SWORDS · IV
Four of Swords
A chosen stillness of the mind. Recuperation, truce, the container that lets a sword cool. This is not laziness; it is maintenance of the instrument.
- ELEMENT
- air
- NUMBER
- Four — container: the recumbent knight, thought laid in a chapel.
- SYMBOLS
- a recumbent figure on a tomb, hands in rest, a sword along the side · three swords on the wall above, the mind's work hung up · a stained window of a saint in blessing, rest as a sacred office · a closed chapel, the world asked to wait
UPRIGHT
- +sleep, retreat, a sabbath of thought
- +recovery after a cut
- +meditation as putting the blades on the wall
- −withdrawal as avoidance of a decision
- −numbness called peace
- −a tomb you decorate and never leave
- IN LOVE
- A pause in the argument. Do not use silence as a sentence. Say you are in the chapel, and when you will come out.
- IN WORK
- Burnout prevention, sick leave, a project tabled. Rest is a strategy. So is returning.
- IN SELF
- Your mind is not a machine that improves by running hotter. Lie down. The three swords will wait on the wall.
REVERSED
Rest refused, or rest that has become exile — insomnia of the will, or a chapel with no door back.
- Blocked — the upright current exists and is dammed.
- Excess — the current is overplayed.
- Internalized — the drama is inner rather than worldly.
Blocked Four of Swords cannot stop. Excess Four will not rise. Inner Four is a private convalescence.
- PAIRS WELL WITH
- The HermitTemperanceThe Hanged ManNine of Wands
WHAT WE WILL NOT SAY ABOUT THIS PLATE
- just rest, everything will be fine
- you're being lazy
- meditate your problems away