The Creative Process spread takes a look at an artistic endeavor through multiple lenses. A great tool of examination if something is feeling stuck. Where is a project stemming from or heading towards? This spread examines the project’s creative force, voice, music, vision, and touch.
The center card: Temperance
This card indicates the creative force behind a project, the spirit of the undertaking. Temperance is a card about alchemy. Transformation from one state to another is always around us: bud to flower, larva to fly, flower to vegetable, child to adult. This project is about the magic of transmutation.
The top card: Knight of Wands
The top card represents the imagination at play, or the movement from the previous card of inspiration to the initiatory stages of the project. This card indicates the poetry or voice of the project. The Knight of Wands is a fast-moving figure, always eager to travel and never ready to stay in one place. The voice is brash, direct, and bold. The voice is demanding and encouraging. This is the poetry of a coach, the verve of the crowd at a sporting event. You are moving swiftly forward and speaking this into being.
The left card: Seven of Wands
The left card represents the emotions stirred up by the ideation from the previous card. This is the music or scent of the project. The Seven of Wands is ready to fight, even if she doesn’t know who her opponents are. This indicates that the fire of the Knight of Wands is rousing a sense of action. This music is syncopated and the scents are cinnamon, ginger, garlic and peppers. This card could indicate feeling embattled or feeling up for anything.
The bottom card: The Empress
The card on the bottom represents the analytical process of organizing the project and captures the emotional content of the previous card. This is the vision and logic of the undertaking. The Empress is an embodied card, full of earth and water, but the position it is in is about air and logic. There might not be many thoughts flowing about this project, much less any type of organization. The fiery nature of the previous two cards may indicate that this project is new and there has been no time to do so. However, this card indicates to listen to your body. The thoughts may not have floated to the front of your mind because they’re still in your muscles and nervous system. Take some time with your felt sense, get your feet on the ground, and the logic of it all will come.
The right card: Two of Cups
The card on the right represents the project’s manifestation, that is, the work involved in the next steps, and hints about the form it will take upon completion. This is the touch of the project. The Two of Cups is a card about friendship, new relationships, and opening one’s self to the world. This card is in contrast to the fiery energy of the Knight and Seven of Wands-- proof of the transmutational power of Temperance. This may indicate that the project could manifest itself as a salon or small group conversations. The playful costumes of the figures in the card also indicate to me that it could also manifest itself as a poetry reading series or a table read of a short play. I once participated in an art project where I sat with a partner across a table, and I selected a phrase from a book and tried to psychically project it into the mind of my partner, who was then supposed to draw it. That is also Two of Cups energy. The energy here is social, small, and intimate.
The big, fast feelings in the Knight and Seven of Wands were transmuted in the body of the Empress. She slowed things down, taking the eager and confrontational fiery energies and guiding them towards the purposes of connection and vulnerability. Temperance is available to us: bud to flower, larva to fly, and in this case, fire to water by way of the embodied wisdom of the Empress.
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