Tarot: 3 of Swords going on 4 of Swords

Time for the aftermath. I was genuinely dreading going to work today, it has been the scene of much conflict recently & I was expecting a full scale battle. The upshot, though, is: we've won. For various good reasons, which I can't explain in this forum, it was necessary to make sure that various things didn't go the way certain people wanted them to. These people cloaked their actions in apparently good intentions, but it was clear that the only effect their course of action would have would be negative.

So in fact if I'd read the card Waite's way I would have had to have read it as meaning loss, etc, for the opposition. There is also an interesting synchronicity. Today was the day I gave a dog three treats shaped like keys. Hmmm... I wouldn't have made a connection between Hecate & the 3 of Swords, but there are just too many synchronicities going on here.

I now have three (yes, three) days off work so can follow Vyvyan Basterd's example in the morning! The instability of the  three of Swords has to be resolved & the four is the place to do it. While having a lie down. Once again I would feel that Smith's image is perhaps slightly limiting for this card: the four swords stabilise the energy, so that the meanings to me could range from a sort of modus vivandi established in the midst of various problems, to a stagnation in the energy leading to stubbornly sticking by a bad marriage, even to a situation of institutionalised abuse. Waite rightly picks up on the martial and conflictual energy here:

'The effigy of a knight in the attitude of prayer, at full length upon his tomb. Divinatory Meanings: Vigilance, retreat, solitude, hermit's repose, exile, tomb and coffin. It is these last that have suggested the design. Reversed: Wise administration, circumspection, economy, avarice, precaution, testament.' (http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/pkt/pktsw04.htm)

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