Welcome to Tarot for Scholars, a resource that helps you weave the deep wisdom of tarot into your daily life and work. In each post, we offer reflections and prompts for exploring your own inner world and unlocking the unique creative power of your scholarship.
Ace of Swords
About this card
The power of the mind to perceive, reason, and make sense of things. A precise insight that pierces through confusion and illusion. The clarity of purpose that can only be achieved through cutting away what is inessential. A focal point, an act of communication, a decisive strategy. An abstraction distilled from data to structure and organize the material world. The potential for intellectual development.
Other interpretations
Margy’s cards, clockwise from top left: Radiant Tarot; New Chapter Tarot; Cosmic Slumber Tarot; Shining Tribe Tarot; Elemental Tarot; Navigators Tarot of the Mystic Sea; Spolia Tarot; Tarot of the Spirit.
Helen’s cards, clockwise from top left: Moon & Stars Tarot; Light Seer’s Tarot; Japaridze Tarot; Canes Arcanae; Star Spinner Tarot; Muse Tarot; Tarot of Mystical Moments; Forest of Enchantment Tarot.
Questions and prompts
Where are you wishing for greater clarity in your work right now, and what can you slice away in order to reach a decision?
What’s a useful abstraction (theory, claim, thesis) that you’ve been using as a guide in your work? How does this “sword” help you perceive the meaning in masses of data? How can you use this sword today?
Where do you sense the potential for consensus-building in or through your work? How might you hone your own perspective to account for others’ points of view?
Thanks for joining us for Tarot for Scholars! Your hearts, restacks, and comments brighten our day. 💫
Yours in scholarship,
HELEN SWORD is a poet, scholar, award-winning teacher, and founder of the WriteSPACE, an international writing community with members in 30+ countries. Her research-based books, articles, and online tools empower scholarly writers to write more clearly, confidently, prolifically, and with greater pleasure.
Visit Helen’s website here.
MARGY THOMAS is the creator of ScholarShape, a body of work dedicated to elucidating the patterns of Story-Argument across genres, disciplines, and life itself. Through services and DIY resources, Margy helps scholars use Story-Argument patterns to design their work — and to find its deeper meaning and higher purpose.
Visit Margy’s website here.
If this free collaborative resource adds value to your life and work, please consider contributing to our “Helen & Margy IRL fund” so that the two of us (who live on opposite sides of the globe) can meet up In Real Life one day. An annual subscription costs just $1 per tarot card and earns you our eternal gratitude!
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