Eight of Swords.
A trap that is not shut.
Upright, then reversed, as Waite gave them in 1910.
Bound and blindfolded, in a red dress, in marsh water, she stands among eight swords. The swords make a ring and the front of the ring is open. A castle sits on the crag behind her, with nobody at its windows.
Trapped, people say, and say it too quickly. Look at the trap. It is not shut. Nothing is holding it closed except the not looking, and you know it, which is the part that stings.
Four things people go to on this card
- the gap in the swords
You went to the gap. Eight swords, arranged around her, and the front of the ring is open.
She is not surrounded. The way out is at the front, unguarded, in the direction she is already facing, and the card puts it nearest the viewer so that it cannot be missed.
This is the difference between a cage and a situation. Nothing in the picture is holding her in place except the two things actually on her body. Whatever is keeping you where you are, it is probably on you as well, and it is probably cloth.
What is the open side of this, that you have not tried because it looks too easy?
- the binding
You went to the cloth around her arms. Loose, wound rather than knotted, over a red dress.
Look at how badly it is tied. It is wrapped, not fastened, and her hands are free below it. The card draws a restraint that would not survive one serious attempt.
Not no strength: less of it than the situation needs. That is the exact shortfall here, and it usually means the first attempt is the whole problem, not the tenth. The shortfall is not in your arms. It is in the number of times they have been asked.
When did you last actually try, as opposed to concluding it would not work?
- the blindfold
The blindfold. It is the only part of this doing real work, and it is where you went.
The trap is informational. She cannot see the gap, so the gap does not exist for her, and everything else in the picture is scenery.
Whatever you feel stuck in, the binding is usually not the binding. It is not knowing something, or not having asked, or having decided what the answer would be without checking. One question, put to the right person, would take it off.
What one thing would you know, if you asked, that you have been guessing at instead?
- the castle
You looked past her to the castle. High up, behind her, small, with nobody visible in it.
Somebody built this and lives above it. There is a power in the picture and it is not among the swords. It is uphill, at a distance, and not looking.
That reframes the card. Some traps are not maintained by anyone. They were set once and left running, and the people who set them have not thought about you in years. The permission you are waiting for is not coming, because nobody up there remembers you asked.
Who set this up, and have they thought about it once since?
Its ten degrees
The Golden Dawn gave the Eight of Swords 0° to 10° of Gemini, ruled by Jupiter, and Book T calls it the Lord of Shortened Force. The Sun is in it from 21 May to 31 May. The decan page for this card.
The wheel runs on from here. The decan before this one is Seven of Pentacles, Saturn in Taurus, 10 May to 21 May. The one after is Nine of Swords, Mars in Gemini, 31 May to 11 June. All thirty-six, in order.
On the Tree of Life, Book T puts the Eight of Swords on Hod, splendour, in Yetzirah, the world of air: every eight is Hod, in its own suit's world. It is the eighth place in the Tree of Life spread.
Draw a card, and if this one turns, press whichever of these four you went to and the reading is written from there instead. Pulled it in a spread of your own? Read the whole spread here.
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