Editor’s Note: If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article tells you how to use the spread. You can visit Sarah’s website here. –efc
By Sarah Taylor
The Six of Swords has a sombre feeling about it today — perhaps influenced by the grey snow clouds gathering in the sky outside the windows here. It is a card of hope; and yet the ordeal that the people have been through is still apparent.
I feel the need to be mindful: to acknowledge that what the three figures are moving from is as much a part of their experience as what they are moving towards — perhaps even moreso, because while the future is unclear, they carry the weight of the past with them. I suggest that this card often asks respect and sensitivity of a reader. Not probing questions, nor the dissection of what has happened, but a holding of space — a gentle inward nod — before turning in the direction of the horizon.
A man stands at the back of a punt, pole in hand, moving the vessel through the water. A larger figure and smaller figure — a woman and a child, perhaps — sit in the punt. Are they a family, or is the man doing the punting simply offering the other two passage across the water? Whatever the relationships, there is a suggestion of everyone ‘being in it together’: all of their backs are facing us, and the larger figures — especially the one seated — have hunched shoulders, as if they are carrying an invisible burden.
Six Swords stand vertical in the bow of the punt, tips down, crowding around the feet of the two seated figures. If Swords refer to thoughts, it is as if they are dominating the people in the boat, standing guard over them and keeping them seated, in a state of submission. They also obscure their field of vision, preventing them from having an unimpeded view of what lies ahead of them.
On the near side of the punt, the water is choppy; to the left, it is calm. This is the passage from something volatile to quieter shores… although the land and water that the figures are heading towards are monochrome, the skies a flat grey. Nothing shows in relief. It has the same feeling to my eyes as the dusk, where a semi-blindness sets in while one set of sensors for the night take over from those for the day, and vision is consequently impaired and inefficient. So while calmer waters are promised, ground needs to be covered, a mental clarity is demanded, before it is reached.
However, reaching a state of clarity — and the calmness that comes with it — takes work. I think that’s why the vessel in the card is a punt: a boat with sails would imply relying on outside forces to propel it, whereas here it is the effort of the people in the boat that gets them from one shore to another. A rowing boat also relies on manpower, but oars work exclusively with the water, while a pole moves through the water and takes purchase in the bed beneath it. Navigating with Swords (thoughts) and water (emotions) requires a firm foundation to underpin both.
Sometimes this card can speak of a physical journey over water, but to fall back on that interpretation every time the Six of Swords comes up in a reading can be to oversimplify things. There might indeed be a change of geography, but that is itself often preceded by a change of heart, or of mind.
And then I see something new: what if the figures are unaware of their six travelling companions? If so, then perhaps the Swords represent a state of mind that is, as yet, not fully conscious. Perhaps that is why the figures don’t move them out of the way: right now, they are helpless to do so. In which case the Six of Swords might also be an admonishment:
Wherever you go, there you are.
The past is past, but the Swords remain. Will a new environment offer a new perspective and a shift in energy? What we do know is that the Six will eventually give way to the march of the Eight, Nine and Ten, where the ‘fight’ is taken within.
No more movement; a ‘standing of one’s ground’ while a lone figure contends with the dark night of the soul, before the light dawns in the distance. Some might argue that that is the most worthwhile journey of all.
Thank you, Indrani – your words are very kind. I think you’ve got it – we all embody each card of the tarot, and it is linear time that determines which ones come into our consciousness at any given moment.
A Happy Christmas to you and yours too!
— Sarah
Thanks Sarah, that’s perfect – you probably haven’t read my reponse to Eric’s Saturn in Libra article, but your essay today is where things stand: ‘no more movement…standing one’s ground…a gentle space…as a lone figure contends with the dark night of the soul’. (Were you referring to the six of swords there?)
And may I add – we are probably always at the six of swords as well in some aspect of our lives, while being at the eight, nine, or ten (or anywhere else in the deck in other aspects. I’m begining to see how tarot works – a bit like the ancient Hindus believed: the universe is boundless and that everything happens at the same time. We are all the fool and the devil and the wands and the cups all at the same time. I’m getting the feeling that when we see the pictures on tarot cards, they serve to remind us of a part of ourselves and act as signposts in any given endeavour/journey we have undertaken in our lives. This gives us the chance to reflect on, for example, when we draw the six of swords, all those parts of our lives relevant to the feeling behind the six of swords.
Thanks for your lovely, patient instruction over the year – it’s certainly enriched my life by enhancing my awareness – tarot is not something I’d ever understood before. Life doesn’t come with the handbook, and it’s wonderful to have these tools to assist along the way.
Thank you again, and Happy Christmas to you and your family,
Indrani