MINOR ARCANA
Six of Swords Tarot Meanings
A bit like the Four of Swords, I always feel like the Six of Swords is a point for breathing a sigh of relief and take a break. After the conflict of the Five, the Six of Swords shows us that we’re ready to turn our thoughts to something new, to leave the stress behind and find more stable and smoother ground.
The Rider Waite-Smith card of the Six of Swords can really help us when it comes to unpicking all the smaller details of this card’s meanings.
The disturbed and choppy water in the bottom right corner represents the rocky ground we’re now moving away from, with the boat slowly sailing into that calmer water towards the solid ground of the shore. In the Six of Swords, we are all three of the characters we see on the card, the driver, the parent, and the child. In order to move forward, we have to embrace all three of these aspects of our psyche.
Six of Swords Upright Meanings
In the upright position, Six of Swords is a card that is a welcome sign of good things coming. It is a card that often allows us to look at moving forwards and leaving that which no longer serves us, firmly in the past. Some of the key meanings of Six of Swords upright are:
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New perspective
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Moving on
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Objectivity
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Switching focus
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Mental self-care
With the Six of Swords, we have to put our own mental wellbeing first. We may have not had much control, space, or time to pay attention to our mental health recently and the Six of Swords is a prompt to start thinking about how you could take better care of yourself and identify the things that threaten to drag you down.
Six of Swords Reversed Meanings
The Six of Swords in the reversed position turns this healing and forward movement on its head. In the upright position, we are working to better our personal circumstances, in reverse we are struggling to do so. Some of the reversed meanings of the Six of Swords are:
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Lack of progress
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Slow healing
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Obsession
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Instability
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Regressing
In the reversed position, the Six of Swords turns into a card of stasis. Instead of reaping all the nice nutrients of the upright Six of Swords, we find that we are mentally unable or unwilling to take the next step or do what we need to do to put ourselves first. We then have to look at what is the anchor of this challenge in order to flip that card around and start to move forward.
Reading Six of Swords in a Tarot Spread
Like any tarot card, reading the Six of Swords in a spread requires you to carefully consider its position and the context of the reading. When the Six of Swords makes an appearance it could mean that things are starting to look up, but it can also mean that there is some trepidation in taking that step to make things better for yourself. As it’s a swords card, its energy is all situated in the head and throat chakras, so it’s helpful to frame it with those in mind when trying to find its true meaning.
Six of Swords as An Invitation
The Six of Swords invites us to look at how we are dealing with something, how are we taking steps to move things forward, to leave the past in the past? It is a card that is all about looking after our own mental wellbeing and taking care of our inner child just as much as our adult selves.
For Six of Swords, this invitation could be the following:
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An invitation to analyse how you’re moving forward from something traumatic, disruptive or difficult
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An invitation to look at your mental self-care and how you could improve it or amp it up
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An invitation to step outside yourself and see how your thoughts and beliefs are holding you back
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An invitation to find a new way of looking at your situation
Six of Swords as Sage Advice
When it comes to offering advice, the Six of Swords is very considerate of the feelings and emotions that may be linked with the situation. Although it is a sword card and therefore centered in mental energy, it recognises that the head and the heart are intricately linked and so should be treated as such. Its advice to us revolves around this mindfulness of body and mind and so feels like very nurturing energy when it pops up in a spread.
Some advice Six of Swords may offer is:
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To be honest with yourself when it comes to looking at how you see a situation
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To identify habits that may be self-sabotaging or harming in some way
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To see things through a lens of objectivity in order to gain clarity
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To put your mental health first so that you can always stay on top of thing
Six of Swords as a Lesson
As a lesson, the Six of Swords is here to remind us that after the storm, there is always a moment of calm. Life is filled with ups and downs and bad things never last forever. Six of Swords teaches us how to bounce back from these things, how to handle the difficult times with mental clarity and stability in order to take care of our own wellbeing.
Some lessons that Six of Swords may offer you are:
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Even if things are chaotic in the present, there is always calm in the future
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To learn good mental habits to help you cope and move through challenges with ease
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Self-sabotage happens for a reason and in order to overcome it, we have to look at all the parts of ourselves and see where the anchor lies
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Sometimes we can get caught up in our own stuff so we have to be actively objective in order to see things as they truly are
Six of Swords as a Redirection
The Six of Swords is all about forward movement, so when it shows up as a redirection it is usually referring to a change in mindset or focus. As I mentioned above, we can be blind to what is happening around us when things get too much. Our brain starts to create a sort of tunnel vision effect to stop us from taking on too much, however, this can often do more harm than good.
As a redirection, Six of Swords could symbolise a need to:
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Replace negative ‘chaos’ thinking with more optimistic future outlooks
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Move on and leave what’s been bothering you in the past
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Turn some of your focus on your internal world
Swords
The Swords refer to our communication, intellect and beliefs. In the Six of Swords we really focus in on the intellectual areas. We gather all of the knowledge we’ve accumulated and put it to use to help us move out of unstable ground.
What we choose to take with us on this forward journey is completely up to us. We might want to leave old beliefs behind and create space for new ideas and beliefs. We have to be the ones to make that decision however.
Air
The element of air plays a role once again in this Sword card. We are once again focusing on our mental space, looking for ways to leave old beliefs and thoughts behind.
The element of air can help blow away anything that no longer serves. We also see the element of air at play in the Rider Waite-Smith card in the choppy waters under the boat and moving away into smoother, calmer waters. This represents a slowing of this air element giving us a chance to breathe and process.
Sixes
In numerology the sixes often refer to success and achievement. If we look at the meaning of the number three, which is all about collaboration and growth, we simply double that energy to fully understand what Sixes mean.
In the Six of Swords we see this achievement represented in the mental resilience and strength it takes to find your way out of a turbulent thought patter. If you have experience with spiralling thoughts, the Six of Swords is your ability to pull yourself out of it.
