January 30, 2021: Knight of Wands and 3 of Swords

So, it has been a bit chilly these past days and when it is this cold, all I want to do is sit in front of the fireplace with a good book.  I realized I haven't been here for a while so I dragged myself away from the warmth to write a post about today's cards.

My Inner Focus card for today is the Knight of Wands.  The image on this card shows a knight riding a galloping dapple gray stallion whose eyes are wide, with froth at his mouth (and we can tell the horse is a stallion because of his erect penis). Our knight is not wearing a helmet, and he is carrying a hefty club that looks like a shillelagh.  In front of him and facing him is a naked woman, her dress bunched up around her waist, her left leg hooked under the knight's right leg.  The knight's right hand is on her left buttock and she is looking down toward his hand.  The key phrases for this card are: a relationship that begins immediately, and elopement spurred by passion.

My Outer Focus card is the 3 of Swords, one of my least favorite cards in the whole Tarot deck.  The Decameron 3 of Swords card image shows a man with a smile on his face, looking through the keyhole of a stout wooden door.  The key phrases for this card are jealousy, the fight for possession, and morbidity.  

This is an interesting pairing.  Today I am being told that there is the potential for feeling strong passions, strong enough that I just might be swept up by them and carried away.  Because of the Inner Focus position of this card, those strong feelings could elicit a response from within me.  And "strong" is the word; just looking at this frothing stallion galloping forward with his eyes wide and his penis erect really explains the emotions well.  The shillelagh has some symbolism here; it was originally used to settle gentlemanly disputes, but it became associated with brawls and "shillelagh law." Our knight, while considered gentlemanly, is allowing his passions to control him.  He is not watching where he is going and instead, his eyes are closed and his face is buried in the woman's hair as his stallion runs amok.   The woman is not controlling things either.  Yes, she is wearing a dress, but it is bunched up around her waist; she does have shoes on though, which hints at some grounding.  But the shoes are not on the ground, so she is probably grounded in the knight and his passions, rather than what is happening around her.

The traditional key phrases of the 3 of Swords are heartbreak, betrayal by others, and isolation.  Here in the image of the Decameron 3 of Swords we see that betrayal in action, a betrayal committed by one person that could bring heartbreak for all.  A simple action, looking somewhere that we are not supposed to be looking, if done on purpose and with malicious intent can cause pain everywhere.  The warning is clear: be aware of how my mind and intellect are working and apply ethics to whatever I do.  After all, even an unethical act performed with good intentions is still unethical.