About :

Three of Swords – Sorrow

With the Three, the Swords are entering the fields of understanding, of perception and realization, and they reveal the dark side of understanding or the truth behind the common saying that idiots are the happier people.

It is the curse of the Swords to be so clear and honest, to analyze what others prefer to ignore, to put in plain light what others hide in the dark. They are not like the Cups who are lucky when they understand themselves, the Swords are the Mind and when understanding what they see, they dive into melancholy.

The Three of Swords can talk of a painful realization, a hard decision that has to be made, the melancholy of Saturn when recognizing the unveiled truth. They also can stand for a disappointment, the loss of an illusion, or the detection of a treachery, a lie, a deceit.

The Lord of Sorrow sometimes bring sadness in with him when he appears – and he also highlights areas of life where decisions are needed, and where we feel unable to make important choices. This indecision leads to sadness and frustration.

So on a day when he rules, we need to be exploring our more unhappy feelings, and wondering if there are issues that we are feeling unable to deal with, which are causing us pain or confusion. However, it’s important not to expect ourselves to deal with conflicts or problems until we feel stronger.

If the Three of Swords rules on a day when you have no particular difficulties that need dealing with, you might like to spend a little time considering the whole concept of sorrow. We have become very afraid of experiencing pain, we will often go to great lengths to fail to enter into our own pain with a generous, gentle heart.

Yet having the ability to face your own pain makes it into a more tolerable event when, sadly, it happens in your life. Look at the ways in which you have dealt with past pain. Try to decide if you feel you have done the best you could for yourself and if not, work out why not.

When we get hurt, we often make our suffering much worse by barbing the pain with guilt, self-accusation and bitterness directed to both ourselves and others. Often we do this as a way of trying to avoid feeling our pain, we distract ourselves with things that are basically irrelevant, but which eventually end up fouling the pure experience of hurting.

Drive: Melancholy, facing up a painful truth

Light: Understanding, sobering, losing beautiful but false illusions

Shadow: Disappointment, pain, sadness, separation, sorrows

Reversed: The Three of Swords reversed encourages you to pay attention to your inner thoughts and self-talk. Your words are powerful, especially those you repeat to yourself day after day. You may be prone to self-criticism, limiting beliefs and negative self-talk. You may identify with an ‘inner mean girl’ (or boy) who is constantly telling you why you’re not good enough.

Keywords: Saturn in Libra, annoyances, doubts, lack of light, lethargy, jealousy, depression, tripartite obsession, troubles, uncertainty, anxiety

Advice: This page prompts you to make clear, unambiguous decisions. This is the only way to rebalance the balance (equilibrium).

Question: What are some decisions you find difficult or difficult to make?

Suggestion: Use the Tarot to reveal what your decisions are. Drag another tab that will show what awaits you when facing your problems.

Revelation: Every problem has its own solution.