No one likes getting this card and everyone immediately understands what it means – it’s a knife to the heart. I see it when relationships have ended badly, when love has gone wrong.
The image of the blood in the bath is even more powerful, showing the darkest side of suicidal impulses after a really great sadness.
The card showing the sinking ship also speaks to me, sometimes it just feels too hard to stay afloat.
The loss of something of real value to us is always hard to accept, and the 3 of sword shows the struggle with that pain, rage and sadness.
I love this card. It's my "progressive symbol" in the tarot (what I'm moving towards). It also has pathology as its career of choice, and by golly, that's the field I'm currently working in! With regard to the Rider-Waite art, I see it as "getting to the heart of the matter," or getting to the truth, so to speak. The storm clouds behind it symbolize the fact that when the truth becomes known, it can create storms of controversy. Amazing, isn't it?
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