ros said:
Where is the man in this card laying?
Just wondering what the blue in this card is...
land or water?
If it is water that would bring emotions into this
card. I was always thinking he was on land, and
now maybe a beach. (don't know)
I'd say he's by a body of water with hills, blue in the distance. He appears to be on land - though not necessarily a beach. I usually think of it as a lake because there's no movement indicated in the water - the water itself looks placid or even lifeless.
The swords cards are equated with very strong, mostly disturbing emotions. Most people respond to the difficult swords cards emotionally - they can't help it. I did a whole Tarot & Emotions research project in part precisely because of the strong emotions evoked by the Swords.
Here are the words picked most often for the Ten of Swords:
hopeless (x15)
overwhelmed (x12)
despair (x11)
exhausted (x5)
hatred (x5)
pity (x3)
apathetic (x2)
fear (x2)
HoneyBea said:
For me to understand what the creators of this deck are trying to say is, and again I say for me personally, the first step into gaining a greater understanding of this card - so my comments are based on my understanding of the symbolism and not how I would conduct a reading.
Waite says little about this card:
"A prostrate figure, pierced by all the swords belonging to the card. Divinatory Meanings: Whatsoever is intimated by the design; also pain, affliction, tears, sadness, desolation. It is not especially a card of violent death."
And, in his additional meanings: imprisonment; treason on the part of friends [i.e., 'stabbed in the back'].
Waite was very specific in his use of words. The key in his description seems to be "prostrate," which means "to cast (oneself) face down on the ground in humility, submission, or adoration [and] to overthrow, overcome, or reduce to helplessness."
Also, *pierce* = to penetrate or cut through - "by all the swords" = mind, intellect. This suggests a kind of ultimate penetration [that is also a kind of deadend].
And his main emotion: *desolation* = Random House Dict: "The desolate person is deprived of human consolation, relationships, or presence."
I have a copy of PKT that once belonged to a priest. In it,he points to Rev. 19:15: "And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God." [The poor guy looks like he's the grapes that were pressed!]
This priest also points to Waite's book _The Holy Kabbalah_, p. 289: "The Flaming Sword which turned every way signifies angels set over the chastisement of man in this world." This is in a section on the Fall of Man and the Legend of the Deluge (Flood) in which Waite talks about both Eve and Noah having pressed grapes into wine. "The fact that Noah pressed the grapes—as Eve is said also to have done—partook of the juice and so became drunken, is affirmed to contain a mystery of wisdom. . . . Noah . . . having set himself to fathom that sin which had caused the fall of the first man. . . . he raised a corner of the veil concerning that breach of the world which outght always to remain secret (p. 294-295)." Waite then refers to the dangers of partial knowledge. From this we might deduce that the man on the shore is one of the damned humans not saved by Noah, following the Deluge. Could Waite have been referring to this? Damned right - it would be just like him!
In the Grail & Masonic Mysteries that Waite used when devising the Minor Arcana, this card refers specifically to the death of the Master Builder (murdered by his brethern through treason) as well that of the many knights who perished on the Quest. In the Welsh Perceval, it is the 'Sword which broke and was rejoined, [and] in the stress of the last trial, was shattered beyond recovery."
Waite specifically tells us in PKT that the Knight of Swords is Galahad (who was girded with the Sword of David). He explains how the "Quest of Galahad" tells how "the Warden of the Mysteries together with the Holy Things [the four suits/Grail Hallows], was removed once and for all . . . [because] the world was not worthy." and "The death pictured in the Mysteries is therefore in no sense physical, but is mystical, like the resurrection which follows it." Waite, _The Hidden Church of the Holy Grail_. Remember that in PKT, he said: "It is not especially a card of violent death."
This is the suit of Swords taken to an extreme - the nth degree. Yet in reaching its ultimate conclusion, nothing further can be done in that direction through either thought or aspiration, and so there's room for a new possibility to emerge [the rising of the black clouds revealing yellow light] - though it has to come from a new and different place.
Mary