If you have set yourself up for a free Tarot Card reading online and come up with the Two of Swords you will see a blindfolded woman balancing two swords on her shoulders. This is a card of weighing things, of meditation and balance.
Appearance and Symbolism
The Two of Swords shows a young woman sitting on a bench, holding a sword in each hand. Both swords are balanced on her shoulders and she is blindfolded. Behind her is a huge expanse of water, the sea, filled with craggy rocks. In the distance on the other side of the ocean is a landmass where we see mountains or cliffs. Above the young woman we can see the crescent moon.
The woman’s blindfold indicates a feeling of confusion and worry; she cannot see the situation or problem that is before her. The balance of her swords though, tells us that she has a balanced and stable mind.
Almost any introduction to Tarot Cards will tell you that water is a symbol of the subconscious mind and of emotions. When we see the rocks in this expanse of water behind this woman, we can see that they are impediments and obstacles to her emotional wellbeing and sense of balance. The rocks are symbols of tension. Quite literally, ships will find it difficult to traverse those waters.
The moon we see in the sky is a symbol that deals with cycles, time, psychic powers, changing from one phase to another and the divine feminine.
The moon is a powerful force with the ability to move the oceans with the tides, but also encompasses the softer, feminine and more intuitive aspects of all of us. When we see the moon in a Tarot reading, we need to pay attention to our intuition and take a long hard look at our levels of awareness.
Interpretation
One of the meanings of this card in a reading is tension within a relationship, or the need to keep a cool head in order to solve the problems you are facing. This card expresses the importance of balance and the need to see both sides of a situation in order to assess it properly.
This is card is also about choice and the problems of indecision that we all face in our lives. The woman in this card has blindfolded herself intentionally in order to avoid a difficult choice that she has to make.
Yes, she does look content with her indecision, but what she has not learnt that just by pretending something is not there, that does not mean that it will not rear its head again in the future. This card reminds us that ignorance is not bliss. Of course, we also can assume that this woman is biding her time, weighing up her options and seeing what she should do before she makes her final decision.
Inverted Interpretation
When this card is drawn in the inverted position it shows that you might be stuck in a difficult situation, where you have to make a difficult decision. The term Catch-22 springs to mind. This can symbolise that you are finding it difficult to decide what the right choice is, because both options could lead to negative outcomes.