What’s Standing in Your Way?
(Art by Anna Lazzarini)
Our Tarot card for today, the 8 of Swords, is known as the “interference” card, and can suggest blocks, obstacles, and things standing in your way that keep you from moving forward.
In most depictions of this card, our lady friend is not only blindfolded (as she is here), but she is tied up, hands behind her back, and the 8 swords are surrounding her. That can suggest a period of inactivity and inaction (like when we say, “My hands are tied,” or, “I’m all tied up with other things,” or “I’m wrapped up in…”). Sometimes, situations come our way that we are not to get involved with, and being “tied up” with other things may be a blessing in disguise that can keep us out of those situations.
What I like about this image is that our lady friend is not as stuck as she might think she is. The swords are next to her—not surrounding her. Her hands are free, which means that she could remove her blindfold, see where she is, and get up from her knees and move on.
But what is she doing? She’s pulling her hair! How many times have we “pulled our hair out” over something and we thought we didn’t know what to do about it? Hair symbolically represents our thoughts (hair grows out of our heads), so this image is letting us know that most often, we are only as stuck as we think we are.
It is that thinking that holds us hostage, that keeps us captive.
You’ll never see a way out if you keep thinking there isn’t one.
If you’d like to learn more about my work with Tarot, please visit my Tarot Consultations page.