Going beyond your limits – Margarete Petersen’s Six of Flames

Six of Flames (trimmed) ©Margarete Petersen Tarot

Here we have an entwined couple within the now familiar rectangular boundary. They might be dancing…? A leopard crouches (or perhaps pounces?) overhead. Lots of yellow-white ‘splashes’ or ‘smears’ of paint across the whole card – some crossing the boundary, others seemingly stopped at the edges.   

The Six of Flames can represent going beyond your limits, then, and expanding your boundaries.  The leopard symbolizes “jumping into another field of force with cat-like agility”, to quote the LWB. There’s reference to victory and triumph, the more traditional meanings associated with the Six of Wands, but here it’s related to being in the present, the here-and-now, through the use of the five senses. 

Although Margarete Petersen’s deck wasn’t designed with astrology in mind, we can see how the astrological association for this card, Jupiter in Leo, works.  Jupiter is about expansion, optimism, faith – and the planet is a giant ball of gas (think of hot air balloons!). Leo gives us a place on centre stage, where the spotlight is on us and our achievement.  Jupiter brings the luck or good fortune - the ability to expand our fortune, perhaps - while Leo maintains the creative fire, as well as the public acclaim for the results of that creativity, and allows us to take pride on our accomplishment.

Jupiter in Leo gives us a sense of optimism, of being able to grow and expand, through creativity and a ‘joie de vivre’.  We’re free to express ourselves with exuberance.  We’re supported and encouraged, and can support and encourage others.  We might want to impress and be recognized by others, which also boosts our confidence.  

The card carries the idea of the potential for being carried away by the fire – being swept away by passion, perhaps. We do need to be wary of allowing our faith in our own importance to become over-blown, though! The victory has been gained fairly – not at the expense of others.  There’s no place for egotism or arrogance here – that’s the shadow side of Jupiter in Leo.

Dancing with passion,
Dissolving boundaries, we
Exist here and now. 

Margarete Petersen Tarot, AGM-URANIA, 2004. www.tarotworld.com