The Queen of Swords

I see the Queen of Swords as the compassionate yet efficient gardener of thought. She isn’t sentimental or nostalgic. She cuts what needs to be cut to keep the garden healthy and growing to its full potential. She will make the hard decisions. Not everything we want to hold on to or think is beautiful can stay. Some old things and ideas need to go before they choke and poison us like invasive weeds. How dangerous some of these things can be: the speed at which they can take over, how quickly they can destroy a fragile garden. It’s not easy to slice away what we have become accustomed to and comfortable with. So we have to trust her to help us make the hard choices.

In the image, her hand reaches out and invites our thoughts - she will keep what serves and slice away what does not. It feels like a loss, but the pain we go through will bring growth and new life. We create our own hell and trap ourselves there with our perceptions. Cut it away. Remove that which causes suffering. We have the power to do that.

When she’s upright, we go to her willingly to seek her advice. When she is reversed, as she is for me today, we hesitate and avoid approaching. It’s hard to let go. Who will I be if I cut away the old stories? And I know the one that needs cutting. It’s the story of a little girl who wants to be told what she’s worth. Who wants to be told she doesn’t come second. She’s not less than. She is enough just as she is. The story says that if I can just find someone to tell me that, it will be true. It feels easier than figuring out how to believe I’m enough all on my own.

What do I have the power to do? I cannot make you love me. I cannot make you come back. I cannot make you miss me. But I can walk in the woods and feel life all around me. I can open my heart to allow the possibility of love, to the possibility that there is more than crying myself to sleep while the one who says he loves me doesn’t even notice. That idea can go. The belief that I was too much, too needy - that can go. Cut it away and let me grow back stronger, with a new story. The story of a woman who has a beautiful heart that she wants to share. The story of a woman who has fought to make her life her own, to have the freedom to heal and find joy. That can be my story, if I’m brave enough to cut away the vines that are pulling me under.

What the Tower teaches us is that what is built on a poor foundation will crumble. The Star invites us to heal. It invites us to look inward for understanding. And the queen comes to cut away what is weak and dangerous to us. We can rebuild, but what would be the good of building with the same rotten wood and cracked foundation? Burn it down. Cut away what doesn’t serve. Start again. Smarter and stronger.

She wiped the ash from her face and surveyed the vast emptiness she had created. The cat brushed up against her and whispered, “Now it’s time to build.”