Queen of Swords Tarot Card Meaning

Queen of Swords upright

You observe with finesse, you interpret with subtlety and you register quickly and accurately what you understand. This card says that you have separated your judgment from your most instinctive reactions, and that you rely on reason and discernment. It also speaks of the word and the advice you give.

This card is tied to pain gone through. Your face is stern, but softened by experience: you know sadness. You have known sorrow, you faced it with courage, acceptance and honesty, and that is how you gained your wisdom. The card evokes bereavement, absence, separation and loss. It can concern a woman as well as a man, because grief and courage do not depend on gender. It describes a phase you may go through at a given time, not what you are for your whole life.

Your mind is complex and lets you handle complicated situations. You speak frankly and go to the essential to understand the heart of a situation. You hold to truth and principles, and you demand a lot of professionalism. You value your personal freedom and the independence of your opinions. You can handle situations impartially and bear disappointment well. You expect honesty, competence, efficiency and initiative from others.

With others, you are reserved and distant at first, and your self-sufficiency can intimidate. In a one-to-one relationship, open communication is essential for you, although you may tend to over-analyze the bond. As a mother, you are demanding, critical and firm in your expectations. Your character is excellent in itself, but it tolerates interference poorly.

Your strengths

You perceive quickly and clearly, you observe well and you interpret with subtlety.
You are individualistic, self-assured in action, kind and fair in mind.
You are graceful in your movements and good at keeping your balance.
Your discernment comes with the practical sense and grace that a post of responsibility requires.
You have gained wisdom by learning from your pain and facing losses with courage.
You give honest, meticulous criticism, you defend truth and principles.
You can inspire intense love and devotion from unexpected people.

What holds you back

You can be hard, demanding and unforgiving, and judge without taking other people's feelings into account.
You can be strict, inflexible, and cut ties when you judge it necessary, even if losing them makes you suffer.
You risk cutting yourself off from your own emotions.
You risk over-analyzing a relationship.
You are cold and distant, and your self-assurance can intimidate.
When your qualities are misused, you can become cruel, cunning, deceptive and unreliable, despite a fine appearance.

What helps

Speaking frankly and going to the essential.
Preparing your actions with foresight and caution.
Accepting help from people who seem ill-suited: their strength can make up for what you lack.
Facing your sorrows with courage, acceptance and honesty.
Keeping communication open in your relationships.

Careers

criticism, research, writing, business.

Queen of Swords reversed

The upright Queen of Swords is a woman who has been through pain, faced it with courage, acceptance and honesty, and gained clarity from it. Your harshness and narrow-mindedness rarely come from real malice. They come from deep disappointments and from lies you tell yourself. Your bad moods and negative behavior most often come out of frustrated ambitions, ideals that have turned sour, and abilities that were sacrificed or left unused.

You may exaggerate your grief: you make life much worse than it is by ignoring what is good around you. You may also have a strong mind that goes wrong, especially in reaction to pain or to the pressure of unpleasant situations and people. At times you are so sure of yourself that you expect everyone, and even life itself, to do what you want. When someone opposes you, you become spiteful, narrow-minded and sectarian, and you impose your personality on those around you. Whether from too much grief or too much ego, you have lost your commitment to truth.

You may hide your intelligence and competence behind artifice. At the other extreme, you may deprive yourself of comfort and company. You keep your grief under control and resist sadness. Loneliness, restriction and intolerance can come from sorrows and disappointments. You may resist an ending or put off decisions. You are probably afraid of being alone or rejected, and yet you can cut yourself off from those around you.

This card can also make you more loving and emotional, less cut off from others, more dependent, and able to lower your guard. It can also show that you refuse to over-intellectualize and play mind games, or that you are trying to overcome the pain of having had a cold, distant parent or boss.

Your strengths

You also know how to set limits, define a job clearly and discern what is better left unattempted.

What holds you back

You act cruel, narrow-minded and resentful when your ambitions have been frustrated or your abilities left unused.
You are very critical of others, or very hard on yourself.
You keep your anger to yourself, or you lack firmness and discernment.
You are intolerant and unreasonable, or hesitant and unresponsive.
You put your grief before everything else and no longer see what is good.
You expect others to do what you want.

Love

In your personal relationships, there may be repressed anger and cruelty, or a lack of firmness and discernment.

Family

As a parent, you may carry a great sadness that comes out as compassion or as coldness and distance. You may be intolerant and unreasonable, or hesitant.

Children

The same parental sadness can show up as compassion or as coldness.

What the card shows

What the image shows

The Queen of Swords is a graceful woman with wavy hair, seated on a throne, crowned. Beneath the throne are gray clouds. She holds a drawn sword. The suit of Swords stands for intelligence and the mind.

In the most widespread tarot, a bird flies very high above her. It represents the purity of her wisdom. Two birds fly behind the throne in the Swords court cards: the bird shows the mind's ability to rise into wisdom, far from passion, emotions and material corruption. Clouds gather around her, but her head stays above them, in the clear air of truth. These clouds stand for the pain, losses and dramas she has gone through with courage: that is how she won her wisdom. A tassel hangs at her left wrist, the side of experience, and looks like a cut cord: she has used the sword of her intelligence to free herself from confusion, doubt and fear. She frowns at the world, but she holds out an open hand to it.

What the card says

The Queen of Swords stands for knowledge born of pain. She joins sorrow and wisdom, and above all the link between the two: having known pain and faced it with courage, acceptance and honesty, she has found wisdom. The card sometimes means widowhood. It speaks to women in particular, because women without power often suffer from the actions of men, but it can describe a person of either sex. It can also be only a phase: a person goes through a Queen of Swords phase, then through another card the following month.

She is intelligent, selective, reserved and distant. Her complex mind lets her handle complex situations. She speaks frankly and cuts away the unnecessary to get to the heart of a situation. She cares about truth and principles, without worrying about other people's feelings. She is very perceptive, observes finely, interprets with subtlety and takes in ideas quickly and accurately. She is individualistic, confident when she acts, graceful and fair in mind. Her movements are graceful, she likes dancing and keeping her balance. Her character puts up badly with interference. Foresight and care in preparing her acts protect her. She can count on help from people who seemed ill suited. She attracts intense love and devotion from unexpected quarters.

Your strengths

You care about honesty and can ask it of others: you challenge them to be competent, effective and enterprising. You are independent in your opinions and you value your freedom. You treat situations impartially and handle disappointment well. You are rigorous: your refined mind and discipline serve you in honest, meticulous criticism, research, writing or business. You are persevering, exact in surface matters, graceful.

What holds you back

You can be hard, categorical, severe and inflexible, and cut ties when you have to, even if it hurts you.
You can cut yourself off from your emotions.
In a couple, you can analyze the relationship until you wear it out.
As a mother, you can be demanding, critical and inflexible in your expectations.
If you go wrong, you become cruel, sly, false and unreliable, with a pleasant exterior.
Reversed, you may dwell on sadness and make life worse than it is by ignoring what is going well around you.
Under pain or pressure, your mind can become spiteful, narrow and closed, and you want to impose your personality.

What helps

Facing your pain with courage, acceptance and honesty. Using your thinking to free yourself from confusion, doubt and fear. Keeping communication open in your relationships. Reaching out to the world despite your serious air.