in the printed question, but that was the valence of my energy as I shuffled. Therefore I read and interpreted the answer from the POV of the inner life, rather than the outer.

Remember, the premise of this spread is that what happens in the Macrocosmos (World) filters down through the mesocosmos (Fool) and becomes real in the microcosmos (Magus).
Therefore this spread is an x-ray of the very Thoughts of God (World) which are raining down from "above", invisibly shaping (Fool) our private lives (Magus) and causing each of us to be inspired by new visions of possible futures. It's a true divinatory spread, done to "divine the will of Heaven".

So if you can imagine Great Mother (Virgin of the World) speaking "down" through the DNA chain of our planet (Fool) into your personal body (Magus), this is the model I'm using to interpret this spread every month. It provides an instant flash about the descent/ascent moment, the simultaneous communion constantly taking place between All and I.

So with these cards, I'm hearing Her say:

Gain some humility right now, meagre humans! It's not always all about you. Learn to curb your pathological sense of entitlement so we can all get along better now that you have upset the balance so badly. You aren't even asking the right questions yet, so how can I help you? Do what it takes to increase the practicality and accountablility of your focus. All the tools are you need are already in your hands, but you must learn to use them rather than behaving like a child, waiting for someone else to fix it. When you have gone as far as you can on your own steam and things get tougher (as we know they will), petition Me, and I will move in closer and awaken your heart and your sensitivities even more than they currently are. That way the conversation between us will become even stronger and more compelling in your body/mind. It might initially feel painful to become even more sensitive and aware than you are now, but that is the path that leads to your homecoming in Eden, the place/time when we can all heal again and be together in peace."

Anyway, that's how it reads to me. No doubt others will hear echos of their own inner conversations resonating out from this. Also, remember that this spread is done with my subscribers and an unknown number of general folks in mind, so I don't want to give explicit instructions like "store water and dried foods" or "stash gold coins in the basement". I think my job is to point out the avenues whereby people will get their own instructions.

Thanks again for asking, Maggie!

Christine