fives, kings, and directing change

hello, friends. over the last year i've been sharing essays on the four ranks of the tarot's court cards: pages, knights, and queens. this was partly inspired by the fact that i'm writing through different suits of the minor arcana, but since i don't have enough months in each year to cover the courts too, i'll be doing a year of court cards eventually. i didn't want y'all to think i'd forgotten these figures.

but this mini series was mostly inspired by the delight that i take in working with these cards. each of these sixteen figures can bring so much magic, so much clarity, so much purpose, and so much intention into our readings, and into our lives. spending time with them can be a deeply supportive act. and if you're ready to feel like you're taking charge of something, or if you've been struggling with change and disruption, you're in luck — because today, i've got some thoughts to share about kings.

there are so many ways to understand court cards in general, and kings in particular. kings are often described as leaders, fathers, figures of authority, masters of their suit and of their domain. associated with power, excellence, control, and resources, tarot kings sit in their throne and pass judgement, make decrees, and generally enjoy a tremendous sense of dominion and sovereignty.

but what else? if these aren't just white guys in charge of everything, men who never get challenged or tested or refused, what else might they be? if we're willing to go past the old-fashioned descriptions of what kings are, to expand into this moment, how else can we see them?

i find numerology helpful in moments like this. my general approach is to consider court cards as extensions of their suits, which means that kings would be the fourteenth cards of their suits. 1+4 = 5, which puts all four tarot kings firmly in the hierophant card cluster, along with temperance and the minor arcana fives.

so what does that mean? how does this correspondence add some new layers to these leaders? the number five in the tarot sits in the middle of the story: conflict points, pivot points, pressure points. five is where something's gotta give, where an old notion is challenged or an old way of being gets outgrown. with five we break free from tradition and set out on our own adventure, trusting our gut and finding a direction that suits us better.

tarot fives usually get associated with complicated, harrowing words like friction, obstacles, heartbreak, disappointment, scarcity, lack, or challenge. i would love to offer some words that can feel more neutral, more energizing, for all of these five cards: transition, transformation, expansion, adventure, freedom, boldness, curiosity, courage.

and when we consider how those qualities might manifest in a person, when we think about how someone in a position of authority might embody five energy, we can start to see kings as changemakers, facilitators of growth, architects of expansion. kings empower breakthroughs, oversee transformations, and consider how legacies are truly built: not by maintaining the status quo, but by building something new on and from what came before.

as they write in their brilliant new book, tarot teacher lindsay mack offers of kings, "it's impossible to blaze a trail and follow our heart without it shifting the course of our lives... it is the process of this work that powers our continual growth and willingness to be changed by how we're evolving."

king energy is what we step into when we're ready to take ownership of a shift, to make space for something to grow in a new direction, or to make an essential change that will empower deeper, more authentic movement. it's not just about embracing changes that happen to us — it's about directing them, owning them, and even celebrating them.

so what does this look like, practically speaking? when does it make sense for us to intentionally choose to make change? and how can we do this with courage and confidence, instead of just feeling like we're reacting to what is happening around us?

for me, king energy is most useful when i find myself clinging to something familiar out of fear, uncertainty, or stubbornness. sometimes it's worth protecting something that has been around for a long time, something that serves a real function or is important on its own merits. but other times, we demand that things stay the same simply because the idea of something shifting or falling away is terrifying, and we cannot imagine what that change might mean for us.

how do you tell the difference? how can we know which is the best route to take? again, i turn to numerology. while kings might embody five energy, in my practice queens are aligned with four energy. and the difference between these two numbers, and these two types of figures, can tell us everything we need to know about what we're doing — and why we're doing it.

four is safeguards, intention, limits — while five is breakthroughs, expansion, tension. the transition from four to five is a shift from protection to constriction — a recognition that what once felt supportive and essential now feels restrictive, confining, limiting. a greenhouse is a controlled environment to protect plants, helping them to thrive — but if the greenhouse is too small, it's eventually going to limit growth, smothering what it was working to enrich.

are you clinging to something familiar because it's still working as it should, empowering and supporting you? or are you refusing to change because the mere idea of outgrowing your comfortable spaces scares you?

we can't be so afraid of change that we stunt our own growth. we can't be so attached to how things have always been that we vilify progress. we can't act like comfort is the be-all and end-all, especially when it comes at the expense of other people. and especially in our current moment, when so many people are dead-set on dragging us backwards, we have to be brave enough to press ahead, to dream bigger, to find new ways forward.

kings challenge stagnation. they help us push through the discomfort of change and create a more expansive vision of possibility, with the resources and authority to actually carry it out. they empower us to be generous with our resources and skills, in deeply practical ways.

the king of wands can

i know. change can be a pain in the ass. we might look at these kings with their larger-than-life presences, their big ideas and bold offerings, their capacity for taking up all the space they need, and just feel tired. maybe you don't want to grab the cowboy hat crown or the huge, heavy sword. maybe you just wanna take a nap, let things stay the way they've always been.

but i want to remind you that sometimes clinging to the old ways, the old ideas, the old methods and beliefs and structures, is so much more effort than adjusting would be. it takes stubbornness and energy and dedication to hold a container, to preserve a system, to keep repairing something that is being challenged from the inside out. and if everything we have and everything we are is being devoted to keeping something from changing, it can be hard to see where change might actually be good, useful, or even a fucking relief.

let me give you an example from my own life. a few years ago, back in 2023, i signed a two-book deal with weiser books, my publisher for finding the fool. the two books that i had under contract were tarot spreads, which was published in july 2025, and the devils we know, which i am still trying to write.

my first two books came together very quickly, the words tumbling out of me almost faster than i could keep up with them. but the devil book — well. the devil book has been an absolute pain in the ass. initially pitched as an anthology, i spent more than two years trying to write the book as a fifteen-essay collection. and while i did a tremendous amount of research and wrote 65,000 words for that draft, it never felt right — just fragments and thoughts and ideas, with no complete essays and nothing i could bear to show anyone. it felt heavy, clunky, and i worried that this would never actually be something i could call a book.

but finally, finally, i realized that if i didn't change the way this book was organized, if i didn't let myself outgrow the constraints that 2023 meg thought would make for a good layout, i would never be able to write something i was proud of. (shout out to my wife jeanna kadlec, my agent jill marr, my dear friend sasha ravitch, and literally everyone else who already made this suggestion years ago). so i did — and now the words are flowing, just like they did with my previous two books.

i couldn't be pushed into this change. i had to arrive there myself, had to direct the expansion, had to really feel that not only was it a better structure but that the old one simply was not working. maybe 2023 meg could've written that version of the devil book, but 2026 meg could not. 2026 meg needs more freedom, more space, more playfulness, more rebelliousness.

and frankly, the book that 2026 meg is writing is going to be a hell of a lot better than what past meg was trying to cobble together.

in short: kings show us that it's possible to protect what we love while also making space for it to blossom in new ways, ways that honor all that something has grown into. kings help us take the heart of the thing into a new space, a new shape, a new way of being, that is still deeply true to what the thing is.

this isn't just about writing books, of course — it's about anything. what do you feel attached to, that maybe isn't actually impossible to change? where might growth, adaption, adjustment actually help something thrive more authentically? what friction have you been ignoring, and what would it feel like to take real ownership of that friction, to listen to what it's trying to tell you?

if this all makes you nervous, if you'd like to test out this idea in theory before you dive into your own real life, you can literally start trying this out with your tarot practice itself. learn to cultivate a willingness to expand beyond traditional tarot meanings, standardized definitions, "the way things have always been done." there are so many fake rules around tarot, so many arguments on the internet, so many hot takes and frankly ridiculous questions that it's easy to get your head spun around on the right way to read or the be-all-end-all meaning for a particular card.

it's all made up, friends. correspondences, meanings, interpretations, techniques, all of it — humans made it up, and you're a human, and you can make shit up too. lean into that king energy and make your own magic, in the way that only you can.

you get to decide what your personal tarot practice looks like, where your card meanings come from, and how much of yourself to weave into your interpretations. you get to decide how often you read, the methods you use to shuffle and pull cards, and the techniques you bring in. you get to decide literally everything about your own tarot practice.

and i think you should. i think it's important that you do. i think you should play, get curious, get weird, and bring your own real life and real opinions and real beliefs into your tarot practice. i think you should give yourself permission to grow outside of the narrow box that tarot cards so often get shoved into (literally and figuratively). you yourself are far more than just a few keywords; your wisdom and magic are more than just ideas printed on cardstock — and your card readings should be too. what happens when you let your own perspectives, ideas, hopes, dreams, and visions be part of your regular readings? how might it transform what you see within these pips and archetypes?

let the kings teach you how to practice embracing change in this one small way, and see how it expands out into the rest of your life in joyful, powerful, legacy-building ways. what might you learn along the way? how might you surprise yourself with what can you make room for, and what you're ready to release?

this is the end of the essay. but if you'd love to bring more big king energy into your personal tarot practice, if you're ready to go beyond so-called traditional meanings and stop doubting your own tarot readings, you'll probably really like my hermitage membership program.

i sincerely hope that thinking more about kings as possibility and changemaking rather than just quiet, stagnant authority offers you some radical, empowering, and even joyful ways to consider them in your tarot practice, and in your life.

let's fuck some shit up in the best way, friends. let's make some magic together, in the present and in the future. let's dream bigger about what could be, and start actively working towards making those dreams reality.

sending you love, courage, and the capacity for change, friends. more soon.