This is a card of…

Passage

Painful choices

Transitions

Journeys

Clarity

“You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could’ve, would’ve happened… or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move the fuck on..”

-Tupak Shakur

The Six of Swords is about the journey from one phase of life to another. This card speaks especially to those times when the decision to make a change is painful. We have matured enough to understand that we must leave something behind and set off toward unfamiliar territory. This may mean facing an unpleasant truth, or letting go of a cherished but impossible idea of the future.

The images typical of this card show a huddled figure or figures being ferried over the water in the dead of night. In the best illustrations you can feel the silence and sadness of the journey. There is a feel of an escape-from-abuser or refugee scenario. The journey involves pain and the loss of the familiar previous life but it must be taken.

Swords are the suit of intellect, yet we cannot escape how emotional this card feels. As in the Three of the same suit, the swords of clarity are cutting the heart. But in the Three the work to be done was only to face the painful truth. Here in the Six, the truth we cannot un-see demands movement.

This card seems sad to those unfamiliar with these transitions, but for those of us who have experienced just such a painful leave-taking, it is almost a relief. We will look back someday knowing in hindsight that this was the time when new possibilities opened up for us. Our only regret may be that the truth didn’t come to us sooner.

The SIXES:

• Fork-in-the-road decisions
• Search for harmony
• Moral complexity
• Balance