Welcome to Exploring Emotions with Tarot! This week we will be exploring the Knight of Swords and how it can be used as a prompt or brainstorming in our writing as well as a means to explore our own emotions when we need to.

It’s often said that a picture is worth a thousand words. I believe the reason for this is that visual art has a way of tapping into our symbolic and metaphoric vocabularies on a subconscious level. In doing so, it evokes emotion within us.

This series aims to explore this phenomenon using tarot with intentional purpose. The goal is to have a personal emotive keyword bank by the end of the series inspired by the images of these cards to enhance our communication, both in our writing and our every day lives.

Introduction of the Card

The Knight of Swords is card number 61 in the deck within the Orphalese Tarot program, the twelfth card of the Swords Suit, and the second card of Swords Court in the Minor Arcana of the Tarot.

If you haven’t learned about the basic meanings of this card, you can learn about it here from my Tarot Thursday series.

Let’s take a look at the following examples of this card below.

Card Examples

Notice the similarities between them and take note of their differences. Do any of these move you more than the others? Take your time and allow yourself to feel something with these cards.

The Writing Exercise

The assignment for this exercise is to write what you are feeling as inspired by this card. Either choose your emotive keyword first and get started from there, or start with your feelings and work your way towards a single keyword.

The purpose here is to have a singular emotional word associated with the card that you can later use for randomized prompts or for your mood charts.

You also want to have practice using this emotional word. What does this feel like to you? When does it happen? What do you do when it occurs?

The more often you use it, the easier it becomes to express it and the more effective you become in expressing yourself when you need to.

What this Card Means to Me

The keyword I choose for this card is: INCISIVE

Caustic Speech

Harsh words sear
the soul, like soft
butter on an iron
skillet, left to stink in the heart
forever.

~ Warren Tode

I would love it if you linked or pinged back what you wrote so I could see where you went with this.

Happy writing!

Mythic Tarot by Liz Greene (Author), Juliet Sharman-Burke (Author), Tricia Newell (Illustrator) © 1986
Dragon Tarot by Terry Donaldson (Author), Peter Pracownik (Illustrator) © 1995
Universal Tarot by Lo Scarabeo (Author), R. De Angelis (Illustrator), A. E. Waite (Designer) © 2001
Shadowscapes Tarot by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law (Illustrator), Barbara Moore (Author) © 2011
Mystic Dreamers Tarot by Heidi Darras (Illustrator), Barbara Moore (Author) © 2012
Gilded Tarot by Ciro Marchetti (Illustrator), Barbara Moore (Author) © 2015
Mystic Faerie Tarot by Linda Ravenscroft (Illustrator), Barbara Moore (Author) © 2015
Steampunk Tarot by Aly Fell (Illustrator), Barbara Moore (Author) © 2012
Images used for the poetry art were provided by pixabay.com under a CC0 license.