The Four Aces

One point I deliberately avoided during my post about the four Queens and the classical elements is the ever-elusive, much-pondered "fifth element," which, as all pop-aficionados know, amounts to "heart" on Captain Planet or Milla Jovovich if you're on some other planet.

The fifth element actually varies from culture to culture, but whatever it is usually exists somewhere beyond the material realm. Spirit, qi, and kia are all terms that have been employed to describe it. "Yes, but none of those things are real," says the exasperated rationalist. That's sort of the point, though. As I pointed out the last time we discussed the elements, "water" doesn't refer to actual water. It refers to the deep symbolic relationship we have with water and the concepts that have become associated with it throughout human civilization. Actual water is merely a vestigial bridge to that concept, and is generally far more useful for drinking, bathing, and putting into balloons to throw at each other. The fifth element is the same -- it just lacks that bridge, daring us to make the leap without one.

We snicker at 15th century humans for doubting there were other continents, but it's not fair to laugh. Without a way to get to them and explore them, they may as well have not existed at all. What difference did it make in the lives of everyday people? No rationalist has the tools to say for sure that "spirit" or "qi" exist, they can merely note the lack of physical evidence or their own lack of interest. What's important for now is that reading Tarot cards doesn't require any particular beliefs; as long as you can muster a poetic appreciation for these concepts, you can use them to understand the cards.

Look at the quartet of cards above. They represent the division of the "world" into five parts, not four. You will find the fifth part in the empty space that separates the cards. That space also connects them. Like the frosting between layers of cake, it surrounds them and allows them to function as a seamless whole. In one sense you are the sum of your parts, but you are also something greater, and so is the world you inhabit.

In a reading, an Ace represents a suit in its purest form -- so pure that it's no longer constrained to familiar elemental concepts. It's a breach in the hull, a brief moment of contact with that mysterious, languageless fifth element. Drawing an Ace is sort of like being told to watch for a bridge suddenly appearing temporarily before you, allowing opportunities or insights that are not ordinarily possible, and the suit just gives hints at what it might lead to. Make the most of this strange bulletin -- you never know when you'll have another chance like this!