The Chariot - “Driving Horses of Darkness and Light”
I consider it quite auspicious to receive the Chariot as our collective Tarot for a number of reasons. Before we dive into all that, let’s first receive our blessing from the artist and author of the deck we use “Driving horses of darkness and light doesn’t guarantee success, but it’s a pretty good omen. WIllpower is the key.” While we don’t read reversed cards specifically in this daily column, we do always take into account the shadow side of every card. Lettie Jane Rennenkamp guides us in her companion book that if “all your plans feel like they are falling apart, go back to the last place you felt secure and work from there.”
The Chariot - Clear Purpose, Yin and Yang
Let us first get a basic, but solid grasp of what the Chariot means when the card shows up to guide us. We can see the Charioteer as ourselves, and specifically the aspect of ourselves that embodies strength and clarity through conflict and challenge. There is major movement indicated here as well - this may be a full on quest, some light travel or even moving your home. As with all cards, remember, this can be a literal physical journey or a figurative and internal one. Either way, you are making progress during a challenging time and have the strength the overcome a major obstacle. Perhaps you woke up today with a renewed sense of momentum and capability. Success is yours with the cultivation of inner peace, courage, skill and especially staying on course after a firm resolution to fight for a good cause.
The dark and light horses represented in the card’s imagery remind us to be dedicated to equanimity in the face of restlessness and recklessness. We all can be tempted through anxiety, resentment and emotion to judge situations and people. The Charioteer embodies the principles of the Yin and Yang school and reminds us that, as even the atom can be split down to protons, neutrons and electrons, when it comes down to the complexities of right and wrong, we will always always always end up with an almost completely balanced soup of teeny tiny polar components. Positive and negative are descriptors, not judgments. The more finely tuned we can be to this truth in all situations, the clearer the path will lay ahead of us and the more efficiently we can move forward in our Chariot archetype.
The Chariot and The Sign of Cancer - The First Mobile Home
While we may often pigeonhole Cancer as simply the sign of hearth, home and motherhood, the adventurous spirit of the Chariot does indeed reside within Cancer’s shell. It is not a total stretch to align the mind with the understanding that, like the crab’s shell, the chariot is a mobile home. Cancer does not leave her family behind, but rather carries her resources, intuition and protections with her. The Chariot’s quest always has a practical purpose, often a warriors determined to protect and defend their community, or as a dedicated parent relocating for the sake of business and trade to make a better life for their families. The Crab and the Charioteer are both emotionally attuned and vulnerable creatures, this is why we see the Chariot as the only Major Arcana character who isn’t just an exposed figure.
Cancerians are ruled by the moon, and in our card we see the Charioteer wearing the crescent moon on her helmet. This indicates the Chariot’s natural state of being moved by the tides, changing like the moon phases from day to day, and being very responsive to even the most minor changes in their environment. Back to the Yin and Yang, a huge component of the internal “traveling” of the Chariot, is that their mind also moves like the phases of the moon and they have a deep understanding that each day will bring a different perspective on any given situation. The Chariot indicates, as does the Cancerian aspect within each and every one of us, a leader who isn’t afraid to dive into new experiences and adventures and is grounded by sensitivity, kindness, gentleness, imagination, affection and an anchoring modus operandi to nurture.
Today’s Astrology - Sun, Moon, Venus and Pluto in Capricorn in Opposition to Cancer
As Lettie Jane emphasizes with the phrase “driving horses of darkness and light”, our astrological placements today, as the Chariot card itself, give us an opportunity for a particular type of shadow integration. As we will discuss regularly in these posts, having a placement or transit of opposition, is not a bad thing! It is much more likely to activate the complementing power of polar energies than to create a block of the square variety.
Receiving the Chariot card today directs us to look at the fact that Capricorn is presently stacked and Cancer is presently empty. This does not mean that Cancerian energy does not affect us right now, but rather that it is the screen upon which our egos, our psyches, our empath natures and our embodiment of constant death and rebirth are presently projected. Let’s think about projection in terms of reflection, like when we see qualities of ourselves in other people when those aren’t necessarily major characteristics of the other person. We just see them in that person because the Universe is trying to show them to us in ourselves.
The challenge with opposition is integration of polar energies through transformation that strengthens the weaker aspect and tones down the stronger - we are always working towards balance in spirit medicine like tarot and astrology. So what would it look like, if today, instead of trying to move mountains and solve all the problems (Capricorn) with the powers of ego (Sun), psyche (Moon), empathy (Venus) and death/rebirth (Pluto), we went inside our Cancerian shells and spent a bit of quietude and presence with those aspects of ourselves. Amplify this with quiet family time or any humans, animals or books who you physically live with.
Build Your Intuition With The Tarot
If you’ve enjoyed today’s column, I invite you to join my weekly email group where we practice the mystical art of scrying to improve our psychic senses and deepen our relationship to the Tarot. You can also get email notifications for this very weekday Tarot-Astrology collective readings posts that you’ve just read. Last but certainly not least, we use Lettie Jane Rennenkamp’s Many Queens Tarot for all of our weekday readings this year which is the source of the beautiful images in these posts.