Element: Air
Imagery: A heart pierced by three swords beneath storm clouds.
General Themes: Painful clarity, grief, truth that wounds but has the potential to liberate.
Three of Swords Upright
This card speaks of tremendous heartbreak. And this isn’t the type of heartbreak that magically goes away. In fact, when we talk about healing from heartbreak, we seldom discuss the fundamental truth of this kind of pain: healing looks a lot like like learning to live with the emotional scarring. In other words, we don’t have to forget the pain, but we have to learn to let our heart grow around the wound.
At its most empowering, the Three of Swords is an invitation to embody relational expansiveness. Healing is honoring the history you lived through and not letting it shut you down emotionally.
Embodied feeling offers transcendence. It might sound counterintuitive, but feeling what you need to feel allows you to free yourself from those heavy emotions. As tough as this card is, at its heart (pun intended), it’s about remaining expansive and open even when feelings are difficult. Those difficult feelings remind you that you’re human.
Three of Swords Reversed
Upright, this card explores how to survive serious heartbreak. Reversed, it symbolizes a profound release of pain. The three swords slide out of the upside-down heart, suggesting an effortlessness to this movement, which often happens after time, space, and processing have done their work. It doesn’t mean that you will never feel the pain of that heartbreak again, only that it no longer controls your life.
This card reversed ushers in a period of emotional recovery. Embrace the process. Go slow. Be quiet. Allow yourself to recharge and don’t feel the need to rush out of this liminal space.
It’s also important during this time to resist the temptation to indulge in negative thinking. That only reopens the wounds. Let go, move on, and feel the relief that comes from letting past pain stay in the past.
Move forward with emotional clarity and an open heart.
The Bruja’s Guide to Tarot is the divination sister to the scholarly The Bruja Professor, a witchy take on literature, the occult & pop culture, and Enchantment Learning & Living, an inspirational blog celebrating life’s simple pleasures, everyday mysticism, and delectable recipes that are guaranteed to stir the kitchen witch in you.
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