Six of Swords tarot card meaning
Six of Swords is the card of transition, moving on and calmer waters. Leaving rough waters for calmer ones. The Six of Swords reflects transition, recovery and moving toward peace.
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Six of Swords upright
Leaving rough waters for calmer ones. The Six of Swords reflects transition, recovery and moving toward peace.
When Six of Swords falls the right way up, notice first where transition is already at work, then how moving on and calmer waters gather round it. The scene, a ferryman poling a small boat across water toward a calm far shore, carries that feeling without a word. It names something present, not something coming.
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Six of Swords reversed
Carrying the trouble with you, or a move delayed. Let the far shore be truly new.
Upside down, Six of Swords asks you to look at transition and moving on where they are uncomfortable rather than easy. Perhaps calmer waters is being refused, or perhaps it is being leaned on too much. Either way it is a mirror, and the choice of what to do stays with you.
What the card shows
The plate shows a ferryman poling a small boat across water toward a calm far shore, a cloaked figure and a child seated inside, six swords standing upright in the boat.
In the tradition this deck follows, the plate’s details are read this way: a boat as a passage from one state to another; water as feeling and the inner life; children as innocence and new life; and the sword as thought, truth and decision. Together they are why Six of Swords is read for transition, moving on and calmer waters.
Six of Swords in love
Read for a relationship, Six of Swords asks how transition and moving on are shared between two people. It describes a mood rather than an outcome: where calmer waters is present, and where it is missing. Swords carry thought, truth and conflict, so in love Six of Swords often points to the words spoken, or left unspoken, between you.
Six of Swords in work and money
On the practical side of life, Six of Swords is a card of transition. It may describe how moving on is shaping your work now, and it invites a sober look at calmer waters before the next step. Swords belong to thought and conflict, so at work Six of Swords often points to a decision, a conversation or a plan that needs a clear head.
As a question to carry
What calmer shore are you moving toward?
There is no right answer to it; Six of Swords asks only that you look at moving on honestly.
The suit of Swords
Six of Swords belongs to the suit of Swords, the suit of Air, which tradition gives to thought, truth and conflict. As a six of the suit it is a card of harmony restored, of giving and receiving.
Read with its own keys, transition, moving on and calmer waters, it shows air at one particular point in the suit’s story. See all fourteen cards of Swords.
Draw your own cards
Reading about Six of Swords is one thing; drawing it in answer to your own question is another. Members draw from the full deck in the Almanac tarot: the card of the day, three cards, or the ten-card Celtic Cross, each card read in its place.
Tarot is a tool for reflection, not a replacement for God, prayer, Scripture or wise counsel.
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Common questions
What does Six of Swords mean in tarot?
Six of Swords is read for transition, moving on and calmer waters. Leaving rough waters for calmer ones. The Six of Swords reflects transition, recovery and moving toward peace.
What does Six of Swords mean reversed?
Carrying the trouble with you, or a move delayed. Let the far shore be truly new. Reversed, it keeps its theme of transition, seen from the side where it is blocked or overdone.
What does Six of Swords mean in love?
Read for a relationship, Six of Swords asks how transition and moving on are shared between two people. It describes a mood rather than an outcome: where calmer waters is present, and where it is missing.
