Tarot Spread: When You Know But Don't Know
After chatting with Holly Enchanted live on Instagram a few weeks ago about tarot spreads and cards that provide us with some difficulty when we see them in our own readings, I promised to make a tarot spread to help her with the 2 of Swords because she often gets it when she doesn’t want to do what she knows she needs to do. So what do you do with that? That was my position going into making this spread. But as I thought about the card, Holly’s experience, and my own, I started to put a different picture together.
I love many depictions of the 2 of Swords, but I agree that it’s a challenging card to interpret when you’re trying to find an answer or guidance in a reading for yourself. (I suspect that it’s a bigger pain for us Tauruses to see than less steadfastly earth folk, but I’ll get into that later.) When I turn to the tarot for answers, I don’t need a card that tells me to look inward for answers. That’s why I’m using an intuitive tool like tarot. Yes, the cards themselves are outside of my body, but the meanings come from within (at least that’s how most experienced readers I know read tarot). How is it helpful to hear that again? It’s very helpful actually, but it took me until thinking about Holly’s problem to realize it.
The card in the Rider / Smith-Waite deck shows a woman holding two swords in (stressful) balance, blindfolded, seated before a moonlit ocean. In the Thoth system, it’s called Peace because the number and element create a balanced (2) mind (Swords/air); all of the pain and suffering of the suit is still to come.
So why is it challenging? Astrologically, it’s tied to the first decan of Libra, which is affected by the Moon (“Moon in Libra”), and that’s a soft, feminine and peaceful energy. It combines the energy of the High Priestess (the Moon) and Justice/Adjustment (Libra), which you can see in Smith’s illustration. There is such stillness and wisdom in those two women, and it carries through to the seaside, moonlit mini-Justice. But the seemingly still mind is constantly in motion. The scales of Libra need time to settle, but the Moon never stops moving. Although it’s constant and therefore predictable and peaceful, it’s constantly in motion. When the waves aren’t rising, they’re ebbing. There is no standing still as with the 4 of Swords. That feels at odds with the beautiful balance of the 2, but it makes sense when you think about the strain on the woman’s shoulders as depicted in Pamela Colman Smith’s card. Peace is tenuous. It looks like it’s easy on the outside, but inside, it takes a lot of work to maintain that superficial ease.
So let’s come back to why this might be challenging in a reading for yourself and why that is actually helpful. What if we looked at this card’s astrology, Moon in Libra, as pitting the High Priestess and Justice against each other? We can imagine that one sword is intuitive, subconscious thought; the other is objective, rational fact. Through that lens, we see a new purpose in its frustrating messages. It’s a card that reminds us that we know what to do but something is making us question it. For Holly and me, there’s this conflict between what we know to do and what we feel like doing. In such situations, the intuitive and the logical butt heads. Which source of wisdom is the right one to choose, that of the High Priestess or that of Lady Justice? Why are we questioning our approach?
As I said, it might be a Taurus thing since Holly and I share that sun sign and we tend toward pragmatic and feet-on-the-ground results, but I think that this card appears when we don’t want to do what we know we should do because our logic and intuition are at odds. Thinking back on it, I see this card when I know the logical way to approach something—I’ve thought long and hard about it—but instead I need to consider going with my intuition and the irrational insights that I can’t explain. It calls me out to go with my gut and not with my rational brain. It feels almost like a challenge to put up (my tarot-reader intuition) or shut up. And that can actually be really hard if you read tarot a lot in a pragmatic way. If you use tarot as a tool to help make sense of the world in order to make smarter decisions, feeling the full power of its inexplicable woo can be unsettling.
In this context, the 2 of Swords is saying, There’s a reason why you don’t want to do the thing that you know you’re supposed to do. It’s just hard to accept because it’s not rational. So that’s why I’ve organized this tarot spread the way that I have.
As always, you can use this spread to examine the topic at hand, or you can use it when you pull the 2 of Swords, and it doesn’t seem to make sense or (more likely) it doesn’t seem helpful.
The Sword of Justice: What does rational thought tell me is true? (You can also choose this rather than draw it.)
The Priestess’s Sword: What does unconscious wisdom urge me to believe?
Intersection: To what extent are these two really at odds?
Solid Ground: What must I accept as unchangeable?
Mystic Sea: What am I not seeing?
Blindfold: Why have I been blind to this?
Crescent: How can I know whether to trust my intuition or my reason?
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