Lammas: Queen of Pentacles, Queen of Swords, and Knight of Swords

The Queen of Pentacles, from the Lubanko Tarot, overlaps with the Empress; both are sensory, sensual, and nod to our material base. The Queen also stares at a pentacle: a potential consideration of values. What do you value and why?

The Queen of Swords, also from the Lubanko Tarot, is insight cutting to the core of the matter. This card is one of my favorite cards in the deck. The Queen cleaves fact from fiction, while also maintaining her iron-clad boundaries. Unfortunately, for us, this card is reversed.

The Knight of Knives, by Cat Rocketship, is a creature of action—the steely-eyed knight that stays the course—despite the clouds, wind, and weather tumult in the background.

There is a lot of emotion (two queens) and thought (two swords) in this pull. Each pair (whether Queens or Swords) has a reversal. The emotional and logical parts of me are thus a mess, as that Reversed Queen of Swords dominates the spread—you’ll note both the Queen of Pentacles and the Knight of Knives are facing her.

You might be in the middle of attempting to understand and unearth your own value set, and how that applies to yourself, others, and the world, but for whatever reason, it has been hard to execute on them. How do you deal with situations outside of your control? How do you even know they are? Bringing your values to the world creates complex, profound, and paralyzing questions. How do you live that life? The Knight of Knives gives a frustratingly simple answer: keep going. The only way you are even going to learn is practice. Yes, you’ll mess up; that is the nature of practice, but in the end you’ll be better for it.