The Opener

Keywords: Who or whatever opens the way

In the foreground of our image is a small smiling simple being in brightly coloured rags and unmatched unlaced boots, carrying a very large ornate golden key. Behind this figure is a tall hooded woman in a deep black robe, with the hood almost concealing her face. she holds a double-headed, ornately inscribed, silver axe at the ready, arms slightly forward. We fee that she may be about to raise this over her head to strike at the smaller figure.

These two figures are upon a ship, which reaches out of either side of the picture that we see in the card. They stand before a mast, and we see the wooden deck and the gunwales; our point of view is slightly above them, as if we are standing on the closest gunwale or rail, at the lowermost edge of the card. In the background is light, white or golden, as if the sun is rising somewhere out of site.

The figure with the key: This is the false or foolish Opener, who seems to hold the obvious key to gates, doors and other closed ways. Sometimes this being can be deceptive, as when we willfully deceive ourselves or are deluded by false enthusiasm or colourful magic and superficial spiritual claims. It can also be ignorance as bliss, and in a reading the first level of meaning for this card is often folly, deception and false security through delusion and ignorance. It may also represent profound changes that occurred in childhood which still resonate, albeit unconsciously, through the later phases of life. This level of the Trump indicates areas that require liberation.

The figure with the silver axe: This is the true Opener, who may destroy the false Opener or may be revealed to us by the false Opener if we seek within. Very often the axe falls if we refuse to change, but if we seek change consciously the foolish being will lead us to the true Opener willingly. We can ask for the axe to fall, through intentional letting-go or self-sacrifice.

The ship that cannot be seen. This is the vessel of our true or universal being, which we cannot see entire without a profound change of viewpoint. Some such changes are indicated in the other Trumps, but we often see the ship entire at the moment that the axe strikes. We may also realize it through consciously entering the Void, which is the sea upon which the ship sails.

The light beyond the ship is not the sun that we see at dawn upon the planetary surface, or the surface light or solar consciousness within ourselves, but the Underworld sun, the Sun at Midnight that is found only through profound plunging into the depths and seeming darkness.

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