By Sarah Taylor
Where the Prince of Swords (the Knight in the Rider-Waite Smith deck) stood last week, broken free from his chains, we now see the Knight of Swords (the King in the RWS deck): the Röhrig Tarot’s depiction of the mature masculine in his highest potential — and here, the masculine that corresponds with the mind. Wise. Discerning. Focused. The precise, effective wielding of the intellect. Solomonic.
Knight of Swords, Queen of Swords, Queen of Cups from The Röhrig Tarot deck, created by Carl-W. Röhrig. Click on the image for a larger version.
Whereas the Prince is externally focused, a fighter — sometimes a hothead ranging into zeal with his sword of personal truth — the Knight holds the ability to be a custodian of a higher truth. If you look at his eyes, yes, they are open and a beam of light is trained on the cards next to him; yet there is an inner quality to his sight as well. His vision is held within; it is not exclusively externalised.
Additionally, the gem on the front of the circlet on his forehead is similarly illuminated. Vision is correlated with the “third eye” — the seat of non-embodied intuition. It is the masculine form of intuition — a connecting with spirit (light) as opposed to soul (the dark, the feminine).
Let’s look at some of the words on the Knight’s helm (a further association with all things ‘head’-related):
“Passion,” “flexible thinking,” “aims,” “concerning,” “ambition,” “straightness.”
The Knight of Swords is focused, but not so much on the physical ‘things’ around him as on the qualities that those things represent. Here: the Queens of Swords and Cups. The feminine counterparts to the Knight, representing the mind and the heart respectively.
All-in-all, we have three aspects of your personality that are active and taking centre stage in your life right now. In you right now — although they may also come in the shape of another or others. And the Knight is the initiator. Or, more accurately, the directed use of the mind and the ability to analyse with detachment and skill are available to you, and they are responsible for bringing light to other parts of yourself.
Through the Knight’s gaze, you are in the process of unveiling and coming face-to-face with sides to you that have kept themselves shrouded for some time now. Perhaps for some considerable time. It has taken your increased skill in putting yourself under the spotlight of scrutiny to meet the Queens. It has taken them time to feel safe enough with that scrutinising aspect of yourself — the one that used to cut so harshly at times — to reveal what they had kept closed off from you. It is a liberation that cuts across your ideas of gender, your preconceptions of relating and relatedness, your until-now inflexible ideas of who you are — of who you have been all along if you had had the eyes to see.
A receptive, intuitive mind-based knowingness, sharp in her own right — sharp as a blade — but frequently so misunderstood as to be rendered invisible: the Queen of Swords. A watery, mutable mystery that hid, mermaid-like, unable and unwilling to venture onto a land that felt inhospitable, and who, until now, had been asked to pay too high a price for safe passage: the Queen of Cups.
It’s funny how tarot works: it is only now that I notice the striking similarities between the two Queens. The other two Queens — Disks and Wands — do not resemble these at all, so it isn’t something that is common to the entire Queenly complement.
With these similarities in mind, I am drawn to suggest that what we are looking at here is a marriage of head and heart. It is as simple and as complex as that.
Your task: to stay aware of not favouring one over the other; to deny neither. And to maintain a sense of objective appraisal of yourself as you hold that gently uncompromising spotlight — or, if you are not able to do that, to seek an objective appraiser to work with you, whether a trusted friend or a therapist.
Masks are falling, no longer needed. The depths are blooming on the surface, ready to make themselves known. The mind expands, the heart opens.
You are the light-bringer, the bridge-builder as all three aspects of you working together. It is a sacred marriage, each part critical, the whole greater than their sum. How beautiful is that?
Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Knight of Swords (the fiery aspect of air), Queen of Swords (the watery aspect of air), Queen of Cups (the watery aspect of water)
If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article explains how to use the spread.
Amazing <3
Thank you 🙂
Very beautiful it is, and still mysterious. These two Queens and this King present only one physical eye. The King’s other eye is strongly referenced by the profile, though the emphasis is on the power to see with both the perceptual eyes and the masculine intuitive eye. His cranium is solidly crowned with a helmet. His message feels clear. These Queens will take more meditation and listening. the Queen of Swords removes her mask, yet only offers one of her eyes to the outer world. The other eye is reserved for her inner life or Spirit. The masks are removed, yet both remain to hand. Is this about knowing which face to present in different situations? or is it more about peeling away mask after mask. Even the spacious galactic space behind her third eye is a mask. The secrets of the Feminine have to be earned and divined/. The Queen of Cups feels more naked in her presentations. She gives more while holding more back for herself, again one eye outward, and one reserved. Her skull space is obscured by what may be the edge of a wave on the beach, implying oceanic breadth and depth, offered through the clear gaze of her eye, and as the bare sensuality of lips, hair, neck. In the questing Self, these two Queens the airy and watery aspects of the intuitive feminine require the focused light and mature presence of the Masculine to be known and seen. It is work the times are demanding of us all. It feels like hard work. I crave a body, breast, or belly, to be soft and sheltered. But this reading says my work is in mastery of my mind and emotions, for now. Venus with Jupiter square Saturn? And I keep seeing The STAR in the major arcana.
Timely for me. Just seen that I am still in thrall to an event when I was 6 that I understand ‘mentally’ but it is still an achilles heel, and I do not believe that i can make my innocence heard and somehow that is ‘guilty’. And I become guilty. Praps need some help with that too!
Thank you Sarah. very much.
What a beautiful reading – thank you!
Brilliant, Sarah, and so timely! Thank you.
It’s so beautiful, yes indeed. I’m trying to “gently” hold the spotlight on that union between my head & heart. That’s a great way of putting it, Sarah. The world is full of sensitive characters, and I’m one of them. We all deserve to be treated gently.
It has been illuminating this weekend as my wife and I have been working in some real free childlike areas of play. We would sense very slight shifts of energy attached to some of our most basic patterns. These patterns were benign yet we are both simultaneously noting the shift and together realizing it. Playing around that area all weekend and it has brought us closer together and amplified our innocence. Its impossible to be angry at a pattern of practiced behavior when it is seen as just a simple formula that has been invisible and is in need of upgrade. We seem to have amplified vision together and it stays as long as we stay completely clear together. Clear and straight forward honesty. Complete honesty with self and other. We are playmates but in that space we don’t feel the power of ownership – which feels heavy there. We simple adore each other from a space of self adoration. It is three year old self.
I was pondering how we could learn to get to that state of being more efficiently and learn to play there more. It occurred to me that we need to try and remember the feeling of our consciousness just before we figured out what was wrong with us. That is the place where so much changed. It feels so good to reunite with that innocence.
This tarot reading verifies what I am experiencing. It seems easy to integrate the separate selves in this time. I love it.
I’ve been thinking about eagles and starlings
and how everyone has different values
and the difference between relating through actions and relating through words
and how different the world could possibly look if all this Saturn energy could be harnessed
and science, scientists and labyrinths
and having a rest from the rest…
After the sleep of gentle renewal
a quiet call to the as yet unknown of new places:
clearing the labyrinth’s threshold,
upheld by the brilliant facets of abiding presence,
new vision arises
while time plays with future’s sense
and present’s blessed pre-sentience.
Transiting Saturn (semi-sextile natal Amor/Hermes in Capricorn) square natal 7th house Saturn/Astraea/Panacea..
Re-viewing, re-making, and re-newing one-to-one relating….and re-membering the whole story is a message of love? It’s just that I’ve become so accustomed to the erotic pleasure of writing….
It’s often too stunning how bang on these readings of yours are. This one more than any I’ve yet to read. Deep bow sister. Victory to the soft precise unions & evolutions/revolutions. h