Albano-Waite Three of Swords
Three of Swords
This image is from my Albano-Waite deck which I purchased in the 1970′s. This is a version of the standard Pamela Colman Smith / Arthur Edward Waite deck, published as a “New Color Deluxe Edition” by Frankie Albano.
The LWB that came with the deck (the original wording by Waite, I’m sure) states: Removal, absence, delay, division, rupture, dispersion, and all that the design signifies naturally, being too simple and obvious to call for specific enumeration.
The first words that come to my mind are heartbreak and sorrow. In Tarot for You Self, a terrific sourcebook, Mary Greer explains that “all threes deal with the ideal versus the real. They test your ability to handle the mundane and the disappointments of your idealizations.” But I really like her description of this card as “heart and mind at odds”. You can find her Tarot blog here: http://marygreer.wordpress.com/.
It’s interesting to me that the suit of Swords corresponds to the element of air, which represents communication. I’m not sure why that suit always shows the darkest and most negative of images. Perhaps it’s fitting in the sense that miscommunication so often leads to problems between people, not to mention what we do to ourselves through our own negative thinking.
My apologies for the fuzziness of the image. It’s not easy to photograph tarot cards. They’re fairly small and hard to focus on, plus they’re glossy, so I have to turn off the flash. Otherwise it reflects back from the card, obliterating part of the image.
Lyndi
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