Saturday, August 8, 2015

Queen of Knives – dispelling the shadows

After the my last post about the Five of Knives, today I drew a card from the Tarot of Vampyres with the following question: What do I need to dispel the shadow; who will wake me up from this dreamy, unconscious state of mind?
And then there she is: The Queen of Knives, my most favorite ally in a tarot deck and the representation of that part of me which can deal with almost everything. She is the one who takes over when somebody in my family needs my complete attention, support and problem solving skills. And now she is here for me. How often do we forget to apply our strengths to help ourselves. 
This Queen is the embodiment of consciousness and intelligence with a intuitive and caring nature, She is a queen after all. She is intelligent and empathetic, honest and wise and although she  can be painfully truthful, she never intends to hurt us. I always think of her as woman who has experienced the entire suit of Swords, so she knows what problems we are dealing with when we come to her for help. She is determined  to shine her light over our clouded minds. She uncovers our fears and our detrimental defense mechanisms. She allows our true self to shine. She separates our mind from our unconscious, hardly impenetrable, swamp and in doing so she enables us to a see our fears for what they really are. And this can be the first step to embrace our shadow instead of fearing it. The most important lesson she will teach us today is to be honest.  And being totally honest to ourselves is maybe the most difficult  aspect of honesty there is.

17 comments:

  1. Fear of course is a feeling and in extremes is what gets me in a big kerfuffle and my underwear in a knot because it can be paralyzing. Prevention and trying to keep that level headed rational thinking that the Queen exercises works for me most times even though my visceral reactions may be telling me otherwise. I listen to that still quiet voice and slowly try work through my meltdowns!

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    1. For me it is also confusing to determine if my feelings are irrational and fed by fear or if they are actually telling me in what is the best thing for me to do. That can be paralyzing too. Analyzing and writing in my journal often makes things more clear to me! :)

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    2. Feelings I believe are a combination of rational and irrational and no doubt a real mish mash of all sorts. I don't place any value judgement on my feelings any more they just are. and YES journaling really clarifies things I know for sure. It's why I have done it for so many years.

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  2. From the looks of that blood on the knife, it appears she's readily dispatched the vampire. That's what I love about this queen; there's no whining or sighing, she just gets down to business! :)

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    1. Quite right She is determined and not afraid to make a difficult decision. I love the Nautilus shape in the background which for me symbolizes the fact that she willing to go to the bottom of things. :)

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  3. "I always think of her as woman who has experienced the entire suit of Swords, so she knows what problems we are dealing with when we come to her for help." I love that concept! It makes sense, and is a great way to think about this Queen. I like how she has a raven over her shoulder..... looking with clear insights into the mysterious.....

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  4. Yes the raven is gorgeous. It reminds me of Odin, the Norse God who kept himself informed about mankind by his two ravens. So for me they are always a sign of wits and clear messages :)

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  5. This queen is certainly not afraid to get her hands dirty!

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    1. No she isn't! I wonder what detergent she uses :D

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  6. Like Olivia, I love what you say about her having lived through the suit of swords. And you are so right, we often forget to apply our strengths to helping ourselves, as well as others. I also notice the Fibonacci shell/diagram on the wall behind her. The Fibonacci sequence is about adding what has gone before, so that we expand what we have. And that's a good summation of this Queen. She uses her knowledge of what has gone before to grow her understanding, but also her compassion. Hope you were gentle with yourself, Ellen, and able to grow your understanding through journalling :)

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    1. "Hope you were gentle with yourself, Ellen, and able to grow your understanding through journaling" Lately it is all about being gentle and kind for myself and a lot of journaling. Hopefully I will be back soon
      Hugs

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    2. That sounds very supportive, and you know we'll be here waiting when you do decide to blog again :) (((hugs)))

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    1. Piling on even more hugs, from North America!!! xoxo

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    2. Thank you so much my friend!
      XOXO

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  8. You very well explained how I feel about the Queen of Swords, that idea that she has experienced the Sword suit so she can have empathy, love love, sadly you are making it so I might have to add this deck to my collection O.o

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    1. Hi Kelly I think you would love this deck and especially the in depth guidebook which is a fantastic read
      I hope I will feel better again soon

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