Two of Swords.
A truce kept by not looking.
Upright, then reversed, as Waite gave them in 1910.
Blindfolded, on a stone bench, she holds two swords crossed over her chest. Her back is to the sea. Flat water, rocks in it, and a thin moon for the only light.
This is peace, and it was kept by not looking. A stalemate, a decision refused, and the card never says the refusal is wrong. You are allowed not to decide yet. What you may not call it is rest. Her arms are up, and they have been up for a while.
Four things people go to on this card
- the blindfold
You went to the blindfold. It is tied on, and nobody in the picture tied it but her.
A truce that depends on not looking. That is not always cowardice. Some things cannot be looked at yet, and the cloth is what makes it possible to sit still in the meantime.
But it was chosen, and what is chosen can be untied. The card does not ask whether putting it on was wrong. It only notes that the knot is at the back, where your own hands could reach it if they were not full.
How long has yours been on, and what were you waiting for before you took it off?
- the crossed swords
You went to the swords. Two of them, equal, held crossed against her own chest.
Both options are being held and neither is being used. They are perfectly balanced and they point inward, which is where the strain goes when a choice has been refused for long enough.
Two swords are heavy. Holding both is the expensive option, not the safe one, and the card draws the arms that are doing it rather than the face. If your shoulders have been aching for no reason you can name, this is the reason.
What are you paying to keep both options open, and how much longer can you afford it?
- the moon
The moon took your eye. A thin crescent, high on the right, the only light in the card.
The one thing here that is not stuck. It is waxing or waning and either way it will not be that shape next week. The card puts a clock in the corner of a scene that seems to have none.
The stalemate has a time limit even if nobody has named it. Something outside your decision is moving, and if you wait long enough it will make the decision for you, badly, and without asking.
What is moving on its own while you hold still, and when does it take the choice out of your hands?
- the rocks
You went past her to the sea: flat water, and rocks in it, some barely breaking the surface.
This is what she has her back to. The surface is calm and the hazards are the ones just under it, and she is sitting facing away from all of it with her eyes covered.
That is the honest picture of managing something rather than solving it. The calm is real. So are the rocks. Both are in the frame. Only one gets talked about, and you know which one that is where you are.
What is just under the surface that everyone is being careful not to mention?
Its ten degrees
The Golden Dawn gave the Two of Swords 0° to 10° of Libra, ruled by the Moon, and Book T calls it the Lord of Peace Restored. The Sun is in it from 23 September to 3 October. Power draw the Sun is on this card tonight. The decan page for this card.
The wheel runs on from here. The decan before this one is Ten of Pentacles, Mercury in Virgo, 12 September to 23 September. The one after is Three of Swords, Saturn in Libra, 3 October to 13 October. All thirty-six, in order.
On the Tree of Life, Book T puts the Two of Swords on Chokmah, wisdom, in Yetzirah, the world of air: every two is Chokmah, in its own suit's world. It is the second 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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