Part 7 - The 10 of Swords
brb just lying here with swords in my back for a minute
Uffffhhhh. This fucking card.
Everything I’ve ever read about the 10 of Swords mentions that the one bonus is that there’s nowhere to go but up from here. For me, it usually shows up when the worst has happened, a chapter has ended—often in a pretty emotionally/mentally harsh way.
I don’t really know what to say about this one…a long and grueling chapter is coming to a close, but I reeeeally haven’t felt like writing about it. In fact, I’ve been actively avoiding it for over a month.
I often feel when I pull this card that I have been walking around collecting swords in my back for a period of time. The 10 of Swords is the moment I topple over and give up. Not saying I give up on life, just on whatever/whoever I’ve been struggling with. The ten of swords is the moment that I have more awareness and clarity on the situation, and often it’s painful, but usually not a surprise or shock. Not going to lie, at least a few of those swords I usually realize I un/subconsciously backed into all on my own.
“But release can be a catharsis, and defeat can be a relief. The endings this card references may be sad, anguished, resigned, difficult, but above all else they are necessary. The Ten of Swords confronts us with one of the most challenging and most mature tasks of the mind: accepting a reality that we don’t want to be true. The mind rebels, bargains, denies, rages, blames, avoids. The Ten of Swords is where it settles. Where it accepts. Here, we admit there is no other option but to surrender, let go, and find out what comes after this ending. If we can do that, we may be able to find some peace in all the chaos, a little hope amid the strife. In the end, the Ten of Swords is not about death but about survival.” —Charlie Claire Burgess Radical Tarot: Queer the Cards, Liberate Your Practice, and Create the Future, p.199
There’s also some relief that comes with this card—however bad it feels, the worst is over, and i can start to pull those swords out and heal (often with some help from loved ones).
I don’t want to share intimate details about the people and situations involved in the end of this shit chapter. I just want to move on and leave it behind, and that’s always been the essence of the 10 of Swords for me. There’s nothing left that needs to be said. I’m lying there with swords in my back, I know the ugly truth, and I just want to lie there for some time and lick my wounds.
There’s no justice to be found, and I don’t have any motivation to seek it out. I’m trying not to ruminate too heavily on what transpired. As an autistic, disabled, Asian American, I’m vulnerable in some ways, especially when it comes to being in relationship (of all kinds) with other people. It often takes me longer to figure out that I’m being used, and even when I do figure out it, I often stick around longer than I should.
“With the Ten of Swords, the only way we can deal with someone who is completely unwilling to be held accountable for the harm they are causing is to cut them out of our lives. And it hurts, but it helps you live. You don’t need an audience nor a profit to make sense of your suffering. What you need is healing from compounded trauma. A body in ruins needs therapy and care. The air must fill with peace, rest, and renewal.” Red Tarot: A Decolonial Guide to Divinatory Literacy by Christopher Marmolejo, p.387
I also make a lot of social “mistakes,” I fuck up—I want to be transparent that it’s not just me being screwed over. Sometimes I get really confused, especially when people’s actions don’t match their words. I’m still learning to give people more grace, to be more understanding about the different ways people exist, to not be so rigid in my beliefs. I’ve been at this Ten of Swords point more often than I care to remember in my lifetime.
This particular cycle has been going on for about a year, where difficult truths kept being revealed. All I can really do from here is hope that I learned everything there is to be learned from the situations, and heal. In these times I turn to my truest friends, the ones who have been around long enough to know they are my chosen family, and the newer friendships that I feel safe and secure in.
I remind myself that I can and do make beautiful friendships—that I’m worthy of that. I try my best not to beat myself up when I’m already down (I often fail at this part, but I’m getting better at redirecting and being kinder to myself).
“The Ten in this case affirms our fears as real, and that is a hard, harsh lesson that all marginalized people do have to learn at some point: sometimes this isn't anxiety. Sometimes it is our intuition and things really are as bad as they seem. Still, the lessons of the Eight and Nine stand. If the Ten is coming no matter what, perhaps there is a better way to deal with our collective trauma than shutting down.” Queering the Tarot by Cassandra Snow, p. 112
I think in these dystopian feeling times, losing friends and “backstabbing” hurts more than ever. We need each other more than ever, and it’s devastating to lose a close connection when the world already feels so unkind and fucked up.
There is beauty in the surrender that comes with this card. It’s painful, it’s hard, it’s not a fun place to be. It’s not hopeless, though the gruesome image on the card might have you thinking otherwise. There’s a new beginning around the corner. I lie here on the floor, feeling pain in every nerve, muscle, cell of my body. But I need this moment of deep acceptance, of letting myself feel the hurt. It’s the only way to release what was poisoning me, and as my body/mind/heart/spirit process the venom, relief slowly seeps in.
Excitement for the endless possibilities ahead of me begins to crackle and spark within. Even though I’m still healing from recent heartache, I can feel the new beginning like the delicious scent when you crack open an old book and smell the paper. A new adventure is around the bend, but I don’t say this to dismiss the pain of the present. It’s just helpful to know that it isn’t going to suck this much forever. I will pick myself back up, I will open my heart for the business of loving new and old friends, I will move on from this moment.
So, when you pull the 10 of Swords, just remember that the worst has happened. It’s almost over, whatever difficult chapter you’ve been in. There will be room for new and beautiful experiences, even if in this exact moment it feels like defeat. I feel like we’re collectively in a 10 of Swords moment—it feels like the “bad guys” (or we can call it what it is—fascists) won, and it feels like we’re losing against the battle between good and evil.
“From the blue skies of the court cards to the black gloom of the Ten and Nine. Just as the Ten of Cups showed joy overflowing, so the Ten of Swords fills us with pain. Despite the extreme picture the card does not represent death, or even especially violence. It signifies more of a reaction to problems than the problems themselves.” Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness by Rachel Pollack, p. 216
The truth is somewhere in the grey area. We can still turn things around, but we cannot do it alone. The empire is strong, but our hearts and determination is stronger. It’s okay to feel defeated, to lie on the floor some days and feel the knives in our backs. We will pick ourselves up again, and we will keep resisting and fighting back in our own ways. We will build strong connections and community care. We will live to see better days.
It’s unbelievable how timely this post is for me. Not only did I recently pull this exact card in a very informative and poignant spread, but I’m also going through something that sounds eerily similar to what you’ve said in your post. I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I know, at least partly, the sorrow and grief of that. Sending you lots of love.
Thank you for this. My card for the month of June is the Six of Cups, so I'm leaning into old friends and childhood pleasures but I can still feel the swords in my back from a recently ruined friendship. I think I needed to read this today.