Sweet Twilight - Six of Swords

[Hemera]

A quote from my own post in the "Tarot Decks":

"What bothers me a bit is the Six of Swords, which is almost a copy of a very well known Finnish painting, now in our National Museum of Art. It´s called the "Wounded Angel" and it is by a Finnish painter Simberg. It was painted in 1903.
In the card there´s a skeleton instead of the first boy but otherwise it looks almost too much alike to be a coincidence.."


I still don´t know what to think about this card but I was struck this weekend when I went to see a dear friend and I got this card in answer to my question about our upcoming weekend. I had expected a fun weekend so I just thought this card was wrong. Untill I met her, that is...
She came to meet me at the station wearing an elegant white coat (like the angel in the picture) and she had lost a lot of weight (a skeleton?) and she was so sad and miserable and heartbroken. I just kept seeing both this card and this painting in my mind´s eye all weekend. How right the cards were again!

 

[Skydancer]

You're so right; That is too similar to be a coincidence. Wow.

This is one that I have a difficult time with. I don't have the deck here with me (visiting where they have high speed!!) but I think this is one where I looked up the meaning (questions) in the LWB. I haven't drawn it for a reading so will have to see what it says when it comes up.

Thank you for posting the painting. This is my IDS deck and the more help I have with it the better. Thanks for posting your story.

*S*

 

[Hemera]

This is my IDS deck and the more help I have with it the better. Thanks for posting your story.
*S*

Oh, you are IDSing this deck?? How wonderful!! I hope you can keep posting in our threads to give us all more food for thought about these cards

I guess I´m also IDSing this deck..sort of. I have a beautiful notebook with a page for each card etc. I´m just shy to post in the IDS thread because I have started IDSing before and just given up on the deck somewhere along the way and changed to another one. I´d be ashamed to tell Rodney I have *yet another* new deck that I´m in love with (I know he´d understand, though)
However, something about this deck (- not least the accuracy of the readings, see above) keeps me coming back. I love this deck more and more..

 

[Skydancer]

More thoughts:

This card is so sad. A free spirit restrained and being carted off. Between death and life. I look at this card and I can almost feel her swaying as they swagger along. Where are they taking her? Why is she blind-folded? What did she fear to see that got her "caught"? Is this a warning?

The RWS version and many clones have an adult and child (we assume) being faried over to another shore. A new beginning - a trip by water!! A time for inner reflection. But really, it's melancholy. This card, with the bound angel, is even more so.

I just erased some statements I wrote here because I realized how much I was assuming. Like, did she blindfold herself or did her captors? Is she there voluntarily? Maybe this is an initiation? As soon as her ropes are untied will she fly free?? Up up and away? Ripping the kerchief from her eyes as she ascends?

Now I can see that the question and the querent are much needed here to tell what this card has to say. Without a querent and a question we could speculate all day.

*S*

 

[Hemera]

I think in the painting she is blindfolded because she is wounded. Maybe she has gone blind?
But I just noticed yesterday that in the card she is bound from her wrists and so she is a prisoner and she is not voluntarily there. I hadn´t noticed that before. It changes a whole lot. It means she´s not just being helped by the ones who carry her (like in the painting).

You are right, the question and the querent would be a big help here.

 

[Aerin]

I had this card in a reading for someone. There, it came down to - do you want to take control of your own life and decisions? Or do you want to have those decisions made for you by someone else? So there, it was about the need to take responsibility for a decision and their own journey.

It occurred to me at the time that in some circumstances the querent might the one doing the carting.

 

[Skydancer]

It occurred to me at the time that in some circumstances the querent might the one doing the carting.

How true.

*S* And I didn't notice that she was unbound in the painting. Funny how our eyes can play tricks on us even when we're looking really, really hard.

 

[Hemera]

There, it came down to - do you want to take control of your own life and decisions? Or do you want to have those decisions made for you by someone else? So there, it was about the need to take responsibility for a decision and their own journey.
.

Oh yes! Wow. This goes straight into my notebook.
This was actually the reason for all the sadness and heartbreak in my friends case (1st post) where she was letting desicions go out of her hands.

 

[Alan Ross]

I had this card in a reading for someone. There, it came down to - do you want to take control of your own life and decisions? Or do you want to have those decisions made for you by someone else? So there, it was about the need to take responsibility for a decision and their own journey.

It occurred to me at the time that in some circumstances the querent might the one doing the carting.

This is my impression of this card's significance as well. I'm not really comfortable with this card, because I'm used to the sixes as being generally positive, including the six of swords. Like the RWS, there is the same sense of a journey underway, but in the Sweet Twilight, the journey is in chains. That can't be a good thing. If it's seen as signifying controlling behavior, then it's a bad thing whether the querent is being controlled by someone or is the one doing the controlling.

I don't have the LWB with me right now, but doesn't it say something about voluntarily submitting to captivity? The angel has wings and can normally soar wherever it wishes, but it has chosen instead to be bound and carted along by others. That's sad. Perhaps in some circumstances, it may signify someone who doesn't trust their own judgment, their ability to soar aloft on their own wings. This could be someone who lacks confidence or self-esteem and has yielded control of his or her life to others.

Alan

 

[Grizabella]

I can't remember what the name of the song is anymore, but there's a song from several years ago by Martina McBride about an angel with a broken wing and it's about domestic violence. That's what this card reminds me of.