Stalemate of Swords

Element: Air

Upright

·stalemate
·difficult decision
·blocked emotion
·balance under tension

Reversed

·indecision lifted
·information revealed
·stalemate ends
·release

Upright

She sits very still on the bench by the cold hearth, a strip of dark cloth tied over her eyes, a blade balanced across each forearm and held to her chest. The Two of the suit of swords is the stalemate, the choice you cannot make because the price of each side is too plain. The card does not push you toward either. It only reaches for the knot of the blindfold. Some decisions stay impossible only as long as you refuse to look.

Reversed

Reversed, the cloth slips and the candle finds her eyes, and the held blades come uncrossed. Word arrives that breaks the even weighing, welcome or hard, and the choice tips at last into reach. Or the standoff has sat so long it has gone stiff as cold wax. The card asks for movement. Either way is better than the bench.

In the imagery

A blindfolded woman on a wooden bench holds two crossed knives over her heart, her back to the shuttered window where the last dusk light leaks in. The dark cloth and the crossed blades hold her balanced and unmoving, perfectly even, perfectly stuck. The light pressing at the shutter is the unopened answer, waiting for her to take the blindfold off and let it in.

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Others in the swords