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Six of Swords
Six swords stand upright in the boat as you cross to calmer water. They're the hurt you're taking somewhere it can settle. The far shore is quieter, and for now that's enough.
- Rank
- Six — Harmony
- Suit
- Swords — air, thought
- Reads as
- Mental balance found by moving on.
- Transition
- Moving on
- Leaving behind
- Travel
- Gradual progress
What Six of Swords means
Most Swords figures are alone with their thoughts, but this is the one card in the suit where someone carries someone else. You may be a passenger here, or the one holding the pole and getting another person through.
The old description of this card calls the freight light even with six swords aboard, and the work within the strength of whoever is poling. Read literally, it's a journey by water, and in a question about plans it can mean an actual trip.
When you'd see this
Moving to another city puts a hard year a few hundred miles behind you.
Sunday nights feel like the weekend again now that you've left the job that had become impossible.
You've made peace with the divorce, and slowly you start to picture what comes next.
What's in the picture
-
1
A figure ferrying two passengersA figure poles a small boat across a river. In it sit an adult and child, hunched and quiet. Not escaping: being moved across, deliberately, to the other side.
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2
Six swords standing upright in the boatSix swords stand point-down in the boat itself. The difficult mental contents are coming along. You haven't forgotten. You're carrying it somewhere new.
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3
Choppy water behind, calm aheadLook at the water: rougher behind the boat, smoother ahead. The crossing itself is the card. From troubled waters toward calmer ones, not yet reached.
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4
The far shore in the distanceA shore waits across the water, just a quiet bank. The destination isn't a paradise. It's somewhere else. Sometimes that's all you need: just different.
Reversed
Four ways to read this card reversed. Which one depends on the question.
Blocked. The boat is still at the bank, and you keep finding reasons to stay.
Internal. You crossed weeks ago but the shore hasn't caught up.
Excess. Crossing again and again, and never staying anywhere long.
Shadow. Leaving is easier than arriving, so you keep leaving.
Where it sits in the suit
The Suit of Swords, ace to king
Ten numbered beats, then four people who carry them.
In Cups, the Six finds harmony by looking back; this one finds it by leaving. When the two turn up in one reading, they often mean leaving somewhere you'll miss.
Reading a card is a skill, not a lookup
Every Swords card here is taught in full in Chapter IV of Little Grimoire, with drills that make the meanings stick.
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