Weekly Forecast: July 24-31
Ah, a visit from the ten of swords, such a dark and striking card.
We haven't had a visit from the heavier swords cards in the forecasts in a while. As a young tarot reader I had to contend with a lot of these popping up in my personal readings. It was daunting and off-putting, but also mysterious. I knew there was some deeper lesson beyond all the intensity.
Some of the cards in the swords suite like this ten ask us to face the harsher facets of life. Usually our first instinct is to turn away. We'd rather not dwell on this image of a figure stabbed in the back ten times. It's disturbing. Yet at the same time we can't move forward constructively with ten swords in our back, can we?
The ten of swords forces us to come face to face with our fears, especially all the ways we hold ourselves back.
This week we're feeling laid low. Something we've been struggling with for a while has really come home to roost. We may have been avoiding a certain reality, rushing around trying to distract ourselves, or pushing ourselves to "move on" before we were ready to.
Either way, this ten is telling us that we can't get off the hook that easily. We have to feel our feelings, even the wild and scary ones. In fact, this scary and disorienting task is what we need most.
The ten of swords challenges us to look at how our thoughts amplify our suffering. When something bad (or unfortunate or out of our control) happens to us how do we react?
Now is a time to examine our negative thought patterns. Do we have a tendency to blame ourselves? Punish ourselves for a percieved failure? To allow a bleak outlook to permeate the rest our lives?
This is a task we must undertake with gentleness and non-judgment, not blame. We're being asked to care for ourselves with the compassion and gentleness we'd offer a friend or loved one.
As a ten, this card depicts the end of a cycle, and indeed we can see brightness on the horizon, pushing away the darkness. Our next card shows us the key to picking ourselves up and healing our wounds.
The Hierophant points us in the direction of structure and a larger picture. Routine and predictability will be giving us solace when we get overwhelmed. The challenge is keeping up with it even when we're not feeling our best.
The ten of swords shows a figure injured and disoriented. This week we're being asked to lift our heads and look to something bigger to inspire us - spirituality, nature, helping others, and different ways of enlarging our world view will bring us healing and a renewed sense of purpose.
This week spend time giving yourself plenty of time and space to nurutre yourself. We're going through a big growth process, and that takes energy. It's okay to rest and grant yourself some well-deserved time to reconnect with what gives your life meaning.
We move from this healing space and back into the fray of life. We shift, however, from the cerebral suit of swords to the dynamic wands. Something about this rest period has invigorated us, and though we might feel a bit on edge, moving will do us good so long as we keep up our self-care routines.
There's an angst to the seven of wands, but the fiery nature of the suit reflects the power of anger and determination when wielded properly. Be sure to avoid outsourcing these feelings onto innocent bystanders as you jump back into the fray of this busy time. It's a lot to work through, but with care it could result in a long-awaited breakthrough.
Weekly Forecast: June 19-25
It's going to be an interesting week, to say the least. As we've all noticed by now, the reading is a study in contrasts. Two harsh-looking tens flank the lush self-assuredness depicted by the King of Pentacles.
The Ten of Swords especially dominates the reading, as certain swords cards do best (I'm looking at you, Three of Swords.) A figure is lying prone with ten - ten! - swords piercing their back. One would certainly do the trick, so why ten? This is a card that urges us to ask what message is being concealed in the excess.
Swords govern our intellectual life. Our ways of thinking, communicating, and looking at the world. It's interesting then that these are, at first impression, the most "negative" group in the tarot deck since they don't actually reflect a tangilbe reality. This suggests that what we are capable of cooking up in our own minds can cause us the most pain and suffering.
Nowehre is this more apparent than the Ten of Swords. The poor figure is absolutely, positively slain by his thoughts and beliefs. They're laid low, incapacitated, and overwhelmed.
And yet this card is a ten, the end of a cycle. If your'e thinking, "man, what a depresing way to end a cycle," I hear you. But the tarot isn't a literal system and this card doesn't mean being laid low irrevocably in sadness and defeat. Or, even more frigteningly, finding youself pierced by ten swords on a forlorn beach.
Instead, this card shows us the messy and painful catharis that comes when we are unable to avoid our anxieties, fears, and negative thoughts. There's a terrifying vulnerability when we have to contend with the fact that we can't control our thoughts 100% all the time. Irrationality, fear, and self-doubt sneak up on us and wreak their havoc. It's how we treat ourselves when this happens that matters most.
But before we go there, let's take a look at the card that sets the stage for this week, the Ten of Wands. If you remember, we ended last week's forecast with this card. Isn't it amazing how tarot can be so on point? It's popping up in the past position here to remind us that all our hustling and bustling to the finish line has worn us out.
All the overextending and hard work we've done has come at a price. We're exhausted physically and mentally, and what would you know? That's the perfect recipe for the cataclysmic thought process we see in the Ten of Swords.
Maybe now that the dust has settled we're reflecting back at our efforts critically. We didn't try hard enough, we made a mistake there. Sure, we finished what we set out to do, but it wasn't quite as breathtaking and effortless as we had hoped. In fact, it was extremely effort-ful. We had to push oursleves to get somewhere and instead of congratulating ourselves, we're heaping on the blame and criticism.
And yet who do we have here as our central card? Oh, it's the massively successful and stable King of Pentacles. That seems... odd. What's he doing here amidst all the angst of the tens?
If tens are indications of the end of a cycle they are to be celebrated, even if they bring the stress of the final push, like the wands, or the pain of negative thinking about ourslves, the swords.
The King of Pentacles is showing us that we are, in fact, highly accomplished and rooted in our lives. We have a lot to enjoy if we choose to look up from our immediate concerns.
And in addition, The King of Pentacles reminds us that it takes struggle and hard work to inhabit the powerful position of a King. We might think that in order to do this we need to avoid all struggle and flailing. In this thought pattern, any trepidation or hangups equals inferiority.
The King of Pentacles does not sit on his throne looking luxurious and put together all the time. He's experinced the ups and downs of success, striving, and all the effort it takes to manage his life the best he can. In fact, that's part of his plan.
Perhaps the key lesson he's offering us is that to be one's best self is to make room for the complicated emotions that come from existing in the world. That instead of making us less than they make us more capable and skilled in both seeing the complexity of the world and caring for ourselves in all our emotional states.
We can enter this week grounded in this message from the King of Pentacles. And when confronted with our wild and sharp feelings we can practice listening to them while remaining secure in our own accomplishments and the solidity of who we are.