Tarot · Swords
Eight of Swords
- restriction
- self-imposed limits
- a way out
The picture
A bound and blindfolded woman stands among eight swords stuck in muddy ground, with a castle on a crag behind her.
The meaning
The woman is bound, but the swords around her do not form a closed circle. The tradition reads the Eight of Swords as a feeling of being hemmed in, and as limits you set yourself. It stands for thoughts that hold you fast while a way out is there all along. The bonds are loose, and the path is open.
Reversed
Reversed, it is read as release, a new view and the first step out of the narrow place.
In love
In love it is read as a feeling of being stuck, and an invitation to talk openly about what you want.
At work
At work it stands for a situation that seems tighter than it is.
As your card of the day
A small step may shift more than you think today. The circle around you is open.
The Eight of Swords stands for thoughts that hold you fast. Check today which limit is real and which exists only in your head.
Swords belong to air. Readers see in them thought, decisions and plain words, the uncomfortable ones included.
Picture: Pamela Colman Smith, Rider-Waite-Smith tarot, 1909, public domain (Wikimedia Commons).