Tarot: Three of Swords

It may seem eccentric, but this is my blog & if I want to illustrate a post about the 3 of Swords with a screen capture of Vyvyan Basterd modelling the 4 of Swords, I will. So there.

My tarot card for today is the 3 of Swords. No, don't seem to be trembling in fear of the imminent despair, loss & separation that is on my way. Sometimes my strange tendency to interpret tarot cards in a 'reversed' way, or at least differently to how everyone else does, has advantages. My personal opinion is that this card has been done a great disservice over the past century, starting with Waite, who has this to say about it:

'Three swords piercing a heart; cloud and rain behind. Divinatory Meanings: Removal, absence, delay, division, rupture, dispersion, and all that the design signifies naturally, being too simple and obvious to call for specific enumeration. Reversed: Mental alienation, error, loss, distraction, disorder, confusion.' (http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/pkt/pktsw03.htm)

I feel the meaning of this card is only simple & obvious if you limit it by using the sort of illustration Waite did: in this I am coming down on the side of those non-pictorial tarot deck purists. I find it helpful to read with a different tarot deck from time to time, & today I picked up a tarocco piemontese I've had sitting in the wardrobe for some time. It's one of the sort where the trumps & court cards are split half way down so that you see two halves of the image. Reversals? I think not. And this kind of deck only goes to reinforce the tarot's origin as playing cards.

However in that sort of deck, there are two perceptable directions to the pip cards, something that became very apparent when I took out all the swords & laid them in a line across the altar. The odd numbers in that sort of deck have a sword in the centre of the swords cards, which feels different depending on whether the sword is pointing up or down. Downwards it feels more like a statement of something that's just there, almost like an ornamental sword hanging on the wall. Upwards it feels like one is armed for a declaration of war.

Because swords - along with their modern cognates of things that cut & pierce generally - are of use to us as well as victimising us. We use things that cut to divide things - both in a literal sense, & I suppose in a speculative sense of dividing truth from fiction, one thing from another, etc. Similarly things which pierce - drills, knives, nails - can be used to 'hole' things but also sometimes to join.

So the energy of this card isn't as simple as it looks. The fear of swords is seen in the sword's modern equivalent of the gun. The sword/gun is in a position to make a terminal 'piercing' of someone: our society therefore feels the need both to control this dangerous potential, while there is also a thriving trade in under the counter guns.

And the three thing contributes to this card's unpredictability by destabilising the two before it stabilises again in the four. Two-become-three indicates the 'birth' of something new. This could be seen as a new 'prick', or trouble, but I am a witch, I intend to make use of everything that is given me. So I am not only armed for the battle, I will take any nonsense sent my way & turn it against you. Have I successfully reversed the meaning of this card?

The 3 comes before the 4, & is the necessary prelude to it. To get to the 4 you have to do the battle bit so you can have a rest afterwards. After today I have three days off work & am looking forward to a rest after dealing with the 'pricks' that will almost certainly come my way today.

I've done something else to give myself a rest. To paraphrase the Jewish saying: God couldn't be everywhere so she made witches. Witches can't be everywhere so they make magical entities. This is one of my favourite magics: it's easy & allows the kind of irony that my magic always has, for example I usually make them nourished by the very behaviour in others that they are aimed at. If people think they can get away with things when they think I'm not watching, they've got another thing coming. This is the trouble with being a witch - particularly one whose sacred vocation is the removal of malevolence - you attract things that need sorting because you're often the only person who can or will, which reinforces the need to take care of oneself.

Just for a change from this post prompted by the always militaristic Swords, I've done something nice recently. I reviewed my List & took someone off it without his life becoming a living hell. The spell I cast on this person caused the desired change in his behaviour to me, so he need not be on the list any more. This is actually the first time I've removed someone from it before they have completely left my orbit, so is partly in the way of an experiment. Who knows, perhaps the battle will be with him!

Affirmation: today I am armed to deal with any attacks that come my way and tomorrow will rest after an honourable affray.

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