Six of Swords

▲ Upright Meaning

The Six of Swords is transition - the passage from troubled waters toward calmer ones, recovery, and the gradual movement away from difficulty. It is the journey of healing, the leaving-behind of a hard place for a gentler one, the slow and sometimes sorrowful progress toward peace. To draw it is to be in transit: not yet arrived, but moving in the right direction, carrying the weight of what was while heading toward what may be better. In the Rider-Waite-Smith deck a ferryman poles a boat carrying a cloaked woman and child across water toward a distant shore, six swords standing upright in the boat; the water ahead is calm though that behind is choppy. The crossing is the transition itself, the movement from trouble toward peace; the upright swords carried along are the troubles and lessons brought with them, not yet set down; the calmer far water is the recovery being moved toward. It is the card of the healing journey, melancholy but hopeful. As a Six, it carries the numerology of harmony restored after the Five's crisis - balance regained, here through the movement away from conflict toward calm. The Marseille pip, read by number and element, speaks of air settling, the troubled mind beginning to find peace. Six is the number of equilibrium; in the airy suit it becomes the transition toward mental peace - the crossing from turbulence to calm, the journey of recovery. The esoteric traditions title it Science - Mercury in Aquarius, the clear, communicative mind of Mercury in the rational, forward-looking air of Aquarius, understanding and the application of intellect to move beyond difficulty. Crowley's Thoth Six of Swords shows swords arranged in ordered intelligence. Etteilla and the cartomancers read it as a journey, a passage, travel by water, and the movement away from trouble. The common thread is transition - the healing passage from difficulty toward calm. In a reading the Six of Swords counsels the acceptance of transition and trust in the journey toward calmer waters. It favours moving on, recovery, travel, the leaving-behind of a difficult situation, and the gradual easing of trouble; it often marks a passage from a hard time toward a better one, undertaken with quiet resolve. Its Mercury-in-Aquarius clarity resonates with the steady, releasing movement of the waning moon, the phase for moving beyond what has troubled one. It reminds the querent that healing is often a crossing rather than a single step, and that calmer waters lie ahead even while the swords of past trouble are still aboard.