Hello and welcome to My Tiny Tarot Practice.

I'm Amelia Hruby, and on this show, I'm sharing my journey exploring the cards

of the tarot, starting with each suit of the Minor Arcana.

Today's card is the Knight of Swords. In the Rider-Waite-Smith edition of the

tarot, the Knight of Swords depicts a knight on a horse.

This knight is wearing a suit of metallic armor cloaked in blue and red.

There are red wings sprouting from their helmet.

There's a red cloak flowing behind them as their horse charges quickly forward.

We don't see what at, but the knight has one hand on the reins and one hand

holding their sword straight up in the air.

Behind them, we can see the clouds moving through the sky, and we can see even

trees in the background that are slanted, tilted because of how fast this knight is moving forward.

Of the four knights in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, this knight is certainly the most in motion.

With the knight of cups and the knight of pentacles, we see knights sitting

on top of their horses, but those horses are still.

In the knight of wands, the horse is moving, but the knight of swords,

this horse is going fast.

This knight has somewhere to get to.

I often call on the Knight of Swords when I am looking to make swift, smart decisions.

This is certainly a knight who will bring quickness to your thoughts,

to your words, to your speech, who can aid in channeling the power of air and wind particularly,

I think, in shifting the winds a different direction.

But at the same time, that can be a little unruly. When working with the Knight

of Swords, I'm reminded that wind can also be destructive.

This is not the sweet breeze of the spring.

This is the dusty gust of winds across the plains.

The ones that can blow over anything that is not secured to the ground.

And sometimes that's precisely the energy we want.

We want to clean and clear, make new new decisions, different choices, head in that direction.

And other times, that energy can be destructive without a clear path.

This is where I think of the way that wind starts to swirl, that we see tiny

tornadoes or large tornadoes form and spin and spin and spin,

destroying everything in their unpredictable path.

So again, I do call upon the Knight of Swords when I need to make swift, smart decisions.

But I also remember Jessa Crispin's warning in the Creative Tarot,

where she says, When working with the energy of the Knight of Swords,

you have to be sure that your eyes are clear and your intentions are pure.

The brain can play tricks. Logic can lead us down black holes.

Which master are you serving? Is that a dragon or a maiden you are slaying with your sword?

These are important questions to ask when this card turns up.

Be sure you are not plowing your weapon into an innocent's heart.

What she's saying there really reminds me that sometimes when I have been making

my swift, smart decisions, I get really caught up in the logic of a thing,

and I forget that I also need to be led by my heart and my gut.

It can't just be my mind taking me forward. or perhaps it can,

but the direction I'm going needs to be guided by these other aspects of myself and my life.

So the knight of swords will get you there fast, but perhaps we need other archetypes,

other cards to help us decide where we want to go to begin with.

Thank you for listening to this episode of My Tiny Tarot Practice.

If you'd like to get your own copy of the books or or decks that I reference

on this show, you can head to the link in the show notes where I've curated

a bookshop page with my favorite tarot tools just for you.

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that helps me keep this podcast going.

We've neared the end of the swords with this episode, and soon we will take

the leap into the major arcana.

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