Seis de Espadas

The Six of Swords -- never an easy card to accept, though divinations give fair outcome to this solemn and frightening journey card.

The Wizard of the Tarot Universal Dali includes a fair land ahead by taking liberties with the Barque of Dante byEugène Delacroix.

The Tarot Universal Dali puts Dante in control of the vessel. Virgil and so many of the souls of the River Styx are cloaked in butterflies; sheltered by butterflies, propelled by butterflies.
The vessel is verily turned around no longer fore to the City of the Dead as depicted in this Delacroix's rendition of Dante's Inferno.

Working with the Rider deck as a starting point in Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom, Rachel Pollack called the Six of Swords a "strange and powerful image" and she notes in her text, "like the silence of Salvador Dali's paintings." Elucidating further on the meaning of the card she writes, "Usually this card does not signify death, though it can indicate mourning . . . it depicts a quiet passage through a difficult time."

Ms. Pollack writes also of "long sorrows" inherent in this card, sorrows of such duration their presence is no longer felt as separate from one's self and soul.

Tarot Universal Dali's ship is larger than Delacroix's -- the Magician's vessel carries all of Dante's Hell toward a different shore, a shore of light not darkness.

Charon, in myth and in Dante and in Delacroix struggles to hold back the living from the City of the Dead. Here, in the hand of the Magician of the Tarot Universal Dali, Charon appears dragged back toward life.

But tentacles of the heart of Charon's Hell are rooting in the air, overspilling the Magician's vessel. The same darkness emanates as well from the ectoplasmic woman leading the vessel onward and away from black clouds.

Comment: Focus on the shore across this middle swath of Pisces -- a sign of endurance and persistence. There is not time, midstream as it is right now, to lengthen sorrow any further. Do not push back. There is more life ahead.