--By Hyperion Night, of Beanblossom's Tea and Tarot
The Eight of Swords
The prison of our minds. Victim mentality. Feeling trapped. Crisis. Self-imposed limitations.
Are you ready for a confession?
Last night, I went to a party and put my foot directly into my mouth. And I didn’t realize I’d done it until the man I’d been talking to walked away. I went home thinking about it and thinking about it and finally called to apologize.
He had no idea what I was talking about.
Of course.
I’d been over thinking my presumed faux pas. My worrying ruined the evening for me and most of the next morning. And all for nothing.
In Tarot’s Eight of Swords, a bound and blindfolded prisoner is surrounded by eight swords, stuck upright in the rocky ground. The eight swords don’t make a very good prison though. The prisoner can easily make their way through. If the blindfold was off.
But that’s the problem. It’s hard to see through the barrier when what’s blocking you is in your own head. Like my obsession about having spoken in a less than stellar way at that party.
Last night’s case of the Eight of Swords is only a mild example. But it can be debilitating.
That friend of yours who’s so certain they can’t succeed that they never try.
Or that pessimist cousin who expects disaster so problems are ALL they ever see.
And don’t get me started on that person who over complicates EVERYTHING and then wonders why it’s so hard to get things done.
So when this card appears in a Tarot reading, it’s an opportunity to try to figure out what thoughts are blocking you. Or turned another way, you have a problem (everyone does). How are your own thoughts contributing to it?
What limitations have you placed on yourself or on the situation, and are they helping or harming?
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