Reading the Tarot, Part II: The Suit of Swords

 

(Note: the tarot illustrations from Pamela Coleman Smith are in the public domain.  For this page, they are sourced from Wikimedia Commons.  The photograph above is my own.)  

If you haven't read the introduction to this series, I would highly recommend that you read that page before reading this one.  In the last entry, we talked about the basic concepts of the tarot, looked at the traditional interpretations of the four suits of the Minor Arcana, and did our first reading. This time, we’re going to start going more in-depth on the interpretations for the individual cards, beginning with the suit of Swords.

The Suit of Swords

Now that we’ve covered the general idea of reading the tarot, let’s zoom in and look at the cards in the suit of Swords. I mentioned last time that the cards of the Major Arcana told a story when read in sequence, but in point of fact, the same thing is true of all four suits of the Minor Arcana, too. The first ten cards of each suit (that is, the “pip” cards) tell a story. In the suit of Swords, that story is a tragedy. It ends in utter defeat and has no happy ending, which is why some people know Swords as the “suit of sorrow.”

Swords represent the domains of the mind: intellect, clarity, judgment, and reasoning. Just like a sword, the mind is often double-edged: we cut through the confusion and gain clarity, but that often comes at the cost of an unpleasant realization or the discovery of a painful truth. We can use our sharp mind to shape our words and impart knowledge, but we can just as easily use it to say dreadful things to other people in ways that we know will hurt them to the core. Just like a sword, a sharp mind can be just as damaging to the one who wields it as it is to any foe: we get trapped inside our own heads and overthink situations until we’re utterly spent. That’s the story told by the numbered cards of the suit of swords. The court cards (the page, knight, queen, and king) are less dire; they represent the maturation of intellect, from the initial insatiable curiosity of the page to the stern but fair and wise rulership of the king.

From the standpoint of metaphysical connections, swords are considered to be ruled by the element of air, and as such, they represent the springtime and the east. This is rarely particularly important in standalone tarot readings, but if like me you incorporate the tarot into some of your other specific spellwork where elemental and directional symbolism are important, this is still good information to have.

Knowing all of that information, we can now begin to look at the keywords, concepts, and classical interpretations of each card. Just as a reminder, you don’t have to memorize any of this! It’s perfectly acceptable to keep it open as a reference (or even print a hard copy of it to have on hand if, like me, you have your own sacred space for doing your readings as opposed to sitting at a computer screen or having your phone out). Put it in your own grimoire, take notes on it, do whatever you like with it in your own personal practice. There’s no wrong way. With time and repetition, you’ll start to develop a second sight for what each card says to you personally.

The Ace of Swords

Keywords: Clarity, Intellect, Breakthrough

Waite-Smith imagery: The Ace of Swords shows a single sword, held upright. As with all the other suits’ aces in the Waite-Smith deck, it is shown being held by a hand emerging from grey clouds. Around the tip of the swords, there is a golden crown, which is mantled on the left by an olive branch (representing peace) and on the right by a palm frond (representing conquest). The sword evenly splits six iterations of the Hebrew letter yodh (a symbol of creation and potential). All of this imagery is shown against a grey sky and a barren mountainous landscape.

Concept: The Ace of Swords represents a sharp moment of clarity; a moment where your intellect could bring about a resolution to a problem you’re facing. That could mean resolution through force (the palm branch of conquest) or through more diplomatic means (the olive branch of peace). In either case, you are the one holding this power, and it is up to you whether the blade will serve good or evil intentions.

In a reading: The Ace of Swords (as with the other aces) is often viewed as the single card that represents the ideals of the suit of Swords in and of itself: the concept of intellect, the dual-edged nature of the mind, and the cold truth that clarity often brings.

A helpful focusing affirmation: “I let truth and clarity guide my choices, even when they reveal things I would rather not see.”

The Two of Swords

Keywords: Indecision, Denial, Stalemate

Waite-Smith imagery: An androgynous figure sits straight upright on a stone bench. Their arms are crossed over their chest, and each hand holds a long sword. They wear a blindfold. Behind them, there is a body of water with reeds, rocks, and sandbars. A waxing crescent moon rises behind the figure into a clear sky.

Concept: The Two of Swords represents a choice. More than that, it usually represents a difficult and necessary choice. It’s usually not a choice you can defer or mediate: there are two sides to this choice, you cannot abstain from the choice, and the two sides are mutually exclusive. If you choose one, you forfeit the other.

In a reading: Consider what kind of crossroads you might be facing. This is the moment where, as Robert Frost once put it, “two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both, but be one traveler.” Progress has stalled, and you cannot continue on your journey until you have taken one path or the other from this fork in the road. The answer is something you have to search for inside yourself; in the tarot, the moon usually represents intuition and the unconscious – however, it also represents illusion. Take care that you remove the blindfold from your eyes and consider the consequences of each choice carefully before you commit.

A helpful focusing affirmation: “I cannot make perfect decisions, but I do my best to see the better outcome in every choice.”

The Three of Swords

Keywords: Heartbreak, Grief, Jealousy

Waite-Smith imagery: A red heart is pierced by three swords. In the background, rain falls from a sky full of billowing clouds. To emphasize the truly universal nature of grief, the Three of Swords doesn’t depict any kind of human figure anywhere on the card; this occurs in only one other card in the Minor Arcana (the Eight of Wands).

Concept: With the Three of Swords, you begin to truly feel the depths of this suit’s sorrow. The visual imagery of the card is unambiguous: deep pain in the very core of one’s being. Tears fall like rain, and you not only weep for your own grief, but you also feel the added jealousy that others are able to be happy while your own world falls apart.

In a reading: The pain of the Three of Swords is often the result of learning a painful truth, wishing you could have instead remained in blissful ignorance. It might also speak to heartbreak that you have caused others through careless (or even deliberately hostile) words and deeds instead of just grief that you feel yourself. Consider how you might grow and learn from this heartbreak, but you also have to let yourself grieve. We’re often so quick to try and help people deal with bad feelings because no one likes to see people suffer, but too often people are rushed through their bad feelings instead of being given time to feel them. How you feel is how you feel, and sometimes those feelings hurt. Clarity is understanding the difference between “getting over it” and reconciling with the fact that things are different now, and not for the better.

A helpful focusing affirmation: “I treat myself gently as I grieve over painful revelations.”

The Four of Swords

Keywords: Rest, Restoration, Retreat

Waite-Smith imagery: A man lies in a supine position, his hands together over his chest as if in prayer, on a yellow or golden stone plinth. Three swords hang vertically (the hilt upwards) in the background, safely out of his reach. A fourth sword is carved horizontally (the hilt to the viewer’s right) on the side of the plinth. A stained-glass window in the background shows one figure kneeling to another, as if receiving a blessing.

Concept: After the pain of the Three of Swords, the Four gives you a brief respite. You have to take a step back from the fight and heal. The swords are still there, still waiting for you to pick them up and go back to the battle, but for now, you have to give yourself time to recuperate; you can’t be a strong fighter if you throw yourself recklessly into battle while you’re still bleeding.

In a reading: When you’ve been hurt so deeply, you need to take time to heal and recover. It’s often been said, “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” but to be honest, I’ve never really liked that saying. When you experience deep trauma, you learn how to cope with that trauma. Your coping mechanisms might have made you stronger, but the trauma itself certainly didn’t; it left you battered, weak, and heartbroken. When you see this card, your trauma is being validated, but you’re also being gently reminded that you cannot heal from your pain by wallowing in it. You need to take a step back and retreat so that you can heal.

A helpful focusing affirmation: “I give myself space for stillness and rest so that I may restore my peace.”

The Five of Swords

Keywords: Ambition, Selfishness, Conflict

Waite-Smith imagery: A man wears a green tabard and looks with a grin at two men who are walking away in defeat, their two swords lying on the ground at the man’s feet. He holds his own sword point-down in his right hand, and holds two other swords over his left shoulder, point-up. Jagged clouds streak across the sky over a distant body of water in the background.

Concept: The relief of the Four of Swords is short-lived. You’ve resolved to get back out there and get back in the fight, and this time, you will win at all costs. You’re determined not to let anyone else hurt you anymore, so you attack from a position of strength, vanquishing everyone who dares to cross you. You will become strong so no one can ever hurt you again, and now you are the one who will do the hurting.

In a reading: When the Five of Swords appears in a reading, it could mean many different things, but all of those things boil down to conflict and how you choose to handle it. The Five of Swords is traditionally associated with an attitude of the end justifying the means. In practical reality, however, you know that such victories are often empty and leave you feeling defeated even when you’ve won. The counsel here is to step back and assess how far you’re willing to go to win this fight, and whether the end result is truly worth what you’ll do to achieve it. This card is a warning to reassess your position before taking actions you will regret later, even if they are cathartic in the moment.

A helpful focusing affirmation: “I don’t have to win every fight at every cost; there are times when the prize isn’t worth the sacrifice.”

The Six of Swords

Keywords: Transition, Searching, Leaving Behind

Waite-Smith imagery: A child and a cloaked figure (presumably the child’s mother) sit in the center of a boat being taken across the water by a man standing on the stern of the boat with a punt pole. All three figures have their backs to the viewer. Six swords are stuck point-down in the bow of the boat in front of the passengers. The background shows land with green trees, all under a grey sky.

Concept: Following the strife of the Five of Swords, you leave those surroundings behind. Perhaps you are one of the vanquished and must leave because it is no longer safe for you there, or perhaps you backed down from the fight and now must leave so you don’t become entangled in it once again. Or perhaps you were even the victor of the fight, but the victory was hollow and now those surroundings do nothing but remind you of the pain of the conflict. However you arrived here, you must leave the familiar surroundings behind. It’s a somber transition; not necessarily dire, but neither is it a joyful occasion. Your boat also carries passengers: a reminder that your actions don’t always affect only yourself.

In a reading: This card signals a bit of a duality. On one hand, it marks the transition between the pain of conflict and the healing that follows. On the other hand, it also signals a kind of disruption. For better or worse, things cannot continue as they did before. An important factor in finding your spiritual center is understanding what serves you and what does not. The Six of Swords tells you that you need to not only reassess what serves you, but also that you need to leave the things behind that don’t.

A helpful focusing affirmation: “I can find healing for my broken spirit, but not if I stay in the environment that caused my wounds.”

The Seven of Swords

Keywords: Manipulation, Deception, Strategy

Waite-Smith imagery: Under a bright golden sky, a man sneaks away on tiptoes from a cluster of the brightly-colored pavilions of a military encampment. He awkwardly carries five swords slung over his shoulders, but his hands carry them by the blades rather than by the hilts. Two swords are stuck point-down in the ground behind him.

Concept: After leaving the place of conflict behind in the Six of Swords, you have learned that open conflict isn’t the only pathway to victory. Sometimes, the best way to prevent a conflict is to deprive your enemy of the means to fight in the first place. This requires some guile: learning their camp, knowing where their weapons are kept, knowing when they will be most alert. Even so, the best-laid plan only lasts until its first step. You may have to carry the plan through in a way that will be dangerous to yourself, and possibly executed poorly, leaving the victory incomplete.

In a reading: Depending on whether you’re looking at your inward focus or your external circumstances, this card could mean different things. In either case, the card is usually a warning for you to reassess certain things: whom do you trust? Is your strategy for avoiding conflict a sound strategy? Is the subterfuge actually necessary, or would open confrontation actually serve you better here? This card is, in some ways, like the Two of Swords: how you choose to proceed is going to have profound consequences that you will not be able to defer. Sometimes the Seven of Swords is just a prompt for you to carefully think of which path you’ll take: the correct path is not always the easy path.

A helpful focusing affirmation: “I examine my motivations carefully and try to find the way that is right, even if the right way isn’t the easy way.”

The Eight of Swords

Keywords: Imprisonment, Uncertainty, Overthinking

Waite-Smith imagery: A woman in red stands on muddy ground. She is loosely bound, blindfolded, and surrounded by a makeshift “cage” of eight swords stuck point-down in the ground. Behind her, an imposing fortress sits on a hill under a grey sky.

Concept: You are bound and blindfolded, surrounded by a cage of sharp blades. Perhaps after the reassessment you made with the Seven of Swords, you now understand that conflict is inevitable, but you are afraid to face it. The Eight of Swords is the opening scene of the suit’s tragic final act. It evokes a feeling of being trapped, but that is a matter of perspective: your bonds aren’t tight and you could easily slip them or even cut them free using the swords. The ground is muddy and soft; the swords aren’t held fast – they could easily be pushed over to yield a way out. A fortress bars the way to you; no one is coming to rescue you, but if you reconsider your perspective, you can free yourself.

In a reading: The usual lesson of this card is that the barriers that block the way between you and your goals are often walls of your own making. It’s rarely helpful to tell someone who’s worried about something that “it’s all in your head,” because that’s often simply not true. The important thing to remember when you see this card is that your problems may indeed be very real – as real as the fortress that stands in the way of the woman’s rescue. But even when your problems are real, you are rarely as powerless as you perceive yourself to be. Muster your courage and break down those barriers. Don’t dwell on your powerlessness – look for solutions to your problems instead.

A helpful focusing affirmation: “I am not powerless; if I’m trapped and can’t find a way out, I’ll make a way out.”

The Nine of Swords

Keywords: Anxiety, Hopelessness, Trauma

Waite-Smith imagery: A man sits bolt-upright in bed and cradles his head with his hands, as if just awakening from a nightmare. The bed’s coverlet is a quilt of checkered blue and gold squares; the gold squares are adorned with roses, and the blue squares with astrological symbols shown in the quilt’s needlework. The side of the bed is carved with a scene of two fencers, one being vanquished by the other. Nine swords are racked from top to bottom on the wall behind the figure, aligned horizontally with their hilts to the viewer’s left. The room is completely black.

Concept: The Nine of Swords is the consequence of letting yourself be controlled by your perceived powerlessness in the Eight. Unavoidable conflict is at your doorstep, leaving you unable to rest. Your sharp mind replays the wrong decision of the Two, the heartbreak of the Three, the conflict of the Five, the deceptions of the Seven, and the imprisonment of the Eight. You think of it, focus on it, and plague yourself with the constant chorus of “What if I had done…?” You’ve turned the astute sharpness of your mind inward on yourself, and now your mind continually alternates between the trauma of what you’ve faced and the anxiety of what lies ahead; there is no good end in sight, and your usual sources of comfort bring you none.

In a reading: When you see the Nine of Swords in a reading, it is usually a sharp warning: the line of thinking that you are currently following will not lead you to anything good. Whether your anxiety is well-founded or not is irrelevant; you are allowing it to consume you. There are some things you cannot change. When you face those moments, take control of what you can, and let go of what you can’t. Things will play out as they will play out regardless of what you do, so letting yourself dwell on the things you can’t control is only going to add to your stress while resolving nothing. You can’t always control the circumstances you’re faced with, but you can always control how you face them.

A helpful focusing affirmation: “I acknowledge that I am afraid, but I will stand and face what frightens me; if there were no fear, there could be no courage.”

The Ten of Swords

Keywords: Defeat, Failure, Closure

Waite-Smith imagery: A man draped with a red cape lies prone on the ground, his face turned away from the viewer. Ten swords pierce him, point-down, from his neck to his thighs. A still lake is behind him, with green mountains on the horizon. The sky overhead is black, but the clouds break to show a golden sky behind the mountains.

Concept: This is the ultimate result of unchecked ambition and overthinking. You may have gained clarity or insight, but it came at the cost of the utter, total ruin of your own spirit. You lie completely defeated – unable to take another step, but also without any reason to. The fight is over. There’s no reason to keep fighting, because there is nothing left for you to protect or avenge. It is finished. There’s no silver lining to the black clouds, but there is a sunrise behind them. The single note of small comfort here is that even though this isn’t a satisfying ending, it is at least an ending. There’s nowhere left to go from here except upwards.

In a reading: The Ten of Swords is easily the heaviest card in the standard tarot deck. There’s no ambiguity whatsoever in the imagery of the card. There’s no misunderstanding what is happening in this card, and unlike the dreaded Tower of the Major Arcana, we can’t even follow this upheaval with the hope of the Star. The circumstances of this card are entirely the result of overthinking, of using the intellect (represented by swords) in ways that are harmful to the one who wields it. In a reading, it could be a warning against where your current thinking will lead, or it could be a signal to stop fighting and accept defeat so that you can move on. In either case, you have come to the final page – it’s time to close the book.

A helpful focusing affirmation: “I cannot undo my failures by retreading the path that led to them; the next story my life tells will not have the same ending.”

The Page of Swords

Keywords: Curiosity, Intelligence, Observation

Waite-Smith imagery: The Page stands on a grassy knoll and wields a sword with both hands. His long hair is blown around as he turns his face to the wind. Behind him, clouds billow over a choppy sea. In front of him, the skies are clear and birds fly overhead. His face is turned in the opposite direction (the viewer’s left) from the position of his stance (taking a step to the viewer’s right, and holding the sword in the same direction as his step).

Concept: The page is the lowest rank of the court cards in any suit, and it usually represents the first spark of that suit’s main theme. That is true of the Page of Swords, which is traditionally interpreted to represent curiosity and ideas. Curiosity is the foundation of intelligence; as the reversed stance of the page indicates, sometimes even when you walk through storms of confusion and lack clarity, you don’t let yourself accept the obscurity and instead keep your eyes open and face the unknown with a restlessness for learning.

In a reading: There is a certain sense of anticipation in the Page of Swords; it could represent a variety of things depending on how you read it. As a person in your life, the Page of Swords could represent someone who likes to debate, or perhaps even to gossip. It could also be calling attention to your own participation in those actions. Whatever the case may be, there’s a certain restless energy to this card. A piece of knowledge is missing, and you feel a relentless drive to find that missing piece.

A helpful focusing affirmation: “I will not end this day until I know more about the world than I did yesterday.”

The Knight of Swords

Keywords: Impulsiveness, Action, Assertiveness

Waite-Smith imagery: A knight in bright armor is mounted and holds the reins of a white horse. The visor of his helmet is open; his bright red cape billows behind him, and his mouth is open as if shouting a battle-cry as he raises his sword high in his right hand. His horse charges through a windswept landscape beneath a sky of jagged clouds, its ears pinned back and its eyes wide and looking back at its rider.

Concept: Intelligence isn’t just about learning; it’s also about challenging your beliefs and adjusting them as you know more. Sometimes, in the face of adversity, your beliefs will hold against anything you encounter, but sometimes that stubborn refusal to accept that you may be wrong is a sign of intellectual immaturity. The Knight of Swords is bold; he doesn’t back down from a fight, for he knows (from the final arc of the story of the Swords) the consequences of letting his fear control him. Even so, you have to carefully gauge the balance between being bold and being reckless. The horse’s terrified countenance suggests that you may be rushing blindly into dangers that others are trying to warn you about.

In a reading: The Knight of Swords is something of a paradox; it represents impulsiveness to some degree, but also discernment. The meaning of this card greatly depends on what questions you are considering when you encounter it: are you excessively deliberating when you should act? Or are you rushing in without first having the full picture? Part of intellectual maturity is understanding the role your actions play. In many cases, it’s better to try and fail than it is to never try. The strength of your intentions doesn’t guarantee success, but spending all your time planning until you have none left for doing certainly guarantees failure. Ships are safe in the harbor, but they’re built for the ocean.

A helpful focusing affirmation: “I don’t charge into action blindly to achieve my goals, but I don’t let fear of failure prevent me from even trying.”

The Queen of Swords

Keywords: Perception, Complexity, Wisdom

Waite-Smith imagery: The queen sits on a throne in the open air on a grassy hill. She holds a sword upright in her right hand, while her left hand is held open, palm up, as if gesturing a supplicant to rise or approach. She wears a golden crown adorned with butterflies, and a blue mantle dotted with white clouds. Her throne is grey stone, adorned with cherubs and butterflies. In the background, a lone bird flies in the clear sky high above billowing clouds on the horizon.

Concept: While the Knight values action over deliberation, the Queen is, in many ways, the opposite. She sees every problem as a complex puzzle that can be approached from many directions. She is one of the rulers of the Air, and as such, she knows the value of being able to look down on a larger picture, just like the bird soaring high above the clouds or the butterflies in her crown that soar above the clouds of her mantle. She passes no judgment but also brooks no pointless debate; instead, she knows that a wise ruler opens her hand in invitation to say (as the Christian Bible says), “Come now, let us reason together.” She is not bound to rigid thinking or threatened by beliefs that are different from her own, which gives her broad freedom of perception.

In a reading: In a reading, this card typically represents freedom of thought in some fashion. It can be a caution against making decisions without having all the facts, but more than that, it is a prompt to consider different perspectives, even if they lead you to question your own beliefs. An important contributor to being a mature thinker and communicator is the ability to adapt your beliefs to new knowledge without abandoning them at the first sign of challenge. This is a form of wisdom, and even though it represents growth, it can still come at an emotional cost – the recurring double-edged theme of the suit of Swords.

A helpful focusing affirmation: “I sort and compartmentalize my thoughts and feelings without becoming aloof and emotionally detached.”

The King of Swords

Keywords: Fairness, Discipline, Truth

Waite-Smith imagery: The King sits on a throne much like that of the Queen, but he faces the viewer directly, wearing a stern expression. In his right hand, he holds a sword almost upright, but angled slightly to the viewer’s left so as not to obscure his face. His left hand rests at his side. He wears a blue robe and a purple mantle. His throne sits on a grassy hill, and behind him, birds soar in the clear skies above soft clouds on the horizon.

Concept: The King represents the highest form of intellect. He has the Page’s desire for answers, the Knight’s impetus for action, and the Queen’s perception for truth. All together, these qualities make him a wise, fair, just, and disciplined ruler. He doesn’t show favoritism in his judgment, but neither will he cruelly inflict punishment for punishment’s sake. His decisions are informed by clear-eyed discernment of what will best serve everyone involved. This can make him seem cold and detached, as is generally the way of logic and reason, but the truth is that he merely knows that when he sits on his throne in judgment, it is his duty to follow his head rather than his heart.

In a reading: This is a powerful card to see in a reading. Much like the Ace of Swords, it represents sharp clarity. Unlike the Ace, however, the King doesn’t simply mean an idea or moment of clarity; it represents the adoption of clarity and fairness as intrinsic ways of thinking. Seeing this in a reading may be a warning that you are becoming too emotionally invested in something and need to take a step back and let yourself consider it logically and rationally. You might need to create some emotional distance to protect yourself, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore your feelings altogether – instead, you should consider them as a part of, rather than separate from, the totality of factors. The King is not just rational thinking; he represents discipline and fairness in thought and communication.

A helpful focusing affirmation: “I refrain from making decisions until I can see both the parts and the whole of the larger picture.”

Conclusion

The Suit of Swords is often an unpleasant suit to encounter, just as intellect and clarity often lead to unpleasant realizations. Even so, that painful clarity is a necessary part of the human experience. As I said in Part I, a mindful reading of the tarot is not possible unless you are willing to be honest with yourself. It can be tempting to reach the end of the story of Swords, to reach the Ten of Swords, and wallow in its misery and make excuses for why you can’t go on, how you can’t change who you are, how these problems are just a part of you – but to do that is to use hopelessness to tragically reject your own agency.

The suffering of the Swords is not suffering to no purpose; pursuing your passions and wrestling with your emotions and insecurities is not possible unless you approach those pursuits with a clear mind. Your field must be harrowed before it can be planted and fertilized. The storm brings the rains that your fields need to grow. You have to cut the overgrowth from the path before you can walk it. This is difficult work, but you can’t move forward without it.

That concludes Part II of this little guide! Next, we will take a closer look at the fiery passions and willpower of the Suit of Wands.