Five of Swords: On Fighting Time, Unnecessary Competition, and the Practice of Failure

Maria Sprow November 20, 2023

FIVE OF SWORDS:

You’ve come across The Cursed Hourglass, for which the Five Eagles of Time are both fighting for and entrapped in. The Five of Swords is a sign that you are finding yourself surrounded by war and competition, that your foes are drawing nearer, or that you’re fighting a battle against Time itself, wasting it away on consumption instead of spending it in growth and creation. The Hourglass has the power to remind you that everything in this world is temporary, that time is running out, that time is always falling. But look a little deeper, and Time is a complicated subject. Time is always moving, that moments of time are both endless and infinite, as if every grain of sand in the universe was a moment of time in the multiverse of possibilities created by each and every passing decision. Is Time your enemy? Or is a gift? Regardless, war exists, and you’re preparing for battle. Think about who or what you’re up against right now, and see yourself holding those things hostage in this magical Hourglass bestowed upon you. Their power is running out, and you hold the key to victory in your hands. You’ve just got to pick up your sword and make the journey.

The Four of Swords: Active Meditation, Self-Love and Wild Creation

Maria Sprow November 20, 2023

The Meditating Hummingbird has graced your presence. The Four of Swords shows the Four Swords over a reflective pond, serving as a frame around a peaceful Lotus flower, within which sits the dual spirits of both a woman and a beautiful bird, both sitting in a meditative pose, though the bird appears to be looking up, as if contemplating the future, and the woman’s back is turned, suggesting she is looking out or inward. This is a card about knowing how to be alone, about finding strength in solitude and creating a closer connection between you and your Creator - but through open thought and active meditation.

The Three of Swords: Creating Emotional Release After a Painful Heartbreak

Maria Sprow November 16, 2023

The Rainbow Heart is about finding creative unity and emotional release after a painful heartbreak, loss or betrayal. Three powerful Swords stand in a mushroom field, the energy between creating a colorful forcefield of love.

The Two of Swords: Balancing the Honeymoon Stage and Avoiding Burnout

Maria Sprow November 14, 2023

Your energy has drawn you to the Book of Tales. Your spirit is requesting you remember the importance of Balance within your creative knowledge and pursuits. Two Swords come together over a field of mushrooms, which contain the power to communicate with powerful Earthly giants — trees. Where the two Swords touch, magic happens: galaxies are born from the explosion. What does the Book contain? It’s anyone’s guess. Perhaps it contains every story ever told, a how-to for everything ever created, every spell ever said, directions into the afterlife, or the meaning to life itself. The Book can’t be read, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be heard.

The Ace of Swords: A Significant Breakthrough

Maria Sprow November 14, 2023

The Ace of Swords represents a new energy and a significant breakthrough. The Sword Force indications that doing so will require you to learn a new skill, but the challenge will be worthwhile.

The Messenger: Thoughts on A Major Force

Maria Sprow September 3, 2023

This series I've been working on has really been an incredibly reflective task. Each card has really made me think about deep topics for a long period of time, and every card is filled to the brim with symbolism, meaning and thought.

I've been working on an Angel Messenger card the last few days, which has me thinking about gender and all the difficulties people have understanding the difference between sex and identity, between body and soul.

I'm trying to put together a nonbinary angel as one of my vision board assets. AI (Midjourney), which is genderless, will not do it. It keeps giving me hypersexualized women (usually without wings).

There are so many concepts AI cannot grasp. But I think it's really important this angel be nonbinary. This fight over pronouns might seem ridiculous, but it's a fight not just for human rights and trans rights, but for the recognition of soul and spirit.

We fight over whether our bodies have two genders, or a spectrum of genders, or four genders, or five, or whatever, and it doesn't even matter. Our bodies are but a very limited vessel. I do not believe our souls have one gender. Catholics preach about the soul and eternal life, but they don't seem to believe that our souls are separate from our bodies. They seem to believe our souls are as confined as our bodies, and they don't seem to think our souls should matter to the lives we live on Earth. But I think our souls matter just as much here as they do in the after life, and in every other life, and the biggest pronoun fight isn't over whether any individual wants to go by he or she or they or whatever, but what God goes by.

The biggest lie ever told is that God's pronoun is "He," and it was told to us by a power system working to opress us and confine us into gender roles and norms that harm every one of us. An entity that encompasses everything is not "he." It is They, or it is unknowable.

Our souls are as nonbinary and multi-gendered, multi-racial, as God, or whatever word you want to use for the entity responsible for sacred geometry, and while our bodies crave the biological imperative of reproduction, our souls only have the eternal imperatives of love and creation. We must all be free to love freely and hope that our hearts still have it in us after being under attack by the corrupt powers that be.