December 28, 2009 - The Hermit/Lord of Quills (King of Swords)

Today the Hermit comes up first. This is not the first time The Hermit has shown up since I began the daily practice of selecting a tarot card. The question arises when it returns like this, what does it mean. Is it going to be a solitary day? Do I need to take time off, retreat, or have I been doing too much of that? Perhaps it speaks to a certain sense of alienation that sometimes grows stronger and at others weaker. Maybe it just reminds me that there are times I’m going to feel separate and that it will pass, that I can be apart from the world but part of it too, that there is no either/or, but and, both, all, and everything between. This seems an important reminder for a being who hungers control in a world that seems chaotic and has found, especially these last few years, how ephemeral all that talk of control is.

So how do I accomplish this?

The King of Swords (Lord of Quills) appears. In the Jane Austen Tarot, the Lord of Quills is represented by Fitzwilliam Darcy, one of the male protagonists of Pride and Prejudice. When we readers first meet Darcy, he seems a haughty gentleman. He possesses intellect but untempered by feeling just as his friend, Charles Bingley, is all feeling but without discernment. By the end of the novel, both men have integrated parts of the other, become balanced. Ah Jane, no wonder I love your tales. What I need is there in every one, as if you knew me.

When a court card appears in a reading it can represent a person or may reflect personality traits you need. Darcy is a man of unquestionable intellectual gifts. Any CEO will tell you brains only get you so far, that at some point intuition is crucial and the marriage of the two, the best of all worlds.

Maybe you believe you know best for others due to your superior acuity? Darcy certainly did and look how he botched it, thinking Elizabeth would accept him simply because she was poor and he was a man of fortune, steering Bingley away from a woman who dearly loved him and whom he loved simply because Darcy didn’t believe Jane Bennett demonstrated strong enough indications of love.

It could also be that your standards are too high. Mr. Darcy refuses to dance with Elizabeth Bennett when he first meets her. That fact that she is known as a wit in country circles and her “fine eyes” are not enough to tempt him, at least initially. She works on him though and it isn’t long before he succumbs to her charms.

Not sure what the Lord of Quills is saying to me. I think balance continues to be the lesson, my lesson, neither too feeling nor too intellectual, but the perfect dance of the two, back and forth, round and round.

What Would Jane Do?

“The gift of intellect is a blessing, indeed; however, it can become a curse if used as a weapon instead of a device for superior communication.”