The Fours

The fours of the minor arcana are some of my favorite cards in Joanna Powell Colbert’s Gaian Tarot. They feel like home, in the best sense of the word. Each of these cards shows a container, a safe, nourishing place in which you can grow and express yourself. The fours are earthy cards.

The Four of Air shows a robin’s nest holding four, blue eggs. The nest is a work of art, but it is also hidden. The eggs are safe from predators and the baby birds will be safe until they are strong enough to fly.

In the Four of Fire, four pillar candles and twelve smaller candles delineate a sacred space. Inside the circle, a woman performs a ritual. Abundance flows from the silvery sphere of the moon behind her shoulder—her circle cannot contain it all. She represents our desire to experience more, our desire to make our lives purposeful and meaningful. Can her sacred space become a doorway?

The Four of Water depicts the well at Glastonbury. A woman gazes into it, surrounded by a short, circular wall. This card is mysterious. What does the well contain?

The Four of Earth is a cornucopia. From the opening in a tree trunk, where a squirrel has stored acorns, the seeds of new life pour out extravagantly. In the foreground of the image, there is a blessing cairn, holding and expressing gratitude.

These cards also represent a pause in which we can experience the Force and Source of Life that is behind all that we know, a moment to feel the abundance available to us. Two colors predominate, one cool and one warm, representing the relationship between contemplation and action.

Related to the fours of the minor arcana is the fourth card of the major arcana, The Builder. He creates structures in which to live, places from which we can interact with the world. He represents responsibility and empowerment. What have you created with your life?

Another major arcana card is related to the fours; it is Death. We can embrace our fears and fly across the sparkling water or we can rot here with our decaying boat.

While we remain in our “containers,” we are constricted. A tree can only grow so large in a ten gallon, terra cotta pot. Sometimes, we need to step outside the boundaries we have crafted.

Is it time to build, to be nourished, or to fly? What is the state of the container that you’ve placed your life in?

The card I pulled to answer these questions for myself was the Ten of Fire. It is time to burn this container to the ground, let the smoke clear, and see what’s is out there.

Once you have built something—something that takes all your passion and will—it becomes more precious to you than your own happiness. You don’t realize that, while you are building it. That you are creating a martyrdom—something which, later, will make you suffer. (A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar)