February 5, 2010 - Eight of swords

I didn't have time to pick a card this morning so I picked one on my return to my room after the film festival. I asked for a word/concept to help me sum up this day. It was, all in all, a good day. It was a creative day. And I spent the day doing something I love purely under my own steam. So imagine my surprise when the Eight of Swords came up.

The Eight of Swords is a daunting card. The woman depicted is trapped, bound, blindfolded. When this card comes up in a reading, it means you're feeling restricted, confused, powerless. Great. It means you are heading toward are already in the kind of situation that you feel you cannot escape from ... a dead-end job, a failed relationship, debt, etc. This is what Joan Bunning writes about this card: "When you see this card, remember that you do have choices, and you do have power. No matter how trapped you feel, you can find a way out if you believe it is possible. The young girl in the picture could free herself. She could wriggle free, tear off the blindfold, and kick down those swords. Solutions are not always easy, but they exist. Find your clarity of thought and purpose (the Swords ideal) and use them to take that first step toward home."

Maybe something's coming, but my suspicion is this card is telling me it's still here, more of the same. Yet I wonder if what Bunning writes is the key. There are always choices. I don't have to be that woman bound and trapped. I can choose something different. I can choose a day like today where I am not bound or trapped, where I choose joy, where I feel fulfilled, where I am myself.

In the Jane Austen Tarot, the Eight of Quills is depicted by Edmund Bertram and Mary Crawford of Mansfield Park. Edmund is charmed by Mary. He sees only her beauty, her grace, the way she plays the harp, like an angel. Fanny Price knows Mary Crawford is wrong for Edmund. She understands Mary is too sophisticated for a man headed for the clergy. But Edmund is blind, as we all are sometimes, by something so beautiful, so perfect, we want it to be ours, that it must be ours. We build such a fantasy around it, about it, believing only what we want to. I've been there, done that, when I should have known better, been wiser, more tempered.

What Would Jane Do?

"While love induces an enviable state of bliss, it is also akin to a form of madness. Rationality and discernment go out the window at the appearance of "fine eyes," or a fine figure. Love may be the nectar of the gods, but when humans imbibe of the divine drink, they often do not have the head to handle it. Be sure you sober up before making any lifelong commitments - they are often decided upon in haste and repented at leisure." p. 113