~ Discovering the Wild Unknown: Ace of Swords ~
Today’s card draw in the Discovering the Wild Unknown series is The Wild Unknown Ace of Swords.
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, Kim Krans, 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 Wild Unknown Ace of Swords
The Wild Unknown Ace of Swords shows an upright white Sword in the center of the card. The image of the Sword is very clean—no shading, no decoration, but a simple, basic Sword. Wrapped around the blade and hilt is a figure eight, or infinity symbol, which appears to be an un-ending snake. The symbol is scaled, and an un-ending rainbow. Red fading to purple fading to blue is wrapped around the blade, while blue fading to green, fading to yellow, fading to orange is around the hilt.
The top of the card is dark, and two lightning bolts are striking down toward the card. The sky fades to white as the darkness stretches just past to the outline of the Sword.
Traditional Card Meaning
The Ace of Swords is simple in definition, though in application can be difficult. It is the new idea, perhaps even inspiration. It is similar to the Ace of Wands in that regard, though this is purely mental, while the Ace of Wands has a flare of passion to it. The Ace of Swords can sometimes be spoken about in terms of cutting people down with ideas or words. The background is grey, intimating that the idea or words that come at this point are neither good, nor bad, yet.
The Ace of Swords, likewise, can be a message. It is the element of Air, and Aces and Air are both known for messages and communications. Thus, there might be a letter or email about to arrive.
What I derive from the Wild Unknown Ace of Swords
The Sword is clean, un-decorated, un imprinted. Swords represent ideas and communication, and the Aces are generally the beginning of the element they’re present with. Thus, this is a new idea, or a new form of communication. It is so new that the Sword is clean. It hasn’t had the chance to be edited, altered, formed. It hasn’t had the chance to have any negativity or positivity placed on it. It is just a pure idea.
The lightning says to me that this is instant, like a lightbulb coming on. But lightning is gone as quickly as it arrives, and so there is an urgency about it. This idea might go quickly.
I spent a lot of time thinking about this rainbow figure eight, and what it means in relation to the Ace of Swords. My mind roamed from the idea of the perpetual workings of the mind, that it is always trying to generate ideas, to think, to develop itself. The colors make me think of all the elements that the mind revolves around and what they represent—love, passion, wealth, law, education, community, etc.
That it’s wrapped around both the hilt and the blade says to me that there is a reminder that ideas can get out of control, and that the wielder of the Sword needs to be careful of how they hold it. The blade can cut both ways, that thus, there is a constant danger of an idea turning rancid. Words and thoughts must be expressed wisely and carefully.
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.
