Two of Swords
The Two of Swords represents solitude and the importance of introspection. It highlights the difference between being alone and feeling lonely, emphasizing that solitude can lead to self-discovery and clarity. The card also warns that when inverted, it may signify mental imbalance and the impact of external negativity on one's thoughts.
Keywords
The Experience of Loneliness
I think that there is a point in nearly everyone’s life where you realize that you’re alone. Maybe it’s after high school, sitting in your dorm room. Maybe it’s after you leave your parents’ house for the last time—without looking back. Maybe you feel alone after you’ve gone from parents to college to husband to single, and you’re splitting time with your kids for the first time. Maybe your parents have died or gone and you’re the grown-up now. We’ve all got someone, theoretically. We didn’t hatch. As I grow older, though, I realize that the process of growing up will strip people away from you. Friends will betray you. People will go weird and stop calling. Your family isn’t perfect, and suddenly, you look around and instead of two tables full of cousins on Thanksgiving, it’s just you. And likely, a cat.
Loneliness in Relationships
Or maybe you’re lonely and in a relationship. There isn’t anything lonelier in the world than sharing a bed with someone you can’t talk to. It’s emptying and devaluing and sad.
Alone vs Lonely
First, being alone and being lonely are two different things. Being alone means that you’ve got no one to connect with. I feel alone is a deeper state of being than lonely. That feeling that if you get lost, there will be no one there to find you. I remember thinking, when I first became alone, that if I fell down the stairs, no one would find me for three days. And the aforementioned cat would eat my face off. Nothing like freaking yourself out of doing laundry … or walking downstairs … ever again.
Understanding Loneliness
Being lonely means that your boss was a complete ass, and you don’t have anyone to commiserate with. Or that you haven’t been touched for a while. I’ve seen that when the condition of aloneness is new, it’s startling. Who knew the house could be that quiet? Why does everything sound like a murderer in your basement? Why is it you’re only hungry for cold cereal and leftovers? And don’t seem to change clothes as much. Or shower. Or anything, really.
Strength in Solitude
I want to propose, however, that there is strength in solitude. I call the Two of Swords the “Shut the hell up so I can hear myself think” card. It is about being alone. This woman has grabbed a chair, a blindfold, and a few swords and marched herself out into the middle of nowhere. All of her other senses are cut off. She doesn’t need external influence for the decisions she needs to make. She doesn’t need distraction. She is alone and okay with that. This is something she needs to figure out for herself. In the wandering narrative of tarot, this is what happens after the shock of alone goes away. When you realize that you don’t need the world’s chatter to make sense of your life. That moment when you wander away by the shore, pull up a seat on a bench, and blindfold yourself against distraction.
Two of Swords Inverted
The moon is there, too. Shining above her head. The water (emotion) is still and calm. The Moon in tarot tells us to be cautious. To seek deep inside of ourselves and look for pitfalls and traps, especially the ones we lay for ourselves. The Two of Swords inverted speaks of imbalance and chaotic thought. Sometimes mental illness, sometimes depression, sometimes being surrounded by hypercritical people who drown out your own thoughts.
Dark mansion tarot
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