Eight Reversed Swords in June

New Palladini Tarot

It's a new month and time to check in with my New Year Reading. The card for June was the lovely Eight of Swords Reversed.

I’ve written about this card before as she popped up last year but let’s have a refresher. Swords is the suit of the mind and encompasses thought, logic, reasoning, learning-anything that goes on in our heads. She’s bound and blindfolded, still trying to move forward but unable to see the swords in the ground around her. If the suit itself represents the mind and all that goes on up there, the individual swords represent the thoughts themselves. She has seemingly trapped herself by her own thoughts. A bit of overthinking, perhaps?

A reversed card can suggest the opposite of the card’s upright meaning. So, I was thinking I’d be releasing myself from the thoughts I was using to imprison myself over the last few months. It seems that was in the cards, so to speak. (Is that where this phrase comes from: the Tarot?)

Another reader I was studying a year ago suggested this idea for a single reversed card. She interprets it as an internal energy rather than external meaning it’s directed more inward than outward into the larger world. In a multiple card reading, the cards would play off each other, influencing the interpretation of the other cards and the position in the spread would also tweak each card's meaning. So, in a way this Eight of Swords could be seen as a single card as it represents one month even if it’s within a larger collective reading for a year with the energies of the cards flowing from one month into the next. Therefore, I could interpret this as a further/deeper entrapment within my own thoughts. That’s one possibility.

Radiant Rider Waite Smith Tarot

Another possibility is that the energy or lesson was there for me to learn how to release myself from my self-imprisonment. But, just because the lesson is there for me to learn, doesn’t mean I will learn it. In other words, I’ll have to face it again one of these days. This reminds me of my teaching days, how many times did I have to review a lesson because the little darlings didn’t get it the first, second or even fifteenth time I went over it? Life can also be like that.

Let’s just say, both of these interpretations could work. Yes, I do feel I am further imprisoned by thoughts and didn’t learn to release myself from this prison. Every method I’ve learned to try and refocus my mind into something more positive didn’t seem to stick.

But, I do need to be fair to myself. I didn’t expect the Covid situation to get so much worse making the month so much more challenging. I did anticipate a resurgence of cases when the states began to reopen which was way too soon in my opinion. But, the extreme of the second wave, if it was indeed a second one rather than an extension of the first one, was overwhelming to me. 

Plus, the attitude of those who still seem to think this is not to be taken seriously disturbs me greatly. I’m getting ahead of myself and another post I have in mind. 

The politics, too, around this situation have weighed heavily on me as well. How bloody difficult is it to put on a simple mask? Did people erupt in violence over “No shirt, no shoes, no service?” Was there such vicious backlash when seat belts became mandatory? Or for driving while on the cell phone/texting? How many people were killed over those policies? Again, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Even with the heavier thoughts, I do think I was meant to learn to overcome these thoughts of despair, depression and disdain for those who don’t seem to care about the seriousness of this virus and its effect on others. Or, at least try to overcome those thoughts. Sometimes, we need to learn a lesson at a higher or deeper level to advance on our journey. I feel I did try, but maybe not hard enough.

I understand that getting past these thoughts is necessary for a peaceful life and better health as anxiety and stress aren’t good on the body. Or spirit.

The overall theme of the year, the lucky thirteenth card, is the High Priestess. I really need to go further inward, into the temple and find my inner truth because I have a bit more work to do as another Swords card is next...

Radiant Rider Waite Smith Tarot