I’ve always thought of this card as “sharp mind, straight talk” or sometimes even “sharp mind, sharp tongue.” Some folks even refer to the Queen of Swords as “bitchy.” As I looked at the card today, it gave me a somewhat different, or perhaps at least more dimensional, impression.
Pitisci has all of the Queens as representing patience, and for this Queen in particular, his keywords are about fair and compassionate judgment, and the sort of graceful authority that stems from such judgment. She understands it all, she explains it succinctly, and this garners respect.
She has mastered the sort of deliberate reasoning that invariably leads to a correct decision. Her logic cannot be refuted, and her steady determination to impose her will springs from this fact. She is eternally sure because she is inevitably right.
Do not conflate “deliberate” and “patient” and “steady” with slow. It is here that the character of the Swords suit shines through. Her mind is so sharp that she is able to process (more literally to “parse”) a great deal of information in a heartbeat. Complex relationships between data points, patterns, chains of occurrence, consequences – all of this is visible and understood to her almost upon first glance.
If we are in the presence of the Queen of Swords, we would do well to follow her pronouncements.
If we are the Queen of Swords, we can help others by patiently explaining the logic that underlies our decrees.
She bids us to use good judgment, follow good advice and move forward in confidence that we already know what to do.
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