Unplugged and Unbothered: The Four of Swords (and a Happy New Year Message)
Hello, all!
Happy New Year’s Eve, at least, according to the Gregorian Calendar. This post focuses on the Four of Swords. I feel like the timing of today’s post is highly appropriate to how I have been spending the last couple of weeks.
The Four of Swords from The Modern Witch Tarot, the Pulp Tarot, and the Genius Garden Tarot.
These last couple of weeks, I have been off of school, and contrary to my plans and intentions, I haven’t done much of anything. Well, that’s not true. I read a lot of books (give Shuggie Bain, by Douglas Stuart a spin if you want to bawl your eyes out). I drank wine. I slept in. I watched movies. I saw family. This winter break for me has been largely restorative and not really outwardly active. My husband has also been off this week and we have had a lot of uninterrupted time to just be lazy together.
The one thing that I probably over-indulged in was social media and online activity. Out of all of my New Year’s intentions, curbing my screen time and going the digital minimalism route is probably the item on my list that I feel the most serious about. More than any other habit in my life, this is the one that I know is toxic, that is a net negative, but which I find the hardest to avoid. More on that later.
Many of my low-key activities over this holiday vacation reflect the themes of the Four of Swords pretty accurately. This card is about giving yourself a mental, emotional, and physical respite from the machinations of the outside world. Going inward.
In the eight-limbed yogic path, it would be akin to pratyahara, or withdrawal of the senses. There are many ways to inhabit the space indicated by the Four of Swords—unplugging from screens, observing a few hours or days of silence, meditating with your eyes closed to see what is activated by your other senses. In the traditional Rider-Waite-Smith card, it looks like the knight on the card is resting in a coffin. In yoga, we might say that the figure is practicing savasana, or the corpse-like pose that is done at the end of practice to help you integrate the effects of the practice, and also to symbolize a metaphorical death and rebirth.
Overall, the message here is to dial back on what you allow to come at you through sensory experience. In this way, your mind (ruled over by the Swords) will come to a state of stability and fortitude (indicated in general numerology of fours; all fours in the tarot indicate structure and stasis).
Think back to the Three of Swords. That card is about a great mental and emotional wound. The swords rule the intellect, but our thought patterns and emotions are inextricably linked, and I am constantly amazed at how the cards in the swords suit reflect this. After the heartbreak of the three, we need to take a pause and find a safe place to get regulated, both mentally and emotionally. There will be more life to live, more battles to fight (as evidenced by the Five of Swords later on). But for right now, we need to detach from the outside world and recharge.
In a dark horse sort of way, The Four of Swords has snuck up on me, becoming one of my favorite tarot cards lately. In 2024, I believe that the wisdom compressed in this card will be really necessary for all of us. It will be impossible to function or hold on to our values if we are constantly buffeted around by information, by bad news, by other people’s opinions. Sometimes, mental turmoil is unavoidable, but in our world, it has become normal to live in a constant state of heightened anxiety because of the amount of information and input that we have access to. Our attention and focus are a precious commodity. To a certain extent, we have control over where we put it.
I know that there are some people who might be countering this opinion, saying that it’s important to be informed, especially right now with the genocide happening in Gaza and the war in Ukraine. I completely agree; it’s important to be informed to the extent that the information that you get influences you to take aligned action, like donating to a relevant organization, boycotting corporations, attending marches, or contacting your local representative, congressperson, or MP. You could also be active in writing about the issues yourself. Beyond that, I believe that the amount of news and more often than not, other people’s opinions about world events that we are currently saturated in, can be paralyzing and disempowering when ingested in excess. How much of it do we take in that causes us to mentally spin our wheels and feel an overwhelming sense of doom that ultimately isn’t useful? All I am saying is that it’s important to place limits and boundaries on the amount of information we take in each day. Imbibe what will inspire you to act on your values.
Think of the figure resting in the card as resting between battles, for one battle won’t settle things once and for all. The Four of Swords is very much “a marathon not a sprint” archetype. You must make sure that you have a strong reservoir of energy when you return to figurative or literal battles. That involves withdrawal of the senses.
So, this year, I want you to ask yourself, when and where is it best to disengage, to unplug, in order to become more empowered mentally and emotionally? How can I use intentional withdrawal of the senses to come back to the outside world refreshed, recharged, stable, and ready to work for what I hold to be most important? These are questions that I am repeatedly asking myself as well and that I will be revisiting all year.
Before I sign off, I want to extend my deepest gratitude to everyone who has become a subscriber in 2023. The fact that anyone wants to read my tarot-related thoughts is amazing to me. I plan to keep on keeping on here in 2024 and to add quick daily readings, which I have thus far posted on Instagram. Part of protecting my focus and attention lies in consolidating my posts on different platforms. Once again, thank you, and have a happy and safe new year!
Layla