ten of swords
Rock bottom, my love. And also: there's nowhere left for this to go but up.
Upright Ten of Swords
The Ten of Swords is rock bottom. A figure lies face down with ten swords in his back: devastating, theatrical, complete. The card looks worse than it is. The Ten is the end of something. The end is also the beginning of something else.
Drawing this card often signals that the worst has happened, or you're being asked to acknowledge that it has. The Ten asks for the surrender to be real, because only then can what's next begin.
Only when the surrender is real can what's next begin.
Reversed Ten of Swords
Reversed, the Ten of Swords is the slow recovery: the swords being removed, the standing back up. It can also mean refusing to fully admit that something is over.
It can also indicate fear of an ending that hasn't actually happened, an anticipated catastrophe larger than the real one. The Ten reversed asks for proportion.
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