Over the Edge Tarot 3 of Swords

Three of Swords
Completed January 6, 2002
Medium: Digital Collage

This card was created as a part of the COLLAB 2 deck, the Comparative Tarot E-List's second collaborative tarot project. It will also become a part of my own deck, the Over the Edge Tarot.

Some Informal Reflections on Creating the Card

The card assignments for the Comparative Tarot E-List were emailed on 10/22/01. Eager anticipation gave way to an audible groan after I opened the message. The Three of Swords? My most troublesome card in the whole deck?

I believe that the Universe gives us what we need. I have always understood that at some time I was going to have to wrestle with this card, and get some kind of handle on it - this elusive card that has defied my understanding for so long. I recognized immediately that my being given this card assignment was the signal that the time had come.

But damn, that didn’t mean I had to be happy about it! This just seemed like way too much, coming on the heels of so many challenges last year: keeping up with a three-year-old, a remodeling project at home that had us living in chaos for months on end, some brutally difficult cases that had to be tried at work, the death of my father-in-law, the death of two beloved dogs I liked better than many people I know, medical problems of my own and in my family, and of course, the heart-rending events of September 11, to name a few. I was feeling that I was due for a break, not a challenge.

As 2001 turned to 2002 and the deadline began looming larger on the horizon, I realized it was time to get started. With my tarot journal and some trusted texts in hand, I set out to do some studying:

"Swords - the suit of thought, intellect, and ideas. The mental suit." Three - the number of growth and expansion. One is the idea, Two is the pair who can carry out the idea, and 3 is the fruit of the partnership. Fruit of the conception between the pair. Initial completion. The first stage achieved. Outcome of events in one and two. ." These are some of my earliest notes from years ago.

If one follows this line of thought (which I’ll call the numerological-elemental system, and which actually seems to work pretty well for the rest of the Minors), the Three of Swords should have to do with growth/expansion and reaching the first stage of completion of some intellectual activity.

But then there’s that pesky Rider-Waite-Smith image. Waite says that the design is ". . . too simple and obvious to call for specific enumeration." There’s only one way to read it if you are going by the image on the card. Heartbreak. Pain. Emotional suffering.

"Lord of Sorrow" the Golden Dawn called it. So what, I’ve always wondered, does heartbreak, sorrow, and pain have to do with mental growth and expansion? With the first stage of completion of intellectual activity? You’d think that the first stage of completion of one’s mental activity would be a good thing. . . . or, at least, that it could be a good thing, assuming that it was a good idea or mental or intellectual process to begin with.

How does one square the image with the numerology/elemental interpretation? Can one square the image (and the Golden Dawn moniker) with the numerological/elemental interpretation? Should one even try?

Some tarotists don’t. If they want to follow a numerological-elemental system, they either ignore the image, or find or create another deck where the Three of Swords image is more in keeping with their chosen interpretation.

Astrologically, the Golden Dawn associated the Three of Swords with Saturn in Libra. This, from Wang’s Qabalistic Tarot: "Saturn is a very powerful planet, sometimes called 'The Great Destroyer,' and sometimes 'The Great Initiator.' Its presence usually means pain and hardship but this should not be taken as evil. It is through suffering . . . . that we learn life's most important lessons. Saturn throws the scales of Libra off balance in order that they may be rebalanced in a better way."

Saturn, the Greater Malefic. The Great Teacher. But no kindly Mr. Chips, this guy. Tough love. Strictures. Discipline and limitations. The School of Hard Knocks. Hurdles you only barely make it over. The burden you didn’t think you could possibly carry, until you realized you could. The most valuable lessons are the most painful ones. Or, as police say, "That which does not kill you will only make you stronger." If we are wise, we learn to accept, if not embrace, the tough challenges, and look for the lessons to be learned from them.

So Saturn, with its limitations and tough lessons, can bring sorrow, pain, and heartbreak, but if we are wise, we strive to reach the kind of sorrow, or rather, the stage or state of sorrow, where we accept the pain, and are looking for the lessons we have learned - or the lessons to be learned, or the value to be gained, from whatever we’ve experienced.

This, from Isabel Kliegman's Tarot and the Tree of Life: "When pain comes, it's time to grieve. But what's fascinating and heartening is that when we stop denying and resisting pain, when we allow pain into our hearts, it doesn't come unaccompanied. Something else comes along with it . . . peace and faith and love and hope: a sense of the divine presence. The worst part of pain, we often find, results from resisting it, pushing against it . . . If we can somehow release the resistance . . . something else is released. Panic, perhaps, the fear of not being able to go on. The grieving is clean . . . nothing festers . . . It hurts . . . and then it heals."

It reminds me a bit of the Kubler-Ross stages of grief: Stage 1 - Denial and isolation; Stage 2 - Anger; Stage 3 - Bargaining; Stage 4 - Depression; Stage 5 - Acceptance. If we are lucky, we make it to Stage 5 with our Saturn experiences.

Can any of this be seen to resonate with the numerological-elemental interpretation? Perhaps I can now see a possibility:

Sometimes our intellect is the very part of us that enables us to make it to Stage 5. Consider what happens when someone has had a tough encounter with The Great Teacher. The emotional reactions may be very much like the Stages of Grief: Denial - I can’t believe this is happening to me. Anger: Why is this happening to me? Bargaining: I’ll do better/try harder/be a better person if you’ll only take it back/take it away. These reactions may well be followed by a sad, depressed time when faith in oneself, or those around one, or the Order of the Universe, is shaken. Throughout all of this, the person is ruled by emotion - anger, sorrow - and this is true and natural even though the person knows that there are lessons to be learned and value to be gained from the experience. Question: What enables him/her to weather the storm - to make it through to Stage 5? Answer: Intellect. Relying on the knowledge that things will begin to feel better eventually, even though it doesn’t seem possible right now. Sheer mental determination. Knowing that life isn’t over, even though it feels that it is, and that "this too shall pass."

Perhaps this is one of the highest and best uses of the intellect, and as good a candidate as any for the "first state of achievement" of mental energy - that is, where it is utilized to help us meet the challenges of tough times.

With the Ace of Swords, we are handed a keen-edged sword, the gifts of mental clarity and acumen. At this point, it’s not so hard to exercise our intellect. Not so hard either, perhaps, in the Two, when we begin to experience duality in our intellectual processes, but are still calm and perfectly balanced - operating purely in the mental realm with no outside input. Ah, but in the Three, intellect meets its first real test. The duality inherent in the Two inevitably brings opposition. Perhaps our ideas have crashed headlong into someone else’s ideas. Perhaps, as Mark McElroy suggested earlier this year on the Tarot-L and Comparative Tarot lists, this is the point where our ideas have seen their first physical expression and are either disappointing to us, or have not been well-accepted by others. Perhaps this is the point where we realize that our Ace idea was not so good at all. Perhaps this is the point where we are stunned by the realization that we don't know nearly as much as we though we did. There are many scenarios, but the common factor is the pain we experience.

When we are full of sorrow, and in the midst of an emotional tornado after Saturn has tipped our scales out of balance - that’s when it’s really hard to think. That's when it's a real challenge to cut through the emotion enough to have any mental clarity at all, hard to calmly rely on our intellect . But rely upon it we must, if we are to make it through to Stage 5 . . . where wisdom is to be found.

This, also, from Kleigman: "The Three is the fulfillment of the Suit of Swords because it shows the willingness, the courage, the honesty to experience the pain in our life."

This is where I ended up in my understanding of the Three of Swords - at least at this point in my studies - so this is the image I tried to capture for the card. The woman depicted is obviously sorrowful, but she is past open displays of emotion, be it grief or anger, directed at whatever has caused her pain. She has reached a point of deep contemplation. She is trying, as Rachel Pollack says in 78 Degrees of Wisdom, to ". . . .not push the pain away. . . . but somehow take it deep inside until it becomes transformed by courage and love." A ghostly Saturn floats in the background, very much present with her, but also definitely behind her. She is moving forward from whatever difficult experience she has been through. The swords are in front of her, signaling that her intellect will continue to assist her in working through and with her sorrow. The swords are razor-sharp, but have kris (ridged or serpentine) blades, because our mental processes during such times do not always flow in nice straight lines.

Keywords: Sorrow accepted. Pain embraced. Difficult lessons learned. Using the intellect to aid in getting through emotionally trying experiences.

Notes on the Card Itself

This card was a milestone for me: my first time creating a card in Photoshop 6.0. Once I got into it, it was a lot easier and more fun than I had expected! I think the creation of this card - from my initial reaction to the challenge to finished product - was a Saturn lesson in microcosm, and it has demonstrated for me just how much one can learn about a card by creating one.

The image of the woman is extracted from an unfinished work by British painter John Melhuish Strudwick (1849-1937), entitled "When Sorrow Comes in Summer Days, Roses Bloom in Vain." It, along with other of Strudwick’s works can be found at ArtMagick.com.

The image of the planet Saturn was captured by Voyager 2 on August 13, 1981. I had to draw in a portion of the rings where they were eclipsed by the planet, and I played with the colors a little bit. The original, along with a bunch of other cool stuff, can be viewed at NASA’s National Space Science Data Center Photo Gallery.

The basis for the images of the swords came from SwordsOnline.com. Fellow aficionados of edged weapons will definitely enjoy a romp through this site. The font is Lublick. Fellow font addicts can download it at ArtToday.com.

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