Today’s card draw from The Wild Unknown Tarot is Son of Swords in the Discovering the Wild Unknown series.

I want to start off by providing an important notice, which will be included in all of this series. However, other things that will be included that you can skip to are:

• Card Description
• Considering the Card, where I look at how I would interpret certain imagery used
• Traditional Rider-Waite definition

I only include the latter as a comparison, to show how wandering down your own understanding of images and symbols can bring you to a similar meaning, though along a different path with different experiences. This is to help expand knowledge of the card.

I will not, however, be including the definitions from the guidebook, as that is not the point of this. Also, I don’t have rights to that material.

Important Note

I started this series because I had read that people struggled with the deck purely because the definitions in the Little White Book were very Rider-Waite-based, and that there wasn’t much wisdom regarding the animals and symbolism chosen.

This series is to help you to decipher the meanings yourselves. I am by no means saying what I have to say about the cards are correct for anyone outside myself. However, I am providing my daily journal entries regarding the deck to act as a guide so that you can begin your own journey.

When I started tarot, I had no idea what to write in my journal, and thus didn’t. Instead I obsessively read and re-read the Little White Book belonging to the Spiral Tarot (which is why today I can completely quote the book). I didn’t trust myself to know the cards, even when I could recite the definitions. I was afraid to put the book down.

To this fear of lack of knowledge, the creator of The Wild Unknown writes:

You do know enough. You’ve been a person on earth every day since you were born. You’ve experienced all the emotions and situations these cards depict. Quiet the naysayer…don’t let it prevent you from sitting down with a friend (or yourself) and using these cards to help talk about what’s going on in your life. It will be positive. It will be radical. You’ll find things start to reveal themselves through the cards that have been hidden away, covered with dust.

pp. 10-11, The Wild Unknown Guidebook)

Description of the Card

The Son of Swords shows an owl in midflight, angled downward toward the left. It holds the Sword by the blade, wielding it as a weapon. This card is black and white.

Traditional Card Meaning

In Rider-Waite-based systems, the Son of Swords is the Knight of Swords, and indicates an individual who is arrogant and perhaps rushes into decisions. The figurative meaning is putting action to an idea, though perhaps without thinking it all the way through. It might indicate acting before the plan has fully developed, and thus jumping the gun.

What I derive from the Card itself

 The Daughter of Swords sits on the blade of the Sword, but the Son of Swords is in action. This owl is swooping in, angling down, in midflight. There is determination. There is a target. There is a goal.

But that the owl holds it with its talons by the blade, shows that while it has the energy and will to wield the Sword, it doesn’t necessarily have the know-how.

The energy from the first from the Knights is pushing the Son of Swords to action, but in his youth, he is arrogant rather than knowledgeable. With this combination, the Son is cocky, and rushes forth perhaps half-cocked.

About the Deck

The Wild Unknown Tarot  is a 2016 Harper One publication, created by Kim Krans. The deck is widely available at most bookstores who carry Tarot cards, but also on Amazon. Kim Krans always wrote The Wild Unknown Guidebook.