The Tarot Threes; the dynamics of creation.

In numerology, three is the number of creation. The one and the two come together and bring something new into being. So all of the Threes cards carry the potential for new life, as the sparks of the Aces begin to take on tangible form. They are not fully formed yet (that comes in the Fours!) but they are beginning to take shape. The Threes are not so much about planning or preparing, like the previous number cards. The Threes are about doing. Creating, making, manifesting. Tuning in to the deep flow of life, the endless creation, and fulfilling our role in that. This is most obvious in the Three of Pentacles perhaps but it’s there in all the Threes. Creation as sacred work, even as sacred duty. What kind of life are you building? What kind of world are we building? In the Threes, we use the dynamic flow of the Two to do something real, to move the energy on. the Threes call us to move out of the equilibrium or stasis or the Two and put it to work.

The Threes are all the result of the choices we made in the Twos. A creative union brings a birth of some kind, whereas if the two splits in some way, it can create a “negative” force - perhaps a factor in the modern / Smith-Waite meanings of the Three of Swords. The Three is the force, breaking out of the Two and getting ready to take form in the Four. So the Threes can maybe bring challenges, which we might not expect. But the Threes also bring resolution, synthesis, perhaps a sense of fulfilment - when we know where we are going and how we are going to get there.

In astrology, aspects in the realm of Three are trines, soft and harmonious and flowing, if somewhat lacking in drive. And it puzzled me for a while, this apparent disparity between the way the numerology works in tarot and the way that same numerology works in astrology. Until I considered that astrology and tarot are working with different structures. An astrological chart is a circle, whole unto itself. The trines of the Threes are contained within that circle, connecting zodiac signs in the same element, so that the energy is contained, like a close circuit. The journey of the tarot is more linear, or rather spiralling, with a more open-ended structure. So the Three is the result of a build-up of dynamic energy, a force that comes together from the Two to create something new. Here effort is needed and there may be tension. Bringing anything to birth - a book, a child, a community, a self - calls for effort, for a going into labour of some kind.