Queen of Swords

This is one of the most misunderstood images in the RWS deck and its clones, and I’m not sure whether any of the Tarot writers have noticed that this card depicts a knighting ceremony, a transmission of license or authority, and a call to step up to a higher level of excellence. Most commentators manage at least to see the solemnity and seriousness of the Queen’s expression, but most seem to take this for deep sorrow and loss, or perhaps widowhood. Her strong character may have developed in hardship, knowing reversal and misfortune. Traditionally, she’s independent, regal, perceptive, demanding, disciplined, severe, driven, assertive, intimidating, penetrating, cold, pragmatic, exacting, versatile, liberated, and complex. She’s a good judge of character, but she wants it demonstrated. She’s epitomized by the goddess Athena or Minerva, or an Amazon, or a Valkyrie, or a Viking shield maiden. She can also be an ice queen, complete with vagina dentata. She might make difficult and unpopular decisions without regrets. She is most emphatically not Guanyin, the goddess of compassion. Nor is she Venus, though many commentators suggest that she loves to dance. She has an elastic mind, but it’s used to gain victory, not to vacillate. Today, she might wear a suit in the boardroom, or something really hot in leather. Either way, she is not to be trifled with. This is the other side of the Earth Mother, not the nurturing Empress or Queen of Pentacles, but the one who lets the unfit of all ages get selected out of the gene pool for good, the one who saves her compassion for future generations. She calls to the best that’s within us. This is a call to step up, with courage, daring, commitment, and accountability. It’s an intensification and an exigency, a renaming of this time and place with a word of power, a new and higher standard or frame of reference. There are no masks or flattery here. This is a great chance to learn to swim in water way over your head, in a do-or- die sort of way. Compromise and halfheartedness are ill-advised. Posturing and pretense will not survive this. If one is composed of multiple selves, it is time to pull these together. Stepping back, note that all of life is like this. When time stretches out, things seem more relaxed, when time gets compressed, things intensify. But those who know or remember that life is short have a more urgent air. They will want to keep their wits close to hand, and make better use of their sense of mortality and finitude. Memento mori. But even the slow times can often use higher standards. If choices in life must be narrowed, why not find some kind of compelling reason for choosing the best we can find? Sometimes we only need to retitle, rename, or reframe a situation as having a more vital importance. The Yijing counterpart, Gua 28, Greatness in Excess or Preponderance of the Great, depicts a heavy storm, a surcharge of weather, that could lead to complete inundation. The roof could come down under these lively loads, the rivers rise and bridges wash out. Dispatchers will be called and first responders summoned. Emergency means that you really want to emerge from the far side of this. It is something interesting to go through, and best to go all the way through. We don’t always know what to expect, except that we will be greeting something greater than ourselves. This is a peak experience, a stretching of limits and envelopes, an unleashing of abnormality. Once again, stretched out in time, this is just life, our education. Scrunched together, it’s a pace we didn’t bargain for, but that serves us right for bargaining instead of preparing. Minds encounter a broader world, and strategies, a less predictable one. Perceptions change and laws mutate. We want to get to the point and see clearly without much philosophy. Much behavior may be disallowed. Halfwits will not do well. The Queen is a better ally in times of adversity, when she hasn’t let us grow lazy and slack. Stepping up to be tested is the way to get an education, not sitting in back of the class, guarding unearned self-esteem and fearing pressure from peers. We toughen up under scrutiny, think and get real fast. Higher bars and standards are set, and the ante goes up. It’s a waking up in a hurry, and a time to walk the talk. It’s not enough to get it right: we want it exactly right, and then to ace the dismount. Critical and crisis come from the same word, a decisive turning point. Once again, this Mother Nature is the force of selection, the half of evolution that below-average folk would rather not be aware of. But the fitness that selection rewards is not what the unfit think it is. Fitness is fitting best into the niche, a sensitivity and an intelligence, and only a little to do with brute force and competition. This too may seem cruel to the weak and the average, but this is a Queen we are serving here. She does not want our half measures. Seek and take wise counsel.