Being mean to yourself

When you've take a day of annual leave to enjoy a nice three day weekend, you don't expect to pull the 10 of Swords for your day off, but that's just what I've done this morning from Kat Black's Touchstone Tarot (Kunati 2009).

Of course my first reaction was what?? Oh no! What could this mean? The 10 of Swords card is something I usually interpret as feeling 'stabbed to the ground' by life. This could either come from real circumstances in your life, something that actually happened in other words, or it could just be a feeling you've got, the result of overreacting to events, circumstances or your own imaginings.

I didn't wake up this morning feeling 'stabbed to the ground by life', but I did wake up from a strange dream in which I was going around wearing no clothes (not an uncommon dream motif) but in my dream I was much, much fatter than I am in real life, and all over my skin, especially on my calves and the backs of my knees and the backs of my hamstrings just above the knee, I had very large skin tags and the skin had a knobbly texture. It was frightening and embarrassing to find myself in such a condition and I thought in the dream that it was shameful that I had let myself get to this state. I should be ashamed of myself, I thought, for not taking better care of myself and paying more attention to the condition of my body. I wasn't quite awake yet but stirring around and feeling troubled, when I realised somewhere in my awakening mind that it had been a dream and my legs were still smooth and blemish free (with the exception of some gooshiness in the upper thigh, which I was fixated on yesterday and which is no doubt the source of the exaggerated condition of my legs in the dream).

I'm not sure what that has to do with the 10 of Swords; I usually link 9 of Swords to nightmares. Out of curiosity, I drew the next card in the deck and guesss what it was--yep, 9 of Swords. That made me snort. So I thought what the heck, might as well draw an outcome card, and the next card in the deck was...10 of Cups. Oh, good then. At least I know I'll pull out of this funk before the day is through. :)

I did a 30-minute kickbox workout yesterday which, in the old days, would have been a light workout for me. This morning I feel sore all over. That's how out of shape I am. My arms are actually sore just from air boxing. Now, I've never interpreted 10 of Swords as being 'sore after a workout' -- but maybe it has to do with self-condemnation, for allowing myself to get this out of shape after all the years of hard work I'd put into it. There's another thought for 10 of Swords. Self-condemnation.

Still, there are two elements of this card that give hope and encouragement. The man in the card is not alone; his faithful dog has not left his side. I take the dog to represent both my life companion(s), and also my own faithfulness to myself. And the butterfly (which Kat Black includes on most sword cards in both her decks) reminds subtly of the transformative potential of any kind of pain or stress. You can rise again, and rise up better. If you want to.