3 of Swords

I see life as cruel and meaningless

Seeing a world which appears to be cruel and uncompromising can bring us to a point of despair. In the Three of Swords a young man sits with his head down. We can feel his sense of deep sadness. I imagined him as a street artist, expressing his anguish through his art which appears behind him on the wall. The head of the floating surreal figure is a “mask of shame,” a medieval torture device worn for the purpose of public humiliation and rejection.

Throughout history people have been forced to a display a mark of shame, a stigma to deter others. This taps into something very primal. In early humans, where survival was ultimately linked with collaboration, to be rejected by your tribe was effectively a death sentence. In later cultures, artists, writers, intellectuals, anyone who dared to think differently and admit a different sexual orientation risked being shamed and outcast. The violence and suffering human beings can inflict on other humans -and indeed, all living creatures – beggars belief. And yet it exists and cannot be ignored.

Three swords are propped against the wall. One of them looks like it’s falling against the sitting figure. These swords appear as if they  have been carelessly left behind by their owners. As objects they are crafted pieces of metal sitting against the wall, yet  in the hands of men, they can cause unimaginable suffering.

The hawk and the feather remind us of the possibility of freedom, even in the face of despair. The dripping heart – painted almost as an after-thought – communicates that only through love, the heart, can we be liberated from the burdens of existence. The luminous fetus offers hope of rebirth which awaits within the darkest depths. This fullness of being can only be reached when we are able to touch our deepest sorrow. The roughly painted question mark sign gives us a clue as to how we can transform our reality.

The Three of Swords suggests the quality of your life experience is directly proportionate to the quality of the questions you ask. And so another interpretation of the figure emerges, as one who like the Buddha, sits determined to penetrate the truth. He will not move from his spot until he has an answer. Many spiritual teachings describe how we must go down through layer after layer of our personality, until we get to the last layer and fall through into a meaningless and empty space.

But if we are able to fall yet further into the darkness of meaninglessness, we arrive at “nothing.” And from nothing we can create anything. This card tells us our sorrow must be acknowledged, the despair is something we all share. When we see how it carries the seeds of new growth we can surrender to it, allowing it to move through and transform us.