King of Swords, King of Cups, and Death
Back in high school (when the crust was cooling on the Earth), I performed a play by David Ives called “The Philadelphia”, it's a 10-minute play where the conceit is that people can metaphysically fall in and out of cities. The plot involves the fact that the main character has fallen into “ a Philadelphia.” It’s described like this
[Y]ou see, inside of what we know as reality, there are these pockets, these black holes called Philadelphias. If you fall into one, you run up against exactly the kinda shit that’s been happening to you all day…Because in a Philadelphia, no matter what you ask for, you can’t get it. You ask for something, they’re not gonna have it. You want to do something, it ain’t gonna get done. You want to go somewhere, you can’t get there from here.
This is what this spread feels like. Ineffectual. You can’t get there from here. The King of Swords (by Owlbabe) is reversed and tells me that I can’t use my knowledge or lead effectively, likely due to a failure to manage my attention. The King of Cups (by Catrin Welz-Stein) is also reversed, informing me that I am not processing my emotions properly.
The final card, Death, is from the Lubanko Tarot. This card depicts the flowers growing as the horse transitions from life to death. Change is happening, and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t stop it. This reminds me of the original RWS card for Death, which shows a trampled king: hubris before change gets you nowhere.
In short, you need to think about where you are resisting change and how much effort that takes. Is there a different way to approach this specific conflict? Do you need to be active in your resistance, or can you take steps toward acceptance? What does a world where you don’t have to resist change look like?
There’s hope, of course. At the end of the play, the character who is “stuck” in a Philadelphia realizes that if he asks for the wrong things, he can actually get what he wants. This simple change makes the metaphysical black hole a jpy. To quote the character:
“I've spend so much of my life asking for the wrong thing without knowing it, doing it on purpose comes easy.”
