Minor Arcana · Swords
Queen of Swords
discernment · candor · independence
What Queen of Swords means
Accuracy is not popular. Anyone who reliably says the exact thing rather than the comfortable one ends up standing slightly apart from every group that needs them, and the position is produced by the function, not by any hardness in the person occupying it. Older cartomantic lists handed this rank widowhood, privation and mourning, and offered no reason for it; those were the terms such lists used for a woman standing outside an arrangement, and they belong to the card’s history rather than to anybody who draws it. Precision at that level is trained, in the way a craft is trained, by being corrected. Nobody thanks the person at the time.
Upright
Say what is true with precision and proportion. Experience can help you set a clear boundary while leaving room for another person’s dignity.
Reversed
A protective edge may be becoming sharper than the situation requires. Keep the clarity, and check whether the judgment allows for the whole story.
A question to sit with
How can I make this boundary clear without making it cruel?
Traditional attribution
Water of Air. Attributions follow the Golden Dawn with Waite's numbering.