Tarot Insights: King of Swords & The Lovers Explained

Tarot Check-In: King of Swords (Reversed) · Nine of Pentacles · Nine of Cups (Reversed) · The Lovers (Reversed)

Standing on the Ledge. Tarot reading day.

Standard four-card spread:

• Past: King of Swords (reversed)
• Present: Nine of Pentacles
• Future: Nine of Cups (reversed)
• Me (Querent): The Lovers (reversed)

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Quick read (plain language)

Past — King of Swords (reversed):
This is the “mind-as-a-weapon” card. Logic without warmth. Authority without listening. It can show up as someone else’s rigid power, or my own brain turning into a courtroom.¹ Reversed, it’s the axe swinging before the map is drawn — sharp conclusions, hard edges, and the kind of certainty that costs more than it saves.¹

Present — Nine of Pentacles:
This is competence. Self-reliance. A small, stable garden I can actually stand in — even if the bigger world is still noisy. It’s the “I built something real” card. It doesn’t need applause to be true.²

Future — Nine of Cups (reversed):
The wish card flipped: “Be careful what you think will finally fix the feeling.” This can be dissatisfaction, emotional overreach, or pinning all relief on an outcome (sales, closure, validation, a single email, a single yes). It can also be a warning about coping by numbing or overindulging — not dramatic, just the quiet slide into “anything to shut the brain up.”³

Me — The Lovers (reversed):
This isn’t just about romance. It’s alignment. Choice. Integrity. Reversed, it reads like disconnection: values pulling in different directions, bonds strained or broken, and the ache of “I can’t make someone meet me where I am.” It can also be me catching myself in a split: one part wants stability and peace; another part still wants the old story to be repaired.⁴

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Cumulative interpretation (pulled through the lens of the whole project)

If I stitch this spread into the themes I’ve been circling for weeks — collapse, rebuilding, ritual-as-structure, evidence over shame, and the long grief of role exits — here’s what it says in my language:

1) The past is a “control season,” and it left residue.
King of Swords reversed isn’t “you’re dumb.” It’s “you’ve been living in environments where sharpness was survival.” Work systems that don’t listen. People making unilateral calls. And my own head trying to solve pain by becoming flawless logic. That kind of thinking feels powerful, but it burns connection and rest.¹

2) The present is better than my nervous system is willing to admit.
Nine of Pentacles is the proof card. Book published (twice, technically). Papers signed. Applications moving. A potential job dangling in front of me. That’s not nothing. That’s skill. That’s follow-through. That’s me standing in a small territory I can actually manage.⁵

3) The future warning is simple: don’t outsource your peace.
Nine of Cups reversed is basically: “Don’t make one outcome carry the whole emotional load.”
If I tell myself one sale, one yes, one message back will finally settle the static — I’m handing the steering wheel to something I can’t control. That’s a recipe for a crash when the timeline doesn’t cooperate.⁶

4) The core wound is misalignment — not laziness.
The Lovers reversed points at the deepest friction: parts of my life don’t line up the way they “should.” Relationships. Identity. The gap between what I built and what I lost. The grief that doesn’t resolve cleanly because it doesn’t have a clean ending.⁷

So the spread isn’t predicting doom. It’s naming the current terrain:

• I’m coming out of a “sword season” (overthinking, hard power, sharp edges).
• I’m standing in real competence right now (even if my mood refuses to celebrate it).
• I’m being warned not to turn hope into a hostage situation (wishful thinking as a trap).
• I’m being asked to choose alignment over longing (values over fantasy repair).

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What I’m doing with this (a practical next step)

A) One “garden move” (Nine of Pentacles):
Protect the small stable territory. One concrete task that closes. Paperwork. A call. A document sent. One thing finished. No heroic rebuilds.

B) One “anti-wish spiral” rule (Nine of Cups reversed):
I’m allowed to want things. I’m not allowed to bet my nervous system on them.

C) One “alignment sentence” (Lovers reversed):
Write one true line and treat it like a compass. Example: “I’m building a life that doesn’t require permission from people who won’t show up.”

D) One tiny ritual (because structure is a tool):
Borrowing from my own winter practice: pick one thing I protect today and one thing I start today. Two lines. That’s it. Then I follow through.⁸

That’s all for today’s reading.

Godspeed.

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Footnotes

1. Lugh Sulian, “Understanding Workplace Dynamics: The Cost of Unilateral Decisions,” Standing on the Ledge (blog), January 18, 2026. ↩ ↩ ↩
2. A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: William Rider & Son, 1910). ↩
3. Rachel Pollack, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness, rev. ed. (San Francisco: Weiser Books, 2019). ↩
4. Lugh Sulian, “Small Wins: The Power of Daily Rituals,” Standing on the Ledge (blog), January 20, 2026. ↩
5. Lugh Sulian, “Building Stability with Simple Daily Habits,” Standing on the Ledge (blog), January 19, 2026. ↩
6. Lugh Sulian, “The First 72 Hours After Collapse: What to Do and What Not to Do,” Standing on the Ledge (blog), January 19, 2026. ↩
7. Lugh Sulian, “Coping with Life’s Ups and Downs: Lessons Learned,” Standing on the Ledge (blog), January 22, 2026; Pauline Boss, Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). ↩
8. Lugh Sulian, “Imbolc Inspired: A Mini Ritual for Winter Reflection,” Unplugged Pagan (blog), January 21, 2026. ↩