BradGad Posted June 2 Posted June 2 (edited) Many experience the Three of Swords as a problematic card. I was certainly in this camp for a long time. The RWS version in particular... that image of a heart pierced by three swords is very hard to "unsee," even in spreads where that imagery can be, umm, counterproductive. I recently acquired Lon Milo DuQuette's Tarot of Ceremonial Magic (TCM) (highly recommended!). Early on, I did a version of a deck interview asking what would be the most constructive role for me to play as we (the deck and I) worked together. I do a three-card spread and then do a modulo 21 operation on the numerical value of those three cards to indicate a trump that will serve as a "frame" or "context" card. So, four cards. Three of the cards were very positive and I could immediately see how they answered my question, how they directed me toward a constructive role I can play when working with the deck. But one of the cards was the Three of Swords. The TCM gives the small cards names, following Crowley's Thoth deck. The Three of Swords is named "Sorrow." At first I felt something like, "Aw man! Bummer! Three great cards, but also Sorrow!" But I sat with this for a time, in actual meditation and also in regular vector-time pondering. And I have come to view the presence of the card as a very positive thing. In other strands of my practice, I have been working on softening my heart, opening my heart chakra, trying to be better able to feel and empathize with others. And I realized: Sorrow can be a powerful gate for this. I was reminded of a story I love deeply, Oscar Wilde's "The Selfish Giant": "And the Giant's heart melted as he looked out... He was really very sorry for what he had done." And then yesterday I was introduced to a nifty little book, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, by John Koenig. Please let me quote something from the introduction: "The word sadness originally meant 'fullness,' from the same Latin root, satis, that also gave us sated and satisfaction. Not so long ago, to be sad meant you were filled to the brim with some intensity of experience. It wasn’t just a malfunction in the joy machine. It was a state of awareness — setting the focus to infinity and taking it all in, joy and grief all at once. When we speak of sadness these days, most of the time what we really mean is despair, which is literally defined as the absence of hope. But true sadness is actually the opposite, an exuberant upwelling that reminds you how fleeting and mysterious and open-ended life can be. That’s why you’ll find traces of the blues all over this book, but you might find yourself feeling strangely joyful at the end of it. And if you are lucky enough to feel sad, well, savor it while it lasts — if only because it means that you care about something in this world enough to let it under your skin." I now feel honored that the tarot gave me the job taking on sorrow. If I am able to soften my heart through sorrow, that will be a great gift. So... next time you turn over the Three of Swords... well, perhaps try seeing this as a gift. Edited June 2 by BradGad
katrinka Posted June 2 Posted June 2 Hard disagree. You might get away with that on minor matters, but I would NOT tell someone experiencing something like the murder of a child that it was a "gift." It's a card of separation and sorrow. End of story. Sugarcoating is never a good idea and in some circumstances can actually be offensive: like when you minimize someone's suffering and call it a "gift."
DanielJUK Posted June 2 Posted June 2 I've moved this to the Individual Card Meanings section @BradGad there is some good recent discussion about this card on this thread here....
gregory Posted June 2 Posted June 2 (edited) 2 hours ago, katrinka said: Sugarcoating is never a good idea and in some circumstances can actually be offensive: like when you minimize someone's suffering and call it a "gift." This has the nasty smack of the same people who tell me that I an "differently abled". There is NO WAY that being deaf is a gift. It's not the catastrophe some people think, but a gift - no. It shuts you out of stuff. Cuts you off. It has been shown to shorten lives because of loneliness from not being able fully to join in. All you non-deaf people out there can experience what I do using high class earplugs. I can never experience sound as you all do. Don't tell me that's a privilege. This is not a pity party; I am fine with it all and have a wide social circle - but I will never see it as a gift. Same goes for 3 Swords. It is bitter hurt and sorrow. As Katrinka says - would you really tell someone experiencing some of the awful things going on today (I would cite a few but politics is banned) as a GIFT ? Edited June 2 by gregory multiple typos :(
katrinka Posted June 2 Posted June 2 42 minutes ago, gregory said: This has the nasty smack of the same people who tell me that I an "differently abled". There is NO WAY that being deaf is a gift. It's not the catastrophe some propel think, but a gift - no. It shuts you out of stuff. Cuts you off. It has been shown to shorten lives because of loneliness from not being able fully to join in. All you non-deaf people out there can experience what I do using high class earplugs. I can never experience sound as you all do. Don't tell me that;'s a privilege. This is not a pity p[arty; I am fine with it all and have a wide social circle - but I will never see it as a gift. Same goes for 3 Swords. It is bitter hurt and sorrow. As Katrinka says - would you really tell someone experiencing some of the awful things going on today (I would cite a few but politics is banned) as a GIFT ? Exactly. And even if a person's misfortune has somehow made them better or stronger in the long run, it's still not a "gift." If there's a "gift", it's that person's ability to deal with adversity. NOT the actual loss and pain they're subjected to. Plus, interpreting 3S as a "gift" is getting away from the reading. It's just making stuff up, not reading cards.
BradGad Posted June 2 Author Posted June 2 The card is “sorrow,” not “suffering.” It *can* mean something awful like the given example, the murder of a child, but it doesn’t always. I am not saying that we should tell someone facing a tradegy to look at it as a gift. I am saying that the capacity to experience sorrow — especially in the sense Koenig describes — can be part of the emotional range of a healthy person.
fire cat pickles Posted June 2 Posted June 2 (edited) 35 minutes ago, BradGad said: The card is “sorrow,” not “suffering.” It *can* mean something awful like the given example, the murder of a child, but it doesn’t always. I am not saying that we should tell someone facing a tradegy to look at it as a gift. I am saying that the capacity to experience sorrow — especially in the sense Koenig describes — can be part of the emotional range of a healthy person. Not sure it's healthy. Book of Thoth calls it "Weltschmerz" or "the universal sorrow; it is the quality of melancholy." This may be closer to psychological depression, or "suffering." (We say someone "suffers from depression, don't we?") It is specifically described antithetically to "any vulgar sorrow." I just can't see any redeeming quality to this card. To downplay the severity of this card would be like saying to a depressed person, "Think how lucky you are" or "Just try to be more positive;" "It's just a phase;" "Things will get better;" (or "It can be part of the emotional range of a healthy person" 😉 etc.; instead of helping them or encouraging them to seek professional help. My point is that this is (referring back to the original source material) a very, very serious card, "dark and heavy ... the womb of Chaos," in Saturn's domain, an eater of children. Creation, or some positive result, may eventually come out of it, but someone is going to pay a dear price for it. Edited June 2 by fire cat pickles
katrinka Posted June 2 Posted June 2 25 minutes ago, BradGad said: The card is “sorrow,” not “suffering.” And you don't consider sorrow to be a form of suffering? Sorrowful people don't suffer? 26 minutes ago, BradGad said: It *can* mean something awful like the given example, the murder of a child, but it doesn’t always. Usually nothing that extreme. It might be something as minor as losing your keys - but people who lose their keys don't consider it a gift. 30 minutes ago, BradGad said: I am not saying that we should tell someone facing a tradegy to look at it as a gift. It's exactly what you said earlier: 4 hours ago, BradGad said: So... next time you turn over the Three of Swords... well, perhaps try seeing this as a gift. 35 minutes ago, BradGad said: I am saying that the capacity to experience sorrow — especially in the sense Koenig describes — can be part of the emotional range of a healthy person. FCP beat me to it: 14 minutes ago, fire cat pickles said: To downplay the severity of this card would be like saying to a depressed person, "Think how lucky you are" or "Just try to be more positive," "It's just a phase." "Things will get better," (or "It can be part of the emotional range of a healthy person" 😉 etc. instead of helping them or encouraging them to seek professional help. And FYI, you're citing this Koenig like he's Voltaire or Shakespeare or Jung: somebody we should actually be familiar with. He's not. He's an obscure kindle author and, going off of what you've said here, not worth bothering with.
Aeon418 Posted June 2 Posted June 2 1 hour ago, fire cat pickles said: I just can't see any redeeming quality to this card. People who are happy and contented tend not to seek a deeper meaning in life. Their "needs" are being met, so why would they look elsewhere? The 3 of Swords - Sorrow - may be the very thing needed to jolt them out of their mundane comfort and security.
katrinka Posted June 2 Posted June 2 14 minutes ago, Aeon418 said: People who are happy and contented tend not to seek a deeper meaning in life. Their "needs" are being met, so why would they look elsewhere? The 3 of Swords - Sorrow - may be the very thing needed to jolt them out of their mundane comfort and security. So can cancer. That doesn't redeem cancer itself. Again, our job is to read what's on the table, not speculate on possible ways the sitter might react to it.
Chariot Posted June 2 Posted June 2 (edited) As in most things tarot, I do believe the 3 of Swords is no different from other cards in one respect—its meaning, as applied to a situation, is all about context. What 3 of Swords usually means, when it comes upright for me (or another querent), is that whatever I was hoping for, wanting, or anticipating (with pleasure) isn't going to happen. This can range from minor disappointment to—I suppose—major losses, shocks, and upsets, if the reading is about these kinds of issues. I can be left anywhere from feeling a bit dumped, to being brokenhearted. Depending on context, it can also mean I should try to be less emotional about an issue, and use logic to work through whatever the problem is. Context is key, at least for me. Edited June 2 by Chariot
katrinka Posted June 2 Posted June 2 (edited) 9 minutes ago, Chariot said: What 3 of Swords usually means, when it comes upright for me (or another querent), is that whatever I was hoping for, wanting, or anticipating (with pleasure) isn't going to happen. This can range from minor disappointment to—I suppose—major losses, shocks, and upsets, if the reading is about these kinds of issues. I can be left anywhere from feeling a bit dumped, to being brokenhearted. Yes. And if it's not in a nasty cluster with 9S, 10S, etc. it might not be too severe, but it's still bad. You need bad cards in the deck in order for it to work. Otherwise you might as well toss the Tarot and use one of those affirmation "oracle" decks. Edited June 2 by katrinka
gregory Posted June 2 Posted June 2 14 minutes ago, katrinka said: You need bad cards in the deck in order for it to work. Otherwise you might as well toss the Tarot and use one of those affirmation "oracle" decks. This, so much. WE do not need another Doreen Virtue taking out all the cards that might upset people. Often we need to be upset, and for that to happen is not necessarily a gift of ANY kind.
geoxena Posted June 2 Posted June 2 (edited) It's been a long time, so I can't remember who told this to me, or if I read it somewhere, but I've never forgotten what they said about the Three of Swords: "There is nothing subtle about this card. It's about PAIN, the kind of pain that goes beyond hurt into heartbreak." Now, as some folks said in the other thread about this card, it can be a painful truth or painful realization, more mental anguish than emotional hurt - but it is pain, nonetheless. And I think it's also very much about acknowledging the pain. I mean, that pierced heart is right there, in your face, front and center, dripping blood, taking up most of the card. And in RWS and a lot of decks, that heart is surrounded by grey skies, storm clouds, and a downpour of rain - quite a gloomy image, which also seems to say that you can't get away from this pain (we can't control or stop the rain). If someone has some kind of heartache or deep disappointment in their life, I don't think telling them to see it as a gift would be at all constructive. Usually facing the pain and allowing oneself to feel it is the way to move on from it. Sure, after moving on, we can look back at what we learned or how we got past it, and possibly see how some aspects of the experience turned out to be a gift. I felt that way about my divorce, eventually, but it took me about four years to get there. Still, whatever insights I gained do not negate the fact that it was (and still is) one of the most painful events in my life. Unless it's in a position indicating the past, when this card comes up, I think the message tends to be more urgent or immediate, a sort of red flag warning to say, "Look! Don't turn away! You can't hide from it!" Edited June 3 by geoxena
JoyousGirl Posted June 2 Posted June 2 9 hours ago, BradGad said: trying to be better able to feel and empathize with others. And I realized: Sorrow can be a powerful gate for this. What are we here for? This card is certainly an opportunity for this - an experiential understanding. The Buddhist First Noble Truth is "there is suffering". There's no way to 'get around it', we just have to go through it. To some extent those of us in "developed" countries are cushioned from sorrow, we can take to drink or pills, distract ourselves with TV, food, retail therapy, or...? Religion exists because of it. Yet there's an attempt to escape it - in ourselves and in others. Ultimately that's going to make it a lot worse for a lot more people, but I digress. The card represents pain. Khalil Gibran said: Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain. And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy; And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields. And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief. Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity: For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen, And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears. If one believes in transmigration and evolution of the soul, and/or the soul choosing lessons it will undertake in each lifetime, this could be part of it. Then there's cause and effect. You can't tell someone having the experience mentioned that, though. So if we see the card, we're aware of what it represents, but how do we deal with it? There's reading for ourselves and then reading for others. There's extremes of the experience, as Katrinka described. While a lot of sitters come out of curiosity, many are at a crossroads or deep in this 3 of Swords experience seeking help and guidance. Psychologists are dealing with the mind, but we are dealing with the spirit and meaning of it all - the cards are paradoxically impersonal and yet very personal. We're not living in communities anymore, but little closed family units that limit our access to support and understanding of the wider world. It's become de rigueur to not be open about yourself and your life: "Too much information" "Don't bring me down" "Mind your own business". So, we're walking around removed from the day-to-day reality of suffering meanwhile people are trying to be happy 24/7, 365. What of truth? Please Call Me by My True Names – Thich Nhat Hanh Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow — even today I am still arriving. Look deeply: every second I am arriving to be a bud on a Spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone. I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, to fear and to hope. The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that is alive. I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river. And I am the bird that swoops down to swallow the mayfly. I am the frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond. And I am the grass-snake that silently feeds itself on the frog. I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks. And I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda. I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate. And I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving. I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands. And I am the man who has to pay his “debt of blood” to my people dying slowly in a forced-labour camp. My joy is like Spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth. My pain is like a river of tears, so vast it fills the four oceans. Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one. Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up, and so the door of my heart can be left open, the door of compassion. I don't know if I have a relevant contribution or have gone off topic. But card and psychic readers are a niche caring profession. Pain is one of the biggest aspects of our work, so what can we do to help?
BradGad Posted June 3 Author Posted June 3 I believe this was implicit in the OP, but I am talking about a reading for myself.
katrinka Posted June 3 Posted June 3 22 minutes ago, BradGad said: I believe this was implicit in the OP, but I am talking about a reading for myself. Why would you want to mislead yourself?
katrinka Posted June 3 Posted June 3 4 hours ago, gregory said: WE do not need another Doreen Virtue taking out all the cards that might upset people. Often we need to be upset, and for that to happen is not necessarily a gift of ANY kind. Yes. And the cards should reflect life. Life is not pain free.
Chariot Posted June 3 Posted June 3 (edited) 7 hours ago, BradGad said: I believe this was implicit in the OP, but I am talking about a reading for myself. As I said earlier, context is everything. @BradGad was doing what amounted to a 'deck interview' as explained in the OP. I think we make a mistake getting too deeply into semantics here—such as focusing on his use of the word 'gift.' It would help me if @BradGad let us in on what other cards he drew, so we can look at the same picture he saw. Obviously he had a bit of an epiphany regarding what the 3 of Swords meant in this reading. Everybody's tarot intuition is valid for them. He has also said he wouldn't deploy this 'gift' philosophy when dealing with a distressed client! I would actually like to hear more from @BradGad ...maybe see the whole 4-card reading and learn what each of the cards taught him ...in context, again. I picked up the context as he was investigating how to interact with this particular deck? It wasn't a specific reading about a specific sorrowful event, was it? Edited June 3 by Chariot
November Posted June 3 Posted June 3 (edited) Hello, I didn't read all your comments, but IMHO I think we can summarize the 3 of Swords as "harsh truth", so your cards probably wants to help you to navigate through pain instead of denying it. Edited June 3 by November
thornapple Posted June 3 Posted June 3 I don't know about rehabilitating this card. You know, we can learn from pain. But sometimes there's nothing to learn or take as a gift. Sometimes it's just pain. And it's more respectful of someone else's pain if you don't try to make it look pretty.
DanielJUK Posted June 3 Posted June 3 The swords through the heart are pretty brutal, there is no getting around that. There really is going to be pain and hurt. If there is a gift or lesson from it, it's human resilience. We can cope with so much (more than we think we can) and adapt to carry on, somehow. The lesson is about acceptance of the pain, you cannot avoid it and then you can process it. So the cards ending message is that we have to find a way to process it, that is how we heal.
DanielJUK Posted June 3 Posted June 3 10 hours ago, BradGad said: I believe this was implicit in the OP, but I am talking about a reading for myself. 3 hours ago, Chariot said: As I said earlier, context is everything. @BradGad was doing what amounted to a 'deck interview' as explained in the OP. I think we make a mistake getting too deeply into semantics here—such as focusing on his use of the word 'gift.' It would help me if @BradGad let us in on what other cards he drew, so we can look at the same picture he saw. Obviously he had a bit of an epiphany regarding what the 3 of Swords meant in this reading. Everybody's tarot intuition is valid for them. He has also said he wouldn't deploy this 'gift' philosophy when dealing with a distressed client! I would actually like to hear more from @BradGad ...maybe see the whole 4-card reading and learn what each of the cards taught him ...in context, again. I picked up the context as he was investigating how to interact with this particular deck? It wasn't a specific reading about a specific sorrowful event, was it? This section and how the thread started seemed to be discussing the card generally. This is the area for discussing the different ideas and meanings we have of a card. If you need help with a personal reading, it needs to be in Personal Tarot Readings. We can't discuss the card in a personal way here
Aeon418 Posted June 3 Posted June 3 23 hours ago, katrinka said: So can cancer. That doesn't redeem cancer itself. My dad died very suddenly at the end of April and I went to his funeral last month. Standing right next to his coffin I found it very hard to see anything redeeming about the experience of sorrow. But united in sorrow my brother and I buried the hatchet and made up with each other. And both of us have become closer to my dad's wife and her three daughters in a way we never were before. Does any of this redeem the sorrow? No. But I can't deny it was the catalyst for changes that would probably not have happened otherwise. As a typically work obsessed Capricorn who was recently passed over for promotion, my dads death snapped me out of a spiral of brooding and bitterness and made me see how unimportant the whole work situation really was. Since last July I have been overly focused on work matters to the detriment of other areas of my life, almost running myself into the ground in the process. My spiritual practice is one area that has suffered in particular. My sorrow and grief have had a very focusing effect on my own life and has forced me to make changes and re-evaluate what is and is not important. I tend to be a very driven and stubborn person and not easily diverted. But my dad's death certainly got my attention in a way that little else would have. Has the harshness of this wake up call lessened because I can see a positive element has come out of it? No. Has it made the sorrow and grief go away? Absolutely not. But there has been a dawning awareness, as much as I may not like it, that there was something very necessary in my recent experience.
katrinka Posted June 3 Posted June 3 1 hour ago, Aeon418 said: Does any of this redeem the sorrow? No. But I can't deny it was the catalyst for changes that would probably not have happened otherwise. 1 hour ago, Aeon418 said: Has the harshness of this wake up call lessened because I can see a positive element has come out of it? No. Has it made the sorrow and grief go away? Absolutely not. But there has been a dawning awareness, as much as I may not like it, that there was something very necessary in my recent experience. Condolences. And yes, it can happen that way. But it can also go other ways. One example: some people crawl in the bottle, or get into various drugs. They beat their wives and kids, steal from friends and family, and generally become horrible people. In other words, your experience might not be relevant at all if you're reading for someone else. The 3 of Swords can be a catalyst for good or bad, or both, or nothing at all. But we're talking about the 3 of Swords here: On 6/2/2025 at 2:12 PM, katrinka said: Again, our job is to read what's on the table, not speculate on possible ways the sitter might react to it. If you've laid the cards in a Past-Present-Future formation and the 3 of Swords is at the beginning or the middle, the following cards might tell you how the person reacts IF the question concerns that. Otherwise the cards might simply be talking about events. But the 3 of Swords is simply pain, separation, and sorrow. You read the card, you don't read into it.
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