Crystal Tarot - Swords 1-5

Hi everyone,

Following on from a little chat we had going in the Decks section of the forum where we discussed the Chalices in this deck, I thought I would 'ramble' once again, this time about the Swords. The swords in this deck still correspond to the mind but the depicted element is water. Please feel free to chip in and add or argue any point you wish. You can see the Ace here
http://www.mystery-games.com/crystaltarot.html

The Ace - This card shows a hand holding a downward pointing sword. It looks like the sword is just about to attempt to pierce the hard shell of a crab which is sitting on the bottom of the sea. Its interesting because the sword breaks the water near the front of the card which I think helps add some depth to the card and its meaning: depths of the mind. Also dont crabs only live in the shallows? Not sure. Anyway the water is shown in varying shades of greeny blue with a yellow band and a couple of pink ones. What does the colour mean?? There are two crescent moons or are they solar eclipses??

Duality is seen in the two as two swords but also as two halves of the card, with one half being different colour to the other. The ground appears to have lines in it signifying : a split, opposition, a rift. The swords dont touch, its almost like they have called a truce or are thinking about what they want to do or are equally matched.

Now the three is interesting, the swords make a triangle and within it is a lotus leaf. I see the isolation, separation here. This triangle is almost within a very difficult to see bubble (!) Two other lotus leaves are neither in nor outside of the bubble. There is a fish floating on the surface and it looks helpless as its upside down. Interesting! The three swords could be giving support (?)

The four - difficult to get, but my take on it is this: The bubble from the last card is becoming more defined and four swords pierce it but there are gaps and basically all is calm. The circle is open, other thoughts can still get in. I think of this as the circles of my mind. The zodiac signs for cancer and scorpio are in this card. In fact I've just realised that there are four scorpio signs, one in each quarter of the circle and they are reflections of each other! A couple of lotus flowers (or are they water lillies, not sure)too.

The five - Has a pentacle in the middle and an eye at the top. The water in this card is very dark in the centre of the card and becomes lighter as you come down the card. The LWB talks of losing even when you are winning. I like this card. I think of blurred vision when I look at it. The struggle and chaos is evident.

I'm going to stop now because just as in the chalices it gets harder the higher you go!! Hope I havn't bored anyone too much. If you can see anything else of any significance please join in. Will try and do 6-10 tomorrow

J.

Hi jewel-ry,

I'm so glad you've started this study! I found the swords in this deck confusing because of the water attribution.
...

Ace: I thought the two crescents were suns being eclipsed by moons, thus the yellow color in the water is reflected sunlight (yellow colored; happy, joyous emotions). The pink/magenta colors in water I took to be representing the deeper, passionate types of emotions (love, hate; red colored emotions). The sword is threatening the crab and emotions begin their rise to the surface of the mind?

Two: I always took the upper half of the card to be water-filled storm clouds and the bottom half as lightening from the clouds. Now after looking more closely, it appears that the card could be viewed as the bottom being the sky, with the lightening above striking into a watery sea. (I know some of the cards were turned from right-facing to left-facing, but can't imagine this was turned upside-down!) This adds another duality! Which way is up?

Three: This one always seems negative to me. The water seems murky, not so clean. A floating fish is usually a dead one (a couple red streaks in water surrounding it) and plants only grow in stagnant water. Sorry to sound so dark about this one! The triangle encourages motion up, like a cleansing. I've read that a triangle with the apex up and having a line parallel to its base is a symbol for Air. There's a red border along the bottom of card. Maybe a reference to the traditional Swords?

That's about all I can offer now. Some cards in are just baffling. Like the virtual duplicates (4,8,10 and 6,9). What's with that??

ps: will look at the thread about the Chalices since they have some vagueness for me too.

here you can find the scans of the five cards.

Kaz,

Thats brilliant! Thank-you!!! Now no-one has an excuse for not knowing what they look like which means they can comment whether they have the deck or not. Yeeaahh


J

Thank-you rubricat,

I have just read your reply to this post.

About the Ace, I too thought they were suns being eclipsed by the moon. I'm not so sure about the emotion thing because even though swords are represented by water in this deck, they still relate to the realm of the mind.

Really liked your take on the two, never thought about the top being storm clouds and the bottom lightening from the clouds but I can see that now. Thats good! I agree it is thought provoking - which way is up? - but if you pulled the card reversed..............

I am going to attempt the swords 6-10 in another thread. Please join me????

J

P.S. Thanks again Kaz. Any chance of scans 6-10????

J

Yes Jewel-ry -- count me in!
Thanks again for starting this up this discussion. It's so good to be able to bounce ideas with someone else!

When you have a chance, could you discuss what you think is happening with the duplications? Do you see a significance in the numbers selected for the duplicate images?

until next time...

jewel-ry said:

Any chance of scans 6-10????

Click to expand...

if you start a new thread i will add them there....

Thread already started.

Thanks Kaz!!

J

Ace
The crescent moon symbolising spiritual enlightenment appears at the wrist of the