#suit of swords
Day 96: April 6, 2018
Minor arcana: (Ace of) Swords.
(Don’t repost or delete this caption. Feel free to use, though I would recommend charging it yourself!)
Post link
T - “I hate swords. I dread them when they come up. What do you think of them?”
Ahh I love questions like this, because it forces me to put my thoughts in an orderly fashion {well orderly to me}.
1. I’m sure everyone has an affinity for one suit over the other, one elementover an other. This depends largely on the way we move through the world, and our primary mode of operation / M.O. For instance, I highly identify with Swords because I am a thinker, an intellectual sort of girl - good, not so good, or down right terrible, I understand the pros and cons of being cerebral and of the suit of Swords. The Swords are a concrete representation of my primary mode of experiencing the world, so I am not put off by them. I tend to get more weighed down by Cups, all that watery, relating and emoting!
Don’t be too hard on yourself if this suit feels uncomfortable for you - it may be encouraging you to pay attention to less developed aspects of your personhood or your life. Everyone experiences ALL of the suits.
2. Sword imagery is often ominous looking, I mean its full of swords! Swords have particular connotations to them, some archetypal, but some personal. So if I think of Swords as representing thought, perception and movement, and you think they represent death, conflict and murder - we’ll come at the suit from very different perspectives that will colour our interpretation of Sword cards. Sometimes getting past a suit ‘block’ is as simple as expanding our symbol repertoire.
3. Keywords don’t always do a card any favours. Again, word associations and literalness can be a slayer. Take for instance the much aligned 5 of Swords … all about “conflict”. People immediately recoil at the word - conflict is messy, uncomfortable, potentially dangerous - something to be avoided. Yet “conflict” is a daily part of life if you think about it {pardon the pun} - it’s how we resolve difference with ourselves and the way we think / feel and also how we reach compromise and understanding with others. No conflict - means no room for trust to emerge - relational conflict is a relationship builder just as much as a relationship breaker. Internal conflict is how we grow and develop ourselves as human beings - no tensions, means no development. So again, overcoming suit or card “block” often can be as simple as truly thinking through our associations with those keywords that are shoveled our way. If you’ve intrinsically decided a suit or a card is negative - that’s what you go looking for when you interpret the card meaning.
4. Every suit has ‘developmental tasks’ associated with it. These developmental tasks are not related to age {tho they sometimes can be}. A younger person can have a very well developed understanding of the tasks associated with a suit or a card, whilst an older person may continue to struggle with the tasks associated with the suit or card. Speaking personally, I feel I continue to work hard on the developmental tasks associated with Cups and Pentacles - and this is a bit of a oh hmmm … thing, because for instance, I am an earth sign, which doesn’t necessarily mean I sit comfy with Pentacles. The King and Queen - especially the Queen, irritate me - some would say the Queen of Pentacles should be my significator but I wouldn’t wanna be her! I align MUCH more with the Queen of Swords. There’s a developmental task in there for me.
Let me speak a little more about this developmental tasks thing as they relate to the “people” cards. Many people read these cards along a developmental time line, so the page is the “youngest” least developed and least matured of the suit’s people energy. The thought is we master the developmental tasks associated with the Page, then move on to the Knight, the Queen and the King, and when we arrive at the King we are matured in the suit’s energies and “resolved” with the developmental tasks associated with the suit. I’d say rather, that this process is non-linear. That we benefit from working with the aspects of all these cards, and just because we feel comfortable with the developmental tasks associated with one card, doesn’t mean we “graduate”.
A given circumstance can mean we brush up against one of the other people cards at any time. You may feel like a “King of Swords” in one circumstances, keen intellect, skilled negotiator, detached, keenly observant, and able to speak decisively. In another circumstance, you are back to the Page of Swords, learning to be consciously aware of your thoughts, and how they influence your circumstances - still working on “how” to think and how to relate to others “what you think”. I am pretty well developed with Queen of Swords energies, but I have to work very hard on King of Swords energies - because I still don’t give much of a damn about how what I think impacts on others, and so outcomes can be pretty fraught. I am more interested in my own interior thought processes than I am with trying to make them fit into the world. I’m not terribly strategic. This is my “developmental task”.
The final aspect of the people cards I’d like to note is each of those cards carries the suit element ie. Swords in this case, BUT also carries its role element. So with the Page of Swords, you are working with Earth and Air {I am super comfortable with her, and readily identify with her as my “younger self”. She is still who I am, still easily slip back into relating to myself and the world from this place. Knights of Swords are Air/Air - even I, with my energetic alignment with Swords, find him a handful. Too much air, too much thinking, not enough doing. The Queen of Swords is Air/Water … and I find this the most natural card for me, which makes a little sense astrologically as I have Scorpio placements all over the place. Finally, the King of Swords is Air/Fire … dominant, masculine energy - this is the energy I most struggle with – not the speaking out part, I am a Queen of telling it as I see it, but the inevitable consequence of having to deal with the fall out after I do it, usually non-strategically!
5. Finally, the suit cards, Ace through 9 also are a bit about a “journey” through the suit and their own developmental tasks - there is a structure and a flow between them. I think awareness of this helps you to be more attuned to the individual cards, and makes you a better reader. Depending on where you are in that suit’s journey, implies you’ve also been working with the energies in front of it - even if the cards don’t appear in the reading. And for every message a card renders, it also provides illumination about what to do with that energy to progress forward, “learn the lessons” and best actualize the developments of the suit.
Let me give you an example with two of the most feared Swords cards, the 9 and 10 of Swords. Developmentally, these cards speak to the ending of a thought cycle {likely actualized in some form of activity or action}. The 9 of Swords is about the accumulation of thought and what we do with it. If its turned inward, its about confronting our thoughts and thought processes and getting clear - sometimes this means an ending or conclusion - ditto when its applies to others, we confront what is not working - sometimes this means we have to let go of an idea, or confront a thought we’ve been trying to push down. No matter which way we slice it, how terrible or difficult this process will be, has a lot to do with our investment in the idea, and how we see ourselves, and our ability to be authentic and confront change and loss - we as a culture SUCK at letting go, so its no wonder people are uncomfortable when they see this card pop up.
The 10 of swords progresses the developmental tasks of the 9 of Swords, we are meant to confront that which is not working, that which is dark or shadowed, that which must be let go of. How hard we will find the 9 and 10 of Swords is directly related to how hard we will cling with our thoughts to an idea, a relationship, or a situation. As soon as we are comfortable with change and impermanence, the process of the 9, 10 of Swords, lightens.
Let me say here as well - the Wheel of Fortune is the explicit epitome of the suit progressions. The Wheel ALWAYS turns, things change, we have to confront change and learn to release and let go. The more we cling, the harder it is. The Suit of Swords can be a tough one because we are so identified with our thoughts - we mistake our thoughts for who we are. Letting go of something we think, that we believe, that we trust and defend as true is hard work, it’s confronting and its painful because we feel we are losing our Self and our identity. The Wheel will turn, its a developmental task in ALL the suits to learn how that works, and to learn to ‘flow’ with the movement rather than being stuck and resisting. In the end, you can resist all you like, it increases suffering, but you are free to do it. The Wheel turns anyway :)
So in conclusion, I don’t think the Sword Suit is a “bad” suit, or even a difficult one, there are other suits / cards that I have more trouble with. At the end of the day, you will develop a relationship with each suit and each card, I reckon the trick is to not go into the relationship expecting the worse!
reinedelair said: From one past PgS now QS (but sometimes Pg :D) - this is amazing and I love everything about it! Do you think you might do the other Suits, or are you just more comfy with the Swords?
Ahh many thanks! As a fellow sometimes Page of Swords, sometimes Queen - I relate! I really got on a roll with this as a result of a question, but I’d probably enjoy doing all the suits. I’ll get on that :)
Post link
