Reverse-engineering Meaning from the 4 of Swords

A response to last week’s #WriteHere prompt — ‘pick a card, any card.’

Rest. Recovery. Release. Resignation. Restlessness. Exhaustion. Like I often do, I drew this card in reverse. A brief explanation for tarot novices: reversed cards can be interpreted in the following ways:

1. That you’re not good at shuffling cards.

2. That the traditional meaning of the card reverses,

3. Or that the standard, upright meaning of the card is particularly urgent.

I usually decide how to interpret a reversed card based on the context of the rest of my spread. If most of the cards are upright, and seem to follow a common theme, then I analyse it in the 2nd way. If the spread is full of reversed cards, I’ll usually interpret it in the 3rd. Sometimes — I take a 4th option. If the card is naturally quite enigmatic, like the wheel of fortune — then I’ll try to analyse both its upright and reversed meanings and attempt to draw a path of how the two could lead into each other.

(Did I forget the 1st way? No. I’m dyspraxic — and am pragmatic enough to read tarot in the first place — so I decide that I’ve got no choice but to accept it as an option and then totally ignore it.)

The 4 of swords easily lends itself to the 4th approach. According to most sites, this card suggests much of the same things in either position. It suggests a return to oneself, coming back into the light after a period of rest and isolation. And, in both reversed and upright form, it contains a warning.

‘Now that you’ve emerged, don’t let yourself be pushed back down by external exhaustions. Look out for yourself. Remember why you needed to recover. Don’t be afraid to snatch small bursts of rest at each benchmark you re-encounter.’

Out of all the segmented meanings of the card, I’ve found that the ‘career’ meaning fits best in my life. Freelancing didn’t feel much like a break, at times — offering up new breaking points at every dry spell — but it still lapsed from the ‘normal’ rhythms of work, and allowed me to understand my internal workflows and myself as much as any individual project.

Now, though in a contract role, I’m adjusting to the 9–5 again.

A rhythmic certainty — and, to be quite honest, one I’m still slightly afraid of.

Perhaps, I could divine a final message just based off the artwork of the card — in this case, beautifully provided by Lisa Sterle, based on the traditional Rider-Waite-Smith deck. Viewed upright — the woman laid down on her bed certainly looks exhausted. Though the swords point down towards her, she seems more worried by the bright day shining through the window.

Reversed, the image is much the same. But, tired though she may be, she looks like she’s levitating. In charge, somehow, of the topsy-turvy world around her. The points of the four swords still point towards her body — only now, it seems like she could fall.

But, either way you turn it — the swords look like they’re mounted to the wall.

In which case, she should see them as simply part of the scenery. That she can unveiled, as she chooses. Even if she’s cautious anyway. They’re more than decorations — at the very least, their symbols deserve to be respected — but they shouldn’t be the phantoms of her life. Whether she rises, or stumbles — she must remember she’s in charge.