Tarot card meanings - Ace of Swords Interpretation

In Tarot the Ace is number 1, the initiator, the leader, the source from which all the other numbers spring.

Swords are ruled by Air. Air is the breath of life.
Swords rule the mental faculties and discrimination as described in The Lovers. Swords rule the mind and the individual’s personal way of thinking. The suit of swords in tarot correlates to Mercury in astrology .

A sword is double edged. It has a light side and a dark side, it attacks and defends, pierces and slices.

In tarot the Ace of Swords depicts the individual’s ability to choose the correct way forward at any given time, especially where communication is concerned. This is one’s ability to speak one’s truth openly and honestly. One’s truth is not an opinion, it is a fact. Let me give you an example.

One day, several years ago, I was in a car with two female friend’s and one of their daughters. We drove past Stonehenge and the three of us who were not driving all saw a man walking near the stones with a “something”. I saw a man with a metal detector, my friend saw a man walking a dog and the girl saw a man mowing the grass. We all agreed that the man had a pole or long something going out from his hand but what exactly was on the end of it was in dispute. The friend who was driving, who hadn’t even seen the man, said, “I have no intention of turning back in order to resolve this. You all saw what you saw, no-one is lying, so there isn’t any need to go back and see what he was doing.”

Now, had we been in a court of law a judge or jury might have decided that someone was lying (the Ace of Swords reversed), yet no-one was, we had all stated what we had seen. The fact. You might well say that what we saw was merely our personal perception of the situation, yet we all do this all of the time, we all perceive our own reality through the illusion of life. Yet it is our truth, by which we al live.

You can begin to see from this true life example how speaking ones truth has the potential to start arguments and conflict, subjects closely associated with the suit of swords in tarot. When somebody defies us or accuses us of lying, or says our opinion is wrong, then be defend with ardor. We also attack back to protect our position.

Words cut and shred our mental balance, yet if we maintain our integrity then nothing can harm us.

The Ace of Swords rules our ability to be assertive, our ability to be honest, our ability not to be easily swayed by others...and also our ability to judge precisely when to pull our car out into traffic or where to slice open a body if we’re operating.

All human life is affected by our dual nature, our knowledge of good and evil. The entire suit of swords epitomises this and our constant human struggle to find the fine point of light that glints down the sword and shines towards truth. Many symbolic artworks depict people using the sword to cut through to the truth. In Sandro Botticelli’s La Primavera we see Mercury depicted on the left hand side using his caduceus instead of a sword to pierce through the clouds which symbolise all thoughts which would literally cloud our judgement.

When the Ace of Swords tarot card is reversed we find the opposite to integrity and honesty. Here we find lies, dishonesty and deceit. Surrounding cards are very important because they will highlight whether the depth of lying is a simple “white lie” or something far more sinister. From time to time we all tell “fibs” which are never intended to harm anyone, such as, “What do you have in that bag?” - answer “Nothing”, when we know full well that it is the other person’s birthday present and we don’t want them to know.

Some cards to look out for next to the Ace of Swords which will indicate true malicious intent are The Page of Swords, The Devil reversed and the King of Swords reversed.