Tarot for the Working Week and a Grail Spread
Seven Tarot cards to meditate on for this week's working life and a bit of developing Grail lore. Themes of friendship and doing the work predominate.
I’m deeply into the preparatory reading for my project of Grail posts and thought I’d improvise a little Grail spread for the working week, for myself, for anyone whom it might resonate with, focusing on the question “What is the Grail I’m seeking this week?” I’m using the admittedly eccentric Merlin Tarot - translations will be provided. I’ll explore this spread in a little more depth in a future post but for now, in numbered in order of laying out:
Card 1 is what goes into the Grail for transformation.
Cards 2 and 4, on the left, represent the challenging influences on your situation.
Cards 3 and 5, on the right, represent the easier aspects
Cards 6 and 7 stand for the transformation you need to make and the longer term work to be done in sustaining it.
Any resemblance to the pattern formed by the lower seven spheres of the Qabalistic Tree of Life is probably not a coincidence. The Four of Fishes in this deck is associated with Water. Here, it’s reversed and tells is that the nourishment and support we get from our closest relationships and friendships has dried up - a veritable Wasteland!
The Three of Fishes (or Cups in a more conventional deck) reversed in the left hand side of the Grail relates to a longer term lack of trust in relationships - or perhaps a nervousness about trusting. Strength reversed, in the right hand column, speaks to a lack of trust in our own strength and what it brings to relationship. If we don’t value our own capacity to love and hold others in friendships, letting them do the same for us is rather difficult.
The Fool reversed (there’s a lot of reversals and holding back in this set of cards!) continues the theme of being risk-averse and is paralleled by the Eight of Birds (Air and Swords) reversed. The power to simply step out of this position is wholly available if we can but reach out for it.
Finally, we reach the stem of the Grail, the challenge to grasp the heart of the matter and drink (sorry, metaphor hell, I know), and the reversals end. Innocent is the Merlin Tarot’s equivalent to the Hierophant (interesting how Stewart decided to illustrate this with a priestess rather than a priest). The fact that the number is 15 bears no relation to the Devil in a conventionally numbered major arcana. Delivery from this sad situation depends on conscious, applied effort. If you want to re-vitalise your relationships and re-wild that Wasteland, you have to do the work.
The final card is the Seven of Beasts, equivalent to the Seven of Discs. I’ve just come back from a very late Lammas celebration and consequently am ruminating a lot on the themes of harvests and cycles. Friendships move in cycles too and require constant cultivation. Put in the work, the listening, the tending, the attention and both you and your loved ones get to reap the harvests.
And there you have it. I’m off to email a friend or book in a coffee with someone I haven’t seen for a while. I suggest, with love, that you do the same.
Have a great week! Do let me know if any of this resonates.
Gabriel, I see that you study the different tarots and your divination of the combinations of cards is very interesting, with some references to the Qabbalah also. I designed a Vedic Tarot and found links East and West with the different alphabets that opened up a new perspective in the study. I enjoyed reading your interpretations. Thank you.
Thank you - and that’s interesting about your deck. I’ll have to have a look.