The Two of Swords
Symbolism
A woman dressed in white sits on a bench in front of a sea or lake. She is blindfolded and holds a sword in each hand with her arms crossed over her heart. It is nighttime and the moon is out.
The feminine figure and the moon both show the subconscious nature of this card, as it speaks about what is going on below our conscious awareness.
The two swords represent options and choices and opposing truths. The duality of the mind is what causes the woman to be closed, protecting her heart and blindfolded, looking within.
The water in this card shows another connection to the subconscious mind with all our internal feelings and the strong influential dynamic between the two.
Keywords
Upright: Choices, decisions, duality, right/ wrong, good/ bad, uncertainty, inner beliefs and patterns, boundaries, fears, doubts, going within.
Reversed: Fighting self, confusion, resistance, poor boundaries, dropping one sword, fear of choice, denial of confusion.
Upright meaning
Here the mind’s natural dualist nature is combined with the number of duality itself. This creates a double duality, with exaggerated indecision and uncertainty.
For example, we may experience two reactions to one choice. Let’s say we have a choice to do something that is challenging for us. Now, we know that we love to run, to compete, and even aggressively take on a challenge, but we also have many negative experiences with challenging conflict. These different experiences with aggressivity are all subconscious programs. One says challenges are good, and the other says that they are bad. Our experiences will back up both arguments.
This card represents how we sit, confused, in this either/or dynamic looking for some finite truth. The issue is, that our truth is not found in the mind, dissecting pros and cons, but instead, with an inner connection to our hearts.
So the mind, being so programmed with contradictory information, is a flawed tool to use for decision-making. Our hearts, however, represent a higher level of mind, one that is connected to our present moment reality, and separate from past conditioning. The figure’s arms crossed over her heart show our need to be in the present moment, and not divided by old programs.
Making choices is a daily experience, and feeling into those choices is key to finding direction. The blindfold is a symbolic aid here. It helps us centre our attention inwards, and avoid external influences and distractions. The outer world only shows us the ‘what to do’ of our choices, but our inner world will illumine the ‘how to do it’, and the ‘why’.
Knowing how much importance to give the intellect is key with this card. Our minds would love to paint the world right and wrong, good and bad, but life is more grey than black and white. Our hearts can see both sides of both sides, and tapping into our inner wisdom is the fastest way to feel confident in our choices.
Reversed meaning
Duality reigns when reading this reversal. On one level, the shadow Two is the experience of going around in circles in our heads, and still thinking that this is the right way to make decisions. This is blatant denial, when our experience suggests otherwise. Also, I see this reversed Two can be an experience of finally letting go of our rational left brain way of thinking. We drop one sword, we find our personal truth, and let go of ideas that we may have borrowed.
The denial story, I would say, is the more common translation of this reversal. The intellect is so promoted in our western society, that we believe that we can rationalize our way through everything. Here we find the classic intellectual, who is ready to debate everything, and who is stuck in the idea that the mind is king! When this is us, we ground ourselves in ‘old science’ and ignore all intuition.
The two swords represent both our truth, and the truth of the world around us. We have learned what to believe in from our parents and peers. We adapted to a societal belief, in order to fit in. But when our personal truth no longer resonates, we find ourselves torn between the two swords. There is the feeling of safety in the old truth, but also a deep need to express our own. This reversed Two can mark a realization and resolution for this conflict.
Simply seeing that there is a choice and that our reality may not be the same as the one we have been buying into forever, is enough to make a change. Turning our attention inwards helps us discern what ideas no longer serve us. We can feel into our truth, and allow the heart to bring clarity to a previously cloudy mind!