Showing posts with label Suit of Swords. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Suit of Swords. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

9 Swords - Nightmares

Firstly: a comment on Linnea Sinclair's post of yesterday, Oct 8, 2007, which is essentially about the world of publicity, promotion, advertising.

Here is a post about what the changes in the world due to Web 2.0 look like from behind the Ad/Promo desk.

http://www.bulldogreporter.com/dailydog/issues/1_1/dailydog_barks_bites/index.html

And here's an item that flew by me earlier this week on using Web 2.0 to reach young people with 1 minute videos that teach things.

http://www.oneminuteu.com/

And as I said in comment to Linnea's post on SFR and promotion, I think Blake Snyder's SAVE THE CAT GOES TO THE MOVIES has the solution to this problem embedded in it. It's up to us to extract that solution.

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As noted previously, this is a chapter in a book about the Tarot aimed at Intermediate students, not beginners or advanced students. It is particularly aimed at writers.

Updated and expanded compilation of all these Tarot Just For Writers entries is now available on Kindle:

The Wands and Cups Volumes and  the Swords and Pentacles Volumes, are now all available separately on Kindle.  The 5 Volumes combined are also available on Kindle as one book, cheaper than buying them individually.

The Not So Minor Arcana: Never Cross A Palm With Silver Aug 30, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0108MC26O

The Not So Minor Arcana: Wands Sept. 1, 2015  99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0106RVPKU

The Not So Minor Arcana: Cups Sept. 11, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0106SATX8

The Not So Minor Arcana: Swords  Sept. 17, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0100RSPM2

The Not So Minor Arcana: Pentacles  Sept. 21, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0106RVKF0

The Not So Minor Arcana: Books 1-5 combined Sept. 24, 2015 $3.25
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010E4WAOU

This series is designed not for the beginner or the advanced student, but for the intermediate student and specifically for writers doing worldbuilding..
---------------

And Remember: The meaning of a Tarot Minor Arcana resides in the placement on the Tree of Life (i.e. the number on the card) integrated with the "World" or Suit of the card. For the Tree of Life and the Jacob's Ladder diagrams see:
http://web.onetel.net.uk/~maggyw/treeladder.html

I don't really go with the way this page explains the Tree, but it is worth thinking about. There are many other ways. For now, ponder the diagrams on this page or google up some others.

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We're now talking about the 4th circle UP from the bottom of the Middle Pillar of Jacob's Ladder. It is the 9 of Swords, but overlays the Da'at sepherah of Pentacles, the suit or world right below Swords, our material reality.

OK here things get really mystical.

The Tree of Life consists of 10 areas, or zones, or processes or functions called Sepheroth, plus the connecting links between them.

Jacob's Ladder is 4 repetions of the pattern of 10. One half-overlays the next repetition down the Ladder so Sepheroth appear to overlap. A better way to imagine it is to think of each of the 4 repetions as in different planes, like pieces of transparent paper stacked one on the other.

However, out of the plane where the 10 Sepheroth exist, there is another, 11th Sepherah, Daath or Da'at which is generally translated as Knowledge. You won't find any really definitive explanations of Da'at because it is so mystical and has no place in an Intermediate discussion like this.

For our (intermediate Tarot) purposes though, we should note that the 9 of Swords overlays the 11th Sepherah of Pentacles but doesn't touch it because they're in different dimensions.

Look at the top of the Jacob's Ladder diagram and you will see the shadowy 11th Sepherah of Wands pictured behind (or in some diagrams before) the spokes connecting the 10 into the Tree pattern. The 9 of Wands is over Da'at of Cups. The 9 of Cups is over Da'at of Swords. The 9 of Swords is over Da'at of Pentacles.

As we saw with 8 Swords the solution to the problem of 8 Swords came from the underlying 3. So also the solution to the problem of 9 Swords will come from Da'at or 11-ness whatever that might be!

When the Jacob's Ladder diagram shows two circles overlaying each other, energy flowing through one sets up resonances in the other. (Think guitar strings.)

A human being drawing down creative energy from the top of the Ladder through all 4 Trees can bring the energy from one Tree to the next at those circles which overlap.

A process doesn't have to proceed from 1 to 10 in the order we've been tracing here. The path we're following is called the Lightening Flash (because it zig-zags). But you can bring energy down via any of the routes marked, and in fact use several paths at once.

That's why life is so complicated and confusing -- because it is complicated and confusing.

But there is an underlying pattern -- really, truly there is! Cling to that idea of structure because we're going to venture into a realm here that makes it very hard to find.

Each Tarot Minor Arcanum takes its primary meaning from the number on the card and from its Suit. Each suit represents one of the 4 Worlds of Kaballah depicted by the 4 repetions of the Tree of Life to form Jacob's Ladder.

I call the top one Wands, or Fire, and the second one Cups or Water, and the third which we are studying here Swords or Air. The bottom repetition of the Tree is Pentacles or Earth. Lots of other systems work just as well, but this widely used one is simple, and helps keep the focus on the overall structure which reveals the usable meanings of the cards. So what does 9 mean?

What is the essence of 9-ness?

On the Tree of Life, 9 is called Yesod -- Foundation.

Foundation of what?

The World.

The bottom Sepherah on the Middle Pillar dangling out the bottom of the Ladder is Malkuth for the Pentacles suit (10 Pentacles card).

The World (the 4-dimensional space-time continuum we live inside of -- i.e. The Universe) is (this is my own opinion) entirely contained within that 10 Pentacles card.

The rest of the Tree exists above the point where Space and Time are defined. Yet within 10 Pentacles, within our material reality, the entire pattern of the Ladder repeats and repeats -- "As Above; So Below."

Thus we can identify the processes of writing a novel from the Ace of Swords down to 10 Swords as actions we do in material reality -- even though these processes actually exist outside space-time.

"Creation" -- that which exists because G-d said "Let there be" etc -- includes everything on the Ladder above 10 Pentacles -- and more above the Ace of Wands. Our material reality is the result of all that -- and bears traces of it all. Thus the level of 9 is the Foundation of all that's under it.

Wait a minute! The "Foundation" lies ABOVE what it supports?

Well, I did warn you! This is mysticism.

It does make perfect sense if you think of FOUNDATION as that which has to go in first, before the structure is erected.

The Foundation is where things are caused and determined -- the ultimate shape of the structure, how strong and tall it can be, how long it will last, its limits, and thus what it can be used for are all determined by the FOUNDATION.

Oh, wait another minute!

If 9-ness is only the foundation, the beginning of the project, what's the One, the Ace?

Aha, well, the 1's to 8's describe the processes that must happen before a foundation is built.

There's originating, starting, commiting, developing the blueprints, modeling, re-evaluating, re-designing, submitting the plans to an architect (who like the Editor, says, "No, it'll fall down." or "It needs fire exits!") and now in 9 there's GROUND BREAKING!

9 is where the substance of reality is finally moved and reshaped, strengthened and rearranged to accomodate the project.

We know that Swords are actions, thoughts, words, opinions, even plans.

So the 9 of Swords is the act of putting your money where your mouth is.

Or in the analogy of publishing a book, the 9 of Swords is the interval between the signing of the contract and subsequent the tussle with the editor over changes in 8 of Swords, and the point where you actually hold the first printed book in your hands.

The book is at the printers where paper is cut and ink applied, thus reshaping reality to convey your Ideas.

The 9 of Swords is the point beyond which you can't yell, "STOP THE PRESSES!" You've examined the galleys and OK'd them, or put in changes missed by everyone before. The copy has been sent to the printer. The presses are rolling (action). Publicity plans are unfolding.
9 Swords is the first stage of implementing the visions, decisions and actions made in the previous 8 stages of the project.

So why does the Waite Rider deck depict it as a person sitting up at midnight with 9 swords floating above as if about to fall?

Because this is the stage of the project where the project is still amorphous. At this point, all the work done before, all that energy drawn down the stages of Jacob's Ladder shimmers in shapeless potential.

Will anyone read this book? Will the critics like it? Will the publisher send out review copies? Will anyone buy it? Will anyone like it? Will I have to do the talk show circuit (what in the world can I wear!). Will it become a movie? Will ANYONE like it???? Will it get a good cover? Will my mother accidentally read it (ohmygawd!). Above all - is it good enough?!!!

Have I risked too much? Have I exposed too much personal stuff? Not enough? Have I said something stupid I'll never live down? Will my boss read it and fire me? Will it cost me a career? I should never have written this thing! What is going to HAPPEN????

In 8 of Swords, there's worry about consequences IF you take action. Here, in 9 Swords, the action has been taken, but consequences haven't materialized yet, so the worry is still there, now accompanied by nebulous horror that you actually did a dangerous thing. Nightmares.

The 9's are Yesod, the Foundation. In many traditions, this is called the Astral Plane.

The 9's represent where you go when you fall asleep, or have an "out of body" experience.

9 Swords is what you do (actions) while there.

Remember, the 9's exist above the point in creation where Space and Time are defined. There is no up, down, east, west, north and south on the Astral. There is no before or after. All places and all times are the same place and time.

That's what is so disorienting and "nightmarish." Or "dream-like." When you are in R.E.M. sleep, whether an experience is nightmare or dream depends on how you feel about it when you wake up.

We want our dreams to come true - but not our nightmares. On Jacob's Ladder, there's no way to distinguish dreams from nightmares.

9 of Swords is where we decide what among all our visions we will make come true. The 9 of Swords is the foundation, the beginning, the definition of the edges of our reality.

In the mystical reality, wishing can and does make things come true.

Our ventures onto the astral plane at night shape and guide our real, waking lives. And so how we approach and experience 9 Swords will have a measurable and visible effect on how our project eventually turns out in concrete reality.

As I have said here before, none of the Tarot cards are "bad" -- none of them cry doom! How you experience any of these processes depends a lot on whether you live in a Zero-Sum-Game universe, or an Abundant Universe where everyone can be a winner.

In the Zero-Sum-Game model, 9 Swords is the trip onto the astral plane into nightmare.

After tumbling on through 8 Swords, you arrive at this 9 process where everything, absolutely everything, depends on you and you alone, and you feel you have no control at all over anything.
That helplessness is the essence of nightmare (just like being a newborn in a crib; you can't even get your thumb to your mouth!).

The only thoughts (Swords) you have are fears of failure, and the assessment of the stakes if you fail. In the Zero-Sum universe, failing means losing. Someone else wins, not you.

In the Abundant model, you tromp through 8 Swords with confidence, negotiating so that you pay only what you can afford and get what you need, and some of what you want.

Then you fall into bed, exhausted, and into the 9 of Swords process, where you dream bright and glowing images of success in every detail and are possessed of happiness and blessed relief that the job is DONE, and now all you have to do is lay the foundation for your future.

Your joy shapes the fluid stuff of the astral plane and eventually what you've imagined becomes real.

Brian Boytano, who won the Olympic Gold Medal for men's figure skating, told the media he had spent years visualizing that moment with himself on the highest of the 3 platforms. He could really see it. And it happened for him. But he didn't just visualize it. He worked. His whole life was skating and competing. The astral plane is the foundation -- but it isn't the building.

If the project was writing a book, the writer who lives in the abundant universe spends this 9 Swords interval dreaming of the sequel, filling in details, living the character's lives and furiously outlining the next book.

In the zero-Sum model, which we all revert to because it's culturally sanctioned here, the artist or writer has nightmares of failure, and nightmares of the even worse contingency, success! How do I write the sequel to a world-wide best seller? Can I do it?

Ok, so how do you do it -- again -- on purpose?

You lay the foundation on the astral plane.

The stuff of the astral plane is amorphous, without time or shape. The force of your thoughts shapes it, whittles, hones, polishes, paints, and illuminates it. Everything in our concrete world was first shadowed on the astral, outlined like the strings surveyors put out to mark where to dig the foundation.

That shadow holds our concrete world together and gives it shape, just like a foundation holds a building and defines its shape. (Yep. Mysticism.)

Now you say, "But I've wanted and yearned for things, and imagined and dreamed, and they didn't happen!"

I told you, living is complicated because it's so exquisitely simple.

It isn't your conscious thoughts that shape the Astral to create your concrete world.

It is your subconscious mind that shapes the foundation of your life via the astral plane, via Yesod, the foundation of all reality.

How can you possibly control your subconscious mind?

You can't.

However, you can make friends with it, persuade, coax, negotiate. The subconscious is really stupid. It can't learn. But it can be trained, like a dog, with gentleness, consistency, kindness, and above all persistence.

But how do you communicate with your subconscious? How do you pet it and discipline it?

The best way I know of -- GO TO THE MOVIES! Rent some DVDs. Watch TV shows. Read books. Wallow in fiction to your eyebrows.

What is the essence of story? Conflict. Internal conflicts shown clearly in the character's external life, conflicts that are resolved by the action of the story.

What is your problem with your subconscious mind? For most of us, most of the time, the conscious mind is in CONFLICT with the subconscious, just like characters in a story.

In the 7 Swords Reversed, we began the process of resolving those internal conflicts. Here, in 9, we are rewarded with an opportunity to re-shape the foundation of our lives according to the changes made in 7 Swords (as a result of Love in 6 Swords which happened because of criticism in 5 Swords, which couldn't have happened if we hadn't finished the l first draft in 4 Swords, which couldn't have happened if we hadn't etc.). If we can pull it off here in 9 Swords, then we will get the concrete world to behave better.

The easiest way to start communicating with your subconscious is by watching for your emotional reactions to stories.

That emotional reaction (Suit of Cups) is your subconscious talking to you -- and it is especially illuminating when you burst into tears over a scene and you don't know WHY!

By thoughtfully analyzing what you react to in fiction, you can learn to see your own reflection in the fictional characters. And you can learn what nightmares you have in common with others.

Fiction has its origin on the astral plane. It can transport you back there. And when you return from walking a mile in fictional moccasins, you will not be in the same "place" you were in before, spiritually. Your subconscious will start negotiating peace with your conscious mind.

Novels are complex -- not as complex as life, but they can be very abstract and complex. The short story can be more to the point, but too simplistic.

So the medium I prefer for this purpose is film and TV. Because of the way the stories have to be structured for film, an emotional reaction can be traced very easily to its cause in a film.

Books are richer, but film is tremendously accessible for the purpose of igniting spiritual progress.

So I have two books that I hope you'll be able to find, read and study carefully. Not only are they good for teaching you to write stories, but also for learning to analyze films to find the cause of a surprising emotional response. Film uses the languages of the subconscious, and with modern techniques, can replicate the otherworldliness of the Astral.

The books: Save the Cat! and Save The Cat Goes To The Movies. See reviews:

http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2007/ in both January and April columns.

and http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2008/ for the sequel reviewed in January 2008.

And on Amazon, in my reviews, I talk more about the usefulness of these books for writers.

Save The Cat! and Save The Cat Goes To The Movies are both by Blake Snyder. Here's a direct amazon.com link.

http://www.amazon.com/Save-Cat-Goes-Movies-Screenwriters/dp/1932907351/rereadablebooksr/

In my review of Save The Cat Goes To The Movies, Jan. 2008 review column, I discussed in depth just the first page of the book, with more references to come in following columns.

On that first page, Snyder explains a genre he calls MONSTER IN THE HOUSE. You have to read his explanation of this genre and the movies it applies to, but meanwhile think about it this way.

The essence of Blake's Monster In The House genre is that the cast of the film is confined inside an enclosed space with something that wants to eat them -- and it has gotten loose because of some "sin" done by the protagonist. (inviting the Vampire in)

You are locked inside your skull with your subconscious, and you are its Monster while it is your Monster. Snyder provides a perfect description of the astral plane nightmare.

The point of the Monster In The House genre is to evoke the sensation of intimate violation by a supernatural (i.e. from outside your view of the universe) evil.

The subconscious mind houses not only your main contact with the Creator of the Universe and all the Good, but your awareness of the negative forces beyond human ken. And you are trapped in there among these vast, incomprehensible forces. That is your dream world.

Those "yes-buts" you created in 8 of Swords become Monsters you create on the Astral to avoid dealing directly with your subconscious -- big, powerful, ugly, voracious monsters that want to eat you alive. They're the monsters under the bed, in the dark basement, and in the closet when you're little -- possibly shredded memories from prior lives and maybe deaths, bits and snippets of the astral plane shaped by you in prior lives, the stuff of hauntings.

The "yes-buts" are all the reasons why you can't talk to your subconscious sensibly. Instead you roar. If that's the condition within you, then likely you will also roar at your spouse.

The yes-buts are all your fears, especially the ones you don't want to admit - but they are also your SELF. They are what you can't control, conquer, beat, or dispatch. Go up against those monsters and you lose.

Such Monsters exist only in the Zero-Sum universe where you must win the war with your subconscious -- or nightmare wins. You are locked inside your skull and inside your life with this powerful and furious beast and you must win because losing is unthinkable and you can't escape.

And that's what the image on the Waite-Rider 9 of Swords depicts.

Nightmares.

So how do you shake off a nightmare?

The old fashioned, tried and true method when waking from a nightmare is to go raid the refridgerator (food grounds you to the material world). Writing down the nightmare often does the trick. But then what? You have to go back to sleep some time.

The way out of the trap is through Da'at of the material world. Da'at is Knowledge, knowledge of the practical world and the spiritual world and how they are joined together, the Knowledge of the mechanism of the universe.

What makes the supernatural monster so scary is that we don't understand it. It is "the unknown."

The essence of Science Fiction is "encounter with the Unknown" -- the essence of Horror is "encounter with the Unknowable." Unknowable can morph into Unknown with a twitch of attitude.

By exercise of the conscious mind doing practical, everyday, things we shake off nightmare and prepare to reshape the astral plane matter into something brighter, better, more amenable, more suitable to our goals.

Often the most powerful actions for preparing your next expedition onto the astral are ritual: praying, cleansing, setting wards, confessing; or simple practical acts: giving charity, making right something you did wrong, helping the helpless, establishing and assisting a group with shared devotions -- do something special to honor your parents or teachers.

Once you have set your material world in order, brought your mind to bear on your problem and taken real, concrete action, (such as, if your publisher isn't advertising your book; you can do some advertising yourself!) you can venture onto the astral again with confidence, falling asleep imagining and then dreaming of a good outcome for your project.

If you are losing the vision of success of your project, do something that will let you dream of that success really happening.

What you shape on the astral with your imagination will materialize one way or another. But in order to do that shaping, you may have to study your nightmares until you have complete knowledge of them to turn them into dreams.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Ace of Swords

Folks:

First, I have to say that at Nasfic, Linnea Sinclair provided me an advance copy of THE DOWN HOME ZOMBIE BLUES. I just started reading it (it's a 516 page pb and I'm on p 10) and it's so good I'm recommending it to you now. NOTE: I'm reading an ARC so changes might have been made in the version you buy now.

Remember I teach writing, and (even at Nasfic on panels about writing) students say it's not possible for editors to reject a book on the first 5 or 10 pages.

Well, it IS possible because those pages have to contain the bits and pieces that form the foundation for the novel, all arranged in the right order. Linnea's done that first 10 pages perfectly except for one parag I (as editor) would have deleted (but as writer, I'd have wanted to save) -- so I'm watching to see what it foreshadows.

The paragraph on p 7 starts "Unless you were a pilot taken prisoner by the Tresh." and ends with the POV character deciding she couldn't afford to think about that now. This is a classic "abort" -- starting the reader down a path then pulling them out for no obvious reason.

That parag. would have worked better later. Or perhaps the last sentence might have been deleted.

But it's on p 7 -- and it's only one small paragraph! It does have a purpose (starting the internal conflict, giving the character a haunting past and the sense you've read about this woman before). Then everything moves straight forward again, so I anticipate a smooth, good read here.

It had to be a difficult decision - that paragraph! Which brings me to the topic I want to address. Decisions, habits and actions.

I've found myself writing little essays for this blog each week, and I feel guilty because it's time I should spend writing. So instead of writing, I'm writing! Well, that's what writers do -- they write!

So I'm going to try an experiment that may not work because there are so many interesting things happening in life all the time that I'd like to discuss here.

Let's see how many little essays I can write (I have 20 on my list of must-write essays) essentially about the core topic here, alien-romance, yet still also about the Tarot Minor Arcana Swords (decisions and actions) and Cups (love, character, relationship).

As many of you know I teach writing via Tarot and Astrology - those disciplines are very fruitful sources of plot-twists and characters with recognizable dilemmas. I've been invited to teach at Ecumenicon 2008, March 27-30, 2008 at the Best Western Convention Center in Baltimore, MD. And I would dearly love to finish these 20 essays before that.

These next 10 essays will be a book in the series begun with my book  THE NOT SO MINOR ARCANA (available on amazon.com) - a short introduction to how to go about learning Tarot. The Wands and Cups Volumes and  the Swords and Pentacles Volumes, are now all available separately on Kindle.  The 5 Volumes combined are also available on Kindle as one book, cheaper than buying them individually.
The Not So Minor Arcana: Never Cross A Palm With Silver Aug 30, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0108MC26O

The Not So Minor Arcana: Wands Sept. 1, 2015  99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0106RVPKU

The Not So Minor Arcana: Cups Sept. 11, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0106SATX8

The Not So Minor Arcana: Swords  Sept. 17, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0100RSPM2

The Not So Minor Arcana: Pentacles  Sept. 21, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0106RVKF0

The Not So Minor Arcana: Books 1-5 combined Sept. 24, 2015 $3.25
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010E4WAOU

This series is designed not for the beginner or the advanced student, but for the intermediate student and specifically for writers doing worldbuilding..

------------

So THE ACE OF SWORDS!

I use the paradigm where Wands is Fire, Cups is Water, Swords is Air, Pentacles is Earth and Tarot is structured on the Kabbalah's Tree Of Life diagram, or more specifically Jacob's Ladder.
The Aces are beginnings, origins, the number ONE -- the unity behind all reality.
Aces exist at the level of reality where all things are just one thing, and haven't yet been divided into many things.

The moment just before the Big Bang began to fling all the matter of the Universe out from that tiny, collapsed central point is an "Ace" moment. All human activity replicates or recapitulates that moment, over and over on many levels.

Thus the Ace of Swords represents the very beginning point of an action sequence, or course of action, such as writing a book, fixing a leaky faucet, going to college, buying a house.

The Ace of Wands is the point where you wake up at 2AM, grab a notepad and scribble down the IDEA (Ideas are Wands) for a story. The Ace of Cups is the emotion from which the story arose, usually subconscious. The Ace of Pentacles is the moment when you hold the first printed copy in your hands (Pentacles are materialization of Ideas.). The Ten of Pentacles is where you bank the Nobel Prize money. The Ace of Swords is TYPING THE FIRST WORD.

The Ace of Swords isn't "I am writing a book" -- it's "I'm going to write this book."

The Ace of Swords is, "I'm going to fix that leaky faucet." The Two of Swords all the way to the Ten describe the comedy of errors up to the point where you get the next IDEA -- call the plumber. (and the water-damage cleanup company) (and the insurance company)
The Suit of Swords is often thought of as misfortunate. I don't think so.

Swords represent force in motion.

The four "Worlds" of the Kabbalah are expansions of the 4 letters in the Divine Name -- Yod, Heh, Vav, Heh.

The letter Vav is a Yod (a little fillip like a comma or a spark suspended in mid-air near the top of the writing line) with a staff under it, reaching down to the bottom of the writing line.

The Vav is a Yod that has GENERATED downward like a tornado touching down. It is a nail that connects things together. The Yod has expressed itself in the Vav. So the "World" represented by Swords is the expression of the Idea represented by the original Yod, a spark of fire.

Thus "Swords" is Divine Power Expressed -- or in motion.

A human being is the visible end of a connecting channel (a kind of "worm hole") that reaches all the way up through all the Worlds of Kabballah and brings down the cyclone of Divine energy.
Think of the Indian concept of the Chakras, or Marion Zimmer Bradley's Keepers who have to have their "channels" cleared.

The human being is a complicated bit of circuitry, and endowed with Free Will (that's a Kabbalah given -- humans have Free Will at all times).

The human being can be like the Sorcerer's Apprentice and reach up to channel down more power than they can handle. The human being can have more ambition than skill and not know it. The human being can have more imagination than judgement and not believe it.

The human being has to make choices and take action by balancing a myriad factors. Losing that balance doesn't make the energy stop flowing -- thus the cards in the Suit of Swords that follow the Ace, the next stages in the project of fixing the leaky faucet or writing the novel often don't manifest smoothly. That cyclone tip of downrushing Divine energy can touch your life and rip it to shreds. Thus the Suit of Swords has a bad rep.

The Suit of Swords, the 3rd World "down" the Tree of Life, is represented by the "Element" Air which we learn in Astrology symbolizes Thought, the Intellect. Gemini, Libra and Aquarius are Air Signs.

And so we learn that a Thought is an action -- as is speech. How we think, what we think, affects our reality, our world. What we say affects even those who never hear it. Thoughts and deeds are one and the same.

We learn this from the power of positive thinking, and how imagining success often brings success. Your thoughts infuse your deeds with exceptional power when both thought and deed are alligned. (think golf swing)

Decisions (de-cision -- to cut in half) are represented by Swords.

A story or novel (your evereyday life is a story you are writing) usually starts where the two elements which will conflict to generate the plot first come together. At that single (ACE of SWORDS) point, the author and by extension, the main character, must DECIDE what to DO when CONFRONTED by the antagonist element.

The antagonist might not be a person -- it could be a storm, a planet to be explored, a disease to be beaten. Whatever it is, at that moment of confrontation, a THOUGHT has to become a DE-CISION, a dividing point.

It can be nothing more than the recognition of an adversary, or perhaps worse, the recognition of one's True Love. Or a failure to recognize, and thus failure to act. The failure to act is also an action, and thus symbolized by Swords.

Human beings have an analogue brain, so we make decisions based on "experience" -- in other words, we are lazy. What's worked before, we do again - until it becomes a habit. And with age, we become so hidebound we can't do anything but what we've made our habit.

We tend to take that kind of habit from lifetime to lifetime (yes, in Kabbalah, reincarnation is real).

So confronted with a unique situation, we boggle. Confounded, we think slowly, or in non-logical sequences, or by free association. Then we hunt frantically for elements in the situation that remind us of something else we already know the answer to.

Wands represent the kind of original thinking we apply to a unique situation without trying to find a similarity to some other known situation.

Swords represent the kind of habitual thinking we prefer where memorized solutions apply to new situations.

Thus the Ace of Swords can represent the origin of a new habit -- or the groping for a memorized solution that almost applies to the new situation.

More accurately, the Ace of Swords is the moment when you decide if this situation can be handled by a memorized solution or needs something entirely new and different.

The moment right after that is the committment to the course of action, the point of no return. "Now you've done it!"

And the Two of Swords is the moment when you think over what you've done, hoping nothing will happen until you figure it all out!

The ACE OF SWORDS reversed is that exact same moment of tension at the threshold of action -- but without enough tension, without enough potential energy to get the project all the way to the 10 of Swords -- the ultimate consequence of the begun action.

Often, actions begun this way -- ill considered decisions and actions -- take hold of a person because the person is striving mightily to avoid doing something else, or to avoid "feeling" (i.e. Cups) something, or is simply doing too many things at once.

It isn't a particular amount of energy that you must accumulate before you act that makes the Ace of Swords come right side up and a project take off with a bang big enough to reach its necessary end.

Each project requires a different amount of energy, a different amount of committment.

And yes, the Swords represent "committment" -- in relationships, paying off a loan, showing up at work every morning, not drinking too much at night so you can show up alert in the morning, getting through school, staying married to the same person even when things go bad.

So whether the Ace of Swords comes up right side up or upside down in a reading depends a lot on what is going on within the person on the levels of Wands and Cups -- ideas, and emotions -- Fire(wands) and Water(cups) make steam, and steam drives the turbine of life. Working at the level of Swords, remember you are still way above the level of Pentacles which is our everyday 4-dimensional reality, material reality. So we're talking about psychological and psychic energies here in Swords.

The fuel for actions is intentions and the totality of understanding of the universe (what E. E. Smith called, in the Lensman Series, the Visualization of the Macrocosmic All). How well you manage your life will show up in how well matched your selected project is to the amount of "committment" you put behind that Ace of Swords. But it also depends on how shrewdly chosen your projects are -- on whether you've done your homework before selecting a project.

Take the fury of Al Queda for example. It is fueled by religious conviction and the perfectly human sense of right and justice. That fuel is not Swords but Wands and Cups -- and the steam that combination makes drives their swift sword with the full might of human belief.
What will it take to thwart such conviction driven actions?

Now translate that question into the story you've decided to write at the moment when you face the blank page in the Ace of Swords. That question is the conflict which is the essence of story. What it will cost the Hero to thwart the Villain is what your readers want to discover.

In a Romance, the two destined lovers can be each others' enemies (as Linnea's DOWNHOME ZOMBIE BLUES points out) and allies at the same time, against something bigger than both of them -- until they combine forces.

And by the way -- "plot" is Swords. Plot is the sequence of actions the characters take. A deep study of the Suit of Swords might improve your plotting ability by an amount even you would notice.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/