Tarot Card of the Day

Ten of Swords

Deck: Oak, Ash, and Thorn

The Ten of Swords is traditionally considered one of the heavier cards in tarot.

It represents painful endings, loss, betrayal, defeat, and those moments when we feel as though we have reached rock bottom.

But the Ten of Swords isn't only a card about pain.

It is also a card of deep transformation.

Because eventually, even the darkest night has to end.

Seeing Beyond the Pain

The imagery in this particular card doesn't shy away from the difficulty of the Ten of Swords.

At the center is a crow, hanging upside down in agony. Swords surround and pierce the figure from every angle.

There is pain here.

There is no pretending otherwise.

But when I looked beyond the crow, I noticed something else.

Beautiful butterflies are circling around it.

Then behind everything, the sun is rising.

The ending and the beginning exist within the same image.

That feels important.

Sometimes when we are experiencing an ending, the pain takes up our entire field of vision.

We can become so focused on what we are losing that we cannot yet imagine what could possibly exist beyond it.

Maybe we aren't supposed to immediately.

Pain deserves to be acknowledged.

Grief deserves space.

An ending doesn't become less meaningful simply because something new may eventually grow from it.

But the Ten of Swords gently asks us to remember:

What we can see at this moment is not the entirety of the story.

The Crow

The crow in this card carries a particularly personal meaning for me.

Crows are often associated with intelligence, transformation, mystery, and communication

between the seen and unseen worlds.

But my connection to them also brings me back to my dad.

A couple of days before he passed, he was transferred to a hospice center. I was on my way

there, moving through stop-and-go traffic after a hurricane had knocked out power throughout the area.

At some point, I looked over toward the grass.

There, standing upright as though it had been intentionally placed where I would see it, was a beautiful crow feather.

I picked it up and later placed it in a flower arrangement beside my dad's bed.

I still have that feather.

Today it sits in a flower arrangement on my desk, where I see it every day.

So when the crow appeared at the center of today's card, I couldn't help but feel the weight of that connection.

It reminded me of something I've learned through grief...

An ending can be incredibly painful and still transform us in ways we could never have understood while we were living through it.

We don't have to call the painful thing beautiful.

We don't have to be grateful that it happened.

However with time, we may begin to recognize what grew within us because we survived it.

The Butterfly and the Crow

The butterflies circling the crow deepen that message.

Both carry themes of transformation, but they represent that transformation very differently.

The crow is still within the pain.

The butterflies show us what can emerge from change.

Behind both of them, the sun continues to rise.

I think there is something deeply compassionate about that imagery.

It doesn't say...

Forget what happened.

It doesn't say...

Move on.

It certainly doesn't say...

Everything happens for a reason.

Instead, it seems to quietly say...

See beyond the pain of what you are leaving behind.

Not because the pain isn't real.

Because the pain isn't all there is.

When an Ending Becomes a Threshold

Tens represent completion, the end of a cycle.

Endings can feel scary because we know what existed before them, but we cannot always see what will exist afterward.

Sometimes we hold onto something simply because we know how to exist within it.

A relationship.

A belief.

A version of ourselves.

A dream.

A chapter of our lives.

Even our grief can become familiar.

Though eventually, an ending becomes a threshold.

There comes a point when there is nowhere left to go within the old story.

That means the only direction remaining is forward.

The Ten of Swords reminds us that rock bottom is still ground.

From solid ground, eventually, we can begin again.

How to Work With This Energy Today

Allow yourself to acknowledge an ending without immediately trying to find the positive within it.

Give grief, disappointment, anger, or sadness the space they deserve.

Then, when you're ready, gently widen your perspective.

Ask yourself what you may be ready to release rather than carry into your next chapter.

Notice what an ending has taught you about yourself, your boundaries, your needs, or what you want moving forward.

Remember that not being able to see the new beginning yet doesn't mean one isn't already forming.

The sun can be rising before we are ready to turn around and see it.

Journal Prompt

Think about an ending in your life that once felt impossible to see beyond.

Who were you when that chapter ended, and who have you become because you

continued living beyond it?

What strength, wisdom, compassion, boundaries, or understanding eventually emerged?

Now consider something you may currently be grieving, releasing, or outgrowing.

Without asking yourself to rush through the pain, gently wonder:

What might become possible when I am finally ready to look beyond what is ending and toward what may be beginning?

Closing Reflection

The Ten of Swords does not ask us to pretend endings don't hurt.

The crow is still wounded.

The pain is still visible.

But so are the butterflies.

And so is the sun.

Perhaps transformation begins when we allow both truths to exist at once:

This hurt me.

My story did not end here.

Sometimes an ending changes us.

Sometimes it breaks something open.

Then sometimes, long before we can recognize it, the first light of another beginning is already appearing on the horizon.

Feel what needs to be felt.

Honor what is ending.

When you are ready, look beyond the swords.

The sun is rising.

Remember the wisdom within. ✨

Rachel