The
Knight of Swords
Labyrinth
Tarot
Original Writing by Kathryn Ravenwood
The Knight of Swords is one of my favorite Tarot
cards. He charges into the swirling,
chaotic winds of change, sword raised, fearless of obstacles, ready for any
challenge. His intention is to create breakthroughs rather than to calm the storm. He is a rebel in his own mind, unpredictable,
loves to play the wild card, is never boring, a champion of the unconventional,
and ever on the quest for truth. He is
fun, smart, funny, and might be a bit
nerve racking with his multiple levels of ideas all seeking expression at once.
He is kind of irresistible.
We all are equipped as the Knight of Swords to cut
through the chaos of our lives whether it is externally caused or the ever
present internal chaos of our own minds.
The Swords in the Tarot represent the mind, thoughts, and the patterns
generated by our thoughts. The mind’s landscape encompasses an unlimited
variety of worlds created by perhaps equally unlimited circumstances. All the facts and fiction, words and voices,
the very evaluation of our experiences, are all stored in the great labyrinth
of our minds. Some of us categorize and sort these thoughts into order and some
live with a constant mental chaos.
Brilliance flashes forth, stupidity erupts at often the worst possible
time. Who is in charge of all of this? Well,
we are.
I often say, “no
one lives in your head but you.” This is
true but it takes vigilance on our part to filter out the influences that have
wormed their way deep into the folds of our minds. We find ourselves in rote recital of
something we were told as kids that doesn’t even make sense. We discover the hurtful words spewed at us
thirty years ago still ring loudly in our head.
We find we can retrieve obscure facts from some unknown repository of
trivia – very useful when solving crossword puzzles but perhaps not relevant to
our life. To become the master of our
thoughts and mind is a life-long process and one not achieved without allowing –
even encouraging - the Knight of Swords
to gallop through our mental realms. It
is so easy to get stuck in a rut, to allow narrow mindedness to creep in and
take hold due to our not paying attention, being tired, or just no longer
caring. There is the real danger of allowing or even creating distractions to keep
ourselves and everyone around us in constant flux where we can emerge the
heroine by solving problems we have deliberately created…. otherwise known as “Chaos Queens.” This is
the exact field the Knight loves to run through, churning up the ground (and
the grounds of our stagnant or chaotic thinking) brandishing that sword to
slice away connections, cut through mediocrity, and challenge us to think about
things in new ways, to consider other viewpoints, to see a different
version. We don’t have to choose all the
new things but it is very good for us to experience the thoughts of them.
Truth Seeker.
What is this? The Swords are about
Truth – both the Cosmic Truth and our Personal Truth – which seeks to align
with the higher Cosmic Truth. The more
that is cut away with the great Sword of Discretion, the more we can eliminate
what is not true; we separate fiction from fact, we create an opening for inspiration,
clarity, understanding, and liberation. We develop mastery of our minds and our truth
by not allowing the chaos to take hold, to rebuke the old mind tapes and stop
them from repeating their same old stories, by being willing to take charge and
take responsibility for our thoughts and their subsequent actions.
If you are willing to embrace a quest for truth, to
seek visionary clarity and to ruffle up a lot of feathers in the process, then
saddle up with the Knight of Swords and ride through the miasma of cluttered
thinking. Raise your sword, raise some
eyebrows! Raise some consciousness and raise the bar on your own truth.
...07/18/17