Where are am I going; a Chariot and Tarot Knights tarot spread.

The Chariot cards of the minor arcana.

In July of 2023, members of the Tarot for Creatives Meetup worked with all four of the knights of the tarot through meditations and a new tarot spread I created to take us further in this exploration. If you missed my live teaching of this tarot spread and our readings of it, I’m going to share it with you here so that you can give it a try on your own!

Looking at the Tarot Knights through the lens of action, it is interesting to think of them as the Chariot cards of their respective suits. It could be argued that this is a reductive way of looking at the tarot knights and the Chariot card, so I want to be clear that I in no way mean to suggest that a Tarot Knight is nothing more than a Minor Arcana Chariot or that the Chariot is nothing more than a Major Arcana knight. But if you have never given any thought to the similarities between these cards, doing so could add another worthwhile facet to everything else you have learned or intuited about these archetypes.

Traditionally, a tarot knight is depicted wearing a helmet and seated on a horse. The detail of the helmet tells us that a knight has no other option than to direct their attention forward and to whatever lies straight ahead of them. There is no looking back in the throes of a battle. And it is the detail of the horse that tells us a knight tends to approach everything like a battle—with life or death consequences—as this positioning of sitting upon a horse means one is at all times ready and able to take immediate action.

Likewise, the Chariot card is traditionally depicted looking straight ahead—straight out of the frame at the viewer of the card in fact. Seen straight on, the square shoulders and symmetrical stance make it clear not one part of this archetype’s body holds any inclination to go anywhere but forward to its goal—whatever that may be. The Chariot is therefore associated with focus, determination, discipline, self-confidence, forward movement, achievement, and victory.

The Tarot Knights, too, can be connected to all of these themes, but in a manner or for a purpose that is directed by their suit. In addition, the knights have a youthfulness to them. Not like the Tarot Pages which are often associated with children or a child-like energy. Instead, as a former school teacher, I tend to think of the knights as the teenagers of the tarot—or at least those who possess a teenager-like energy. Think of Romeo and Juliet and how intense one’s parents’ control over one’s life can feel at that age. This creates a state in which one may tend to act impulsively with greater or lesser consequence.

Inspired by this theme of movement in various forms, this tarot spread will help you to explore the question of “Where am I going?” Each of the four knights will reveal where a specific aspect of your psyche is moving you toward in your life—consciously or unconsciously. The Knight of Swords, representing the movement of air, will tell you where your mindset is taking you. The Knight of Cups, representing the movement of water, will tell you where your heart is taking you. The Knight of Pentacles (or Coins), representing the movement of earth, will tell you where your routine or habits are taking you. The Knight of Wands, representing the movement of fire, will tell you where your passion is taking you.

Finally, if you imagine the Chariot having four horses to pull it forward, each of those horses will be represented by one of the four knight cards. And the Chariot in this Spread will reveal the culmination (contradictions and all) of where you are headed based on the individual will and determination of each of your four horses i.e. your own mindset, heart, routine or habits, and passion.

The tarot spread.

The four knights and the Chariot card of your deck will not be a part of your tarot spread but they will be used to determine the cards of your spread. For that reason, if you have more than one tarot deck to choose from, you may want to take a look at these 5 cards before you begin to make sure you are working with the deck best suited for guiding this inquiry. Trust your intuition—or trust you have the right deck if you only have one.

Here are the steps to this spread as they were described for the meetup members:

Shuffle your tarot deck while focusing on the following questions: Where am I going? Where is my life taking me? Where are my mindset, heart, routine, habits, and passion taking me? Stop when the deck is well shuffled or when you intuitively feel you must stop.
Place your deck down on a stable surface and begin flipping the cards over one by one from the top of the pile. When you come to a knight or the Chariot card, put that card to the side and lay the next card from your pile on top of it. Continue until you have all 4 knights and the Chariot card laid aside with a card on top of it. Note: this is the easiest way to explain how you should find the five cards of your tarot spread, but any other method (such as fanning out the deck) that results in the same outcome is fine.
This step may not apply to you, but if you find that a knight or the Chariot card are at the bottom of your deck, and therefore having no card following it to lay on top, you can consider the card at the top of your deck to be the card that follows the card at the bottom of your deck. It is helpful to think of the deck as a circle, or carousel, where the bottom of the deck continues at the top and vice versa. It’s unfortunate that we cannot hold the cards in carousel formation, but hopefully you can picture it in your imagination.
This step also may not apply to you, but it is important to note that you may also end up finding three or more of our five guiding cards together when you go through your deck. For now, simply pile them as I described above. For example, if the Chariot follows the Knight of Cups, lay your Chariot on top of the Knight of Cups and lay the next card in your pile on top of the Chariot. One of your piles will have more than two cards in it, but you will read them just the same. That said, this may cause you to mix the cards up, so it will be a good idea to take a photo or write down what card was on top of what before you precede with reading them. In my case, I decided to take a photo:

*The Wonderland Tarot* by Christopher J. Abbey and Morgana Abbey © 1999 by U. S. Games Systems.

A sample reading.

For this reading, I went back to my tarot roots by using my very first tarot deck! It’s a nice reminder of when I started my practice, too, as the deck had just been published at the time and was being sold at the Yale University Art Gallery in conjunction with an exhibit of the original illustrations by Sir John Tenniel upon which this deck is based. Tenniel created the illustrations for both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. My greatest struggle in my first eight or so years of reading tarot was remembering that a flamingo represents a sword and a peppermill represents a wand!

Where is my mindset taking me?

My first reaction to my first two cards was that the tarot is calling me out for being middle-aged and not having fully moved on from pandemic lockdowns. To be fair, my day job requires me to work from a home office space, so it is not entirely by choice that I have been spending so much time alone at home, but the Hermit card here does lead me to reflect on the fact that I would have liked to have seen more social gatherings in the cards for this spread.

Where is my heart taking me?

Continuing with that middle-aged and not-moved-on from the pandemic thread, the Six of Cups here makes me think of all the life I had to reflect back on while we were in lockdowns and how that time spent reflecting on what feels like a few lifetimes at least is still impacting me. It’s almost like I got stuck in a potential end of life review—but life went on. Perhaps some type of ritual to pay my respects to things that should not be holding quite so much presence and weight at this time in my life would be useful.

Where is my routine taking me?

Having reflected on my feelings about spending as much time alone at home as I have been, the Queen of Peppermills here feels like the first real indication of what I am getting done in that time alone at home. Indeed, from my reflections on past lifetimes, I have been resurrecting past artistic interests that once meant a great deal to me and my sense of who I am as a person and why I am in the world. The truth is, I found time during lockdowns to dive back into some of that and I don’t want to give that up.

Where is my passion taking me?

An astrologer’s first words upon seeing my birthchart were once “wow, you’re certainly here on a mission!” and at the time I knew exactly what that was. But then the bills needed to be paid. The artistic interests mentioned above span quite a few activities including painting, writing poetry, making music, meditation, and yoga. Yoga and writing poetry have both always felt a lot like painting to me. Likewise, painting feels a lot like writing poetry. There is something in what links these activities that I am meant to know and to share and the Chariot here feels reassuring in that I am making strides in doing that.

Culmination: Where am I going?

Ultimately the four cards above are adding up to the King of Cups. Not a bad card, but not exactly where I want to end up. First, I notice he is alone. Second, that birthchart I mentioned is mostly fire although with some prominent water placements. The King of Cups feels like a place where I can easily end up and it could be really nice, but I did come to this timeline with a mission and this card just doesn’t convey to me that my life’s work will get done. This card falls back into heart and mindset so much that my routine and passion that are currently going strong look like they could peter out if I don’t make some adjustments.

If you missed the live Tarot Knight Meditations, you can watch them now on YouTube @tarotandmeditations. You will also find meditations dedicated to the rest of the tarot court cards there. I am a new YouTuber and appreciate all channel follows, video likes, and content shares!

If you would like to attend the August 2023 Monday Meditations, dedicated to the Aces of the Tarot, you can sign up to attend them here. These will be held live on Zoom each Monday through August from 8pm to 9pm EDT.

xo
kim

PREVIOUS BLOG | MASTER LIST | NEXT BLOG

Thank you for stopping by and I hope you are enjoying this Lammas Tarot Blog Hop on the theme of “Where are we going?” Much love and thanks to all of our participants ♥ Please continue on to Joy Vernon’s post at Tarot in Love by following the “NEXT BLOG” link at the top or bottom of this post. Thank you for reading!