Sharp Thought

In the Tarot, the suit of Swords represents the element air and thus symbolizes thought. In a reading I did for myself this morning, a number of Swords cards appeared.

The word ‘sharp’ is interesting. We use it to describe blades, but also intelligence. A sharp mind is an effective tool, but sharp tools can cause pain.

Here is a list of five of the Swords cards that appeared in my reading along with their rather dark traditional interpretations:

• 3 of Swords: Hurt, pain, heartache, an experience that stings, perhaps a loss of some kind.
• 5 of Swords: Fear, worry, uneasiness, a general foreboding.
• 7 of Swords: Theft, betrayal, slander. A painful experience that can be attributed to the words or actions of another.
• 9 of Swords: Nightmare, worry, disquiet, turmoil, fear about a specific possible unwanted future outcome, which often keeps you up at night.
• 10 of Swords: The nadir, the lowest point of a cycle, the worst that can or will happen.

Over the years, I have reframed these cards. I have time and again reached more evolved and decidedly more positive interpretations for these and have written about them in my blog. This is an ongoing process and continues even to this very day.

The 9 of Swords has been appearing in my readings consistently for about two weeks now. That is always a significance I notice. Well, today, I finally figured out what it likely represents, namely the collective thoughts about the Coronavirus.

For many of us, it is the fear of what might come that is the greater concern. I don’t think many of us are afraid of dying from this. And while no one wants to get sick, many of us know we’ll weather that storm if it arrives on our doorstep.

The bigger concern, I am discerning, is that we don’t know how long this will last, what it will become, and how it will effect other things (like money).

For those of us in the US, just a week ago it felt far away. Yes, they canceled SXSW here in Austin a couple of weeks ago, but that didn’t really hit home until recently (for me anyway). And now they are canceling seemingly everything!

In all previous readings, the 9 of Swords showed up in a position that indicated it was not a problem for me. And in all of those cases, I wasn’t even associating it with this situation. So, yes, it wasn’t a problem for me.

However, in this latest reading, it popped over to the position which shows that I am struggling with it. And yes, the general, collective thoughts about the Coronavirus have penetrated. I am now feeling the fear I wasn’t at all feeling before.

The next insight that popped in, however, was very exiting.

The 3 of Swords showed up in the past and the 7 of Swords showed up in the present. They therefore sat right next to each other.

Some time in the past, I came to the idea that hurt is the result of thought. It is not so much what happened that causes us to hurt, but what we think about what happened. From this, we can begin to take our power back. We cannot change what happened, but we can change what we think about it. As we change our perspective—our point of view—we change our experience.

Today, I received an even greater insight. Today I was told:

Hurt/pain is not the result of thought. Hurt/pain IS thought!

Thought is an interpretation of vibration as performed by the mind. It isn’t any different than any of these:

• Sight is an interpretation of vibration as performed by the eyes
• Sound is an interpretation of vibration as performed by the ears
• Texture and temperature are interpretations of vibration as performed by the fingers.

Thought is an interpretation. All interpretations are subjective, biased, based on experience. The closest evidence I can express as an example is foreign language. When you do not know a single word of a language, it is simply sound. You can, perhaps, identify the language, but you cannot interpret (translate) the meaning of what is spoken.

When you begin to learn a language, you hear it differently. Instead of sound and melody, you hear words and then phrases and sentences.

Many years ago, I worked with a bilingual woman. She was raised with both English and Italian. She spoke to her parents in Italian and I would often hear her on the phone. In the early years, I didn’t understand any of it. It sounded to me like she spoke Italian much faster than English.

After studying Italian for some time, I learned enough to communicate the basics. After that, I no longer heard it as music. I also discovered, much to my surprise, that my friend actually spoke Italian more slowly than English. Italian words, generally speaking, have more syllables than English words. That is probably why it sounded faster.

Each language that I studied had a similar effect. When I started hearing words, I stopped hearing music. The language became less beautiful in a way simply because my focus shifted from pure sound to the conveyance of thought.

The same way that words can only approximate specific ideas, thought can only approximate vibration. Same with vision, sound, texture and temperature.

The sun emits a vibrant range of vibration. We can see some of it as light. We can feel some of it as heat. We cannot hear any of it unless we use some kind of device. And yet there are all sorts of frequencies arriving that we cannot interpret at all.

What if hurt and all forms of pain (emotional and physical) are simply thought. Even scientists would agree that pain is an interpretation of vibration. They would say it this way: our nerves send electric signals to our brain, and our brain interprets those signals as pain. Generally speaking, I think the medical approach to pain relief is to either limit the sending of the signal or to limit the ability to read/interpret the signal.

What if there is another option. What if we can some day train our brains to receive the signal, and simply interpret it differently…in such a way where we can receive the information, but not feel it as pain.

Physical pain, after all, is valuable. If we did not feel pain, then we wouldn’t know it was time to rest or take action to help our body. We’d wear out our bodies quickly that way.

So the information of pain is helpful, it is the discomfort that we can do without.

Here and now, most of us are not in pain (regarding the Coronavirus). We thus have a wonderful opportunity to play around with this new idea. What we read and hear about what is happening or might happen is like a signal. It is not like a signal, it is literally a signal. It is vibration (words on a screen emitting light or sounds in the air) that we are interpreting as data. We can choose to limit the signal (by not reading or listening) but that is not necessarily easy.

What we can do is interpret all of this differently.

For example, we do not know what is going to happen tomorrow or next week. This is always a true statement. Normally, we do not feel fear because we are not actively imagining the worst. What if we do that now. What if we simply choose (over and over again) to not imagine unwanted future events. Instead, we can look for (and find) ways to enjoy what is here now. We can use this time to appreciate what we have. We can align with what is prescribed. And we can imagine things working out in good or neutral ways.

Astrologers are associating current events with Pluto aspects. In my mind Pluto is the bringer of a new normal. In other words, Pluto transits can bring us to a new version of life…a new normal. It takes us a while to adjust, but then it becomes normal.

What if the new normal that is coming is better…much better? Can you imagine what that might be like?

What if everything becomes stronger as a result of this experience? Not just the immune system of many, but all of our systems: our banking systems, our businesses and commerce, our government’s effectiveness, and our ability to work together internationally and globally? Can you imagine that happening?

What if corporate business becomes more flexible. Many will likely want to go back to work, but some might like to have at least a bit more time to work form home. [I am particularly fond of that.]

The possibilities are endless…so why not chose to think about the ones that are pleasant? If the immediate future seems scary, either come back to the here and now or jump ahead to a future filled with the benefit of having weathered the storm.

And for those of you who are curious what the higher outcome of my reading was, it was the 4 of Wands (a happy home, happy at home) and the 3 of Wands (success, evidence of success, creation).

Each of us is still creating our own reality. This situation doesn’t change that in the slightest.