TEN OF SWORDS
I hope you can find a quiet spot, a comfy chair, and a calming drink to sit with the Ten of Swords energy this week. Though this card can seem scary at first, I promise you it is a rich and supportive card to pull, especially if you are drawn to working with your shadow side.
Tens represent the culmination of the energy of each suit, and the Ten of Swords is the associated with the intellect, and with air. In Lisa Sterle’s illustration, the black background is abyssal, cosmic, but the human figure lies comfortably on rocky ground, the mineral creep of her stone-grey hair blending with the terrain. The streak of pink in the sky, a symbol of the breaking dawn, echoes her clothes: there is a symbiosis between her body and the landscape. Her face is impassive as she withstands piercing blows that have already passed. This card is about processing trauma and finding a way through. We can also see how her body craves rest, but her mind is still active as she scrolls through her phone.
Gemini Season and the Blood Moon Eclipse
We too will experience magenta skies this week as we drift closer to the blood supermoon, and the lunar eclipse. The Ten of Swords reminds us that the alien glow caused by these celestial shifts are only true in our perception. Where we stand in relation to the moon will affect what we see, and even the colour of the sky. Gemini channels this airy energy, as it is a mutable sign guiding us from spring to summer, but it is also the sign of the twin, the shadow. As writers we can become focussed on the lives of others and become obsessional about our perception of them either through idolising them or resenting them, and one can quickly turn to the other. What can these obsessions teach us? Which part of ourselves do we see reflected in these others that needs our care and attention? What do we recognise and fear?
Psychic Weather
This week has been full of Gemini energy. I’m trying something new, and this moment of expansion that has been marked by the shadow terrors that new projects always bring up for me. I spoke to a friend who was one of the last people I saw before the pandemic, but who I haven’t spoken to since. We talked about Sylvia Plath’s devastating poem “The Hanging Man” which blends her interest in the occult, and the tarot, with her experience of electroconvulsive shock therapy to treat her first major breakdown:
By the roots of my hair some god got hold of me.
I sizzled in his blue volts like a desert prophet.
The nights snapped out of sight like a lizard's eyelid :
A world of bald white days in a shadeless socket.
A vulturous boredom pinned me in this tree.
If he were I, he would do what I did.
The Ten of Swords is also present here in The Hanged Man, through that moment of contemplation, and suspension: the human figure is pinned, yet not without agency. It is a card that warns us about the dangers of thinking instead of feeling, but it also calls us to consider what creativity might be possible in times of danger.
Lindsay Mack describes the Ten of Swords as a card offering medicine, not fear. She talks here about the contraction that is inevitable at any moment of expansion: the shadow side of creation that we must go through to make something new and try not to get lost.
Writing Prompts
If you are stuck with a writing project, think about the journey from the Ace of Swords to the Ten of Swords. What electricity jolted through you when you began that has been buried under the heaviness of the process? Can you reconnect to that excitement? Is this a question of cutting out anything that doesn't align with the original vision? Is this about using swords to reveal and repair?
Write a deep sensory scene by tasting the air. Take a few moments outside and breathe deeply, let the scent of the air into your body, and notice every subtle detail. Then take your tongue and taste the air, paying attention to the temperature as it hits the warmth of your body, the smokiness, saltiness, or freshness, the difference between the air inside your home and outside where plants and bodies mingle. Write as many details as you can from this experience.
Write about a moment where the atmospheric pressure changed your emotional state: a blast of wind that cleared away your gloom; a breeze that carried the scent of early autumn and a new start; a wild electrical storm that changed the course of your life.
Writing Rituals
Reset your nervous system. Be like the figure in the Ten of Swords who can lie impassively on rocky ground. You don't need to react; you don't need to do anything. Let yourself feel all of the heaviness without trying to do anything until you are rested and in recovery. Try sitting or lying in a dark room with comfy clothes and a blanket over your body. Let yourself settle into the heaviness, the darkness, the quietness. If you prefer to rest in child’s pose, or foetal position, let your body settle into softness and stillness however feels most nourishing. Set a timer for ten minutes and don't do anything until the timer ends, however much you want to. Reassure your busy mind that you will attend to it at the end of the ten minutes and let its demands swirl away on the air.
Find a comfortable space with your notebook, water, warm clothes, and no interruptions. Lie or sit and take some deep breaths right into your diaphragm, letting the air leave your body more slowly. Take a count of four as you inhale into your diaphragm, and six as you exhale. This settles the nervous system into rest-and-digest. Come back to this at any time that the more active breathing starts to feel too intense. Set a timer for two minutes (you can build up to three, then five, then ten if you enjoy this exercise) and begin active breathing. Still sitting or lying, take your breath in through your mouth and hold in your diaphragm for a count of four, then hold in your chest for a count of four, then exhale through your mouth for a count of four. After the two minutes (or longer) note down any thoughts that came up in your notebook. You might find that this technique allows you to release emotions that you don't ordinarily access, so be careful when you do this, and make sure to go back to the gentle breathing any time this doesn't feel good.
Listen to my sound bath playlist on Spotify to truly calm the nerves and quiet the mind: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4BW5SRocfe5cF7cfQYnJJK?si=0d45ec19597f43f8
Tarot Spread or Journalling Prompts
I first discovered this clarity spread through Kim Krans, the author of the Wild Unknown Tarot. The first question asks to clarify the heart of the matter, and the other questions deepen your understanding of that first response. If you are journalling, feel free to use the questions in whichever way you choose, and if you are pulling cards, you can assign the three optional questions to cards 2-4, or you can simply use those cards to add nuance to the initial card.
1. Where am I catastrophising about my writing?
2. What is the worst thing that could happen on this project?
3. If the worst thing happened what help and support could I draw upon?
4. What gifts might I receive if I took this risk in my work?
I hope you have a week full of wild skies and curiosity.