Tarot - Three of Swords (First Posted Sept. 29, 2010)

To know understanding in the suit of swords – which is the “realm of air” and, by another name, the “world of thought” – is to know how to bring your heart under submission to your thoughts.  This is easier said than done, and never more so than when the situation to be understood possesses strong emotional overtones.

It takes courage - and you must summon all your courage -  to plunge not one, not two, but three clean, cold swords into the hot swirl of your emotions and to keep these swords fixed there until your heart ceases to cloud your clear intellectual understanding of the situation at hand.

The greater the emotional turmoil clouding your mind’s ability to understand a situation, the greater the courage required to plunge the three blades of steel into the midst of it.  Greater, too, is your need to keep the swords fixed and firm until your heart is completely subdued and finished its squirming.

But, having done the deed and having done it properly, the greater your relief at having taken the required measure that will allow you to reach a state of mental clarity and understanding.  Suddenly, you can see for miles through the clean, crisp air that surrounds you.  You see and you understand what you are seeing.

And, with your hard-won mental clarity and understanding, you can make choices that weren’t available to you before.   Paths open that were formerly obscured by the clouds of emotion arising from your heart’s involvement in the situation.

You are suddenly free to make changes because you see and understand your options in a way you never could before and you feel freer and lighter than you ever have before in the face of the situation challenging you.

PLEASE NOTE:  This interpretation is based purely on the feelings I experience when I  focus on, and merge with, the images in the card combined with how I understand the Minor Arcana of the Rider-Waite deck dovetails with the Tree of Life in the Qabalah (as taught by Wald and Ruth Ann Amberstone, co-founders of The Tarot School in New York City, NY).