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 articleexplains how to use the spread. You can visit Sarah’s website here. –efc
By Sarah Taylor
Stand firm by your principles — this is the time for cool, calm, collectedness. It doesn’t mean that you are out of touch with your emotions. It is simply that clarity is the defining quality first; emotional union follows.
The King of Swords. Authoritative without being tyrannical. Composed while retaining his humanity.
Because swords are often viewed as an uncompromising suit — there is little to match the directness of the imagery in the Three of Swords or the Ten of Swords, for example — it is perhaps easy to look at the King and see him as a figure who is as hard as the metal he wields in his right hand. Not so. His face might bear the planes of a sharp instrument, but his clothing is soft: His gown is a light and airy sky-blue, falling in folds over his knees; his cowl by comparison feels more weighty — the blood-red of a beating heart that informs and works with his head. Butterflies, sickle moons and naked figures are etched into the back-rest of his throne. Transformation, beauty, transition, integrity. The King of Swords embodies the archetype of Solomon: fair, he is fearless in the enactment of what he believes to be ‘right action’. He understands that with insight and truth comes liberation.
Look at the parallels between the King of Swords and the next card, Judgement. When I see these cards side-by-side, I notice that the King’s sword mirrors the shape and angle of the angel’s trumpet; his gold crown is seen again in the angel’s yellow-orange hair; his purple cloak becomes feathered angel-wings; the naked figure above his left shoulder is echoed in the naked woman standing facing us in the background.