Messages about Nature from the Marseille Queen of Swords

I was struggling with the Queen of Swords. What could she have to teach me about Nature-connection? Preferring the Tarot de Marseille version over the Waite-Smith, I decided to approach her myself and ask.

It is the queen from the CBD Tarot of Marseille. I admire the (very similar) queen from the Jodorowsky/Camoin Tarot de Marseille, but she looks angry and unapproachable to me, like the CBD’s nasty twin. The Queen from the CBD Marseille wants to share with me, I can see that. She looks kind.

Above: Queens of Swords from two Tarot de Marseille decks. Left is CBD version, right is Jodorowsky/Camoin.

I enter her bright white room and I sit down on a cosy green seat before her (careful not to look too comfortable – noticing that she is welding a big bloody sword in front of me), and I ask her.

“What do you have to teach me about Nature connection, Queen of Swords?”

She doesn’t answer. She just smiles, she winks, and yet somehow this speaks to me more than any words could. Her wink reminds me that I am in the realm of the Mind with the Swords, the element of Air. I’m going to have to use my brains a bit here, to work a bit, figure some things out for myself. And so I wait for a sign.

A light blue fly lands on my shoulder; it buzzes and I swat it away, annoyed at such an intrusion at such a vital moment. Then, a tiny yellow spider appears on my stomach, from apparently nowhere, but despite being surprised by its appearance, I leave it there. Oh, I get it! The insects are a part of this, the insects are giving me a message. The spider crawls up my chest, right to the middle of my ribcage, and it turns deep blue, royal blue, a blue so soothing I felt my heart slow down watching its delicate legs crawl up my t-shirt before it stops and rests. It is medicine for my racing red heart, still carrying anxieties from a difficult week with work. It soothes like thick cool liquid on sunburnt skin.

I look up, and the queen winks again. Do I get it now? I look at her collar, her stomach, her chest, the places where these insect intrusions have appeared to me. Her clothes in these places are light blue, dark blue and yellow, just like the colourful insects, and yes, I get it now.

Above: Queen of Swords from the CBD Tarot de Marseille.

Her collar is light blue. On it, there are nine little black dots, indicating The Hermit, number nine from the Major Arcana. As I wrote in an earlier blog about The Hermit, those alone times outdoors are the biggest teachers. The queen seems to be saying that, if I speak (throat area) about Nature to others (which I often do as part of my work), I must speak from the Hermit’s perspective, about those simple times that I only find when alone in the woods, or watching the hills. Defending Nature from an angry place, or ‘teaching’ from an intellectual place – a mind place – doesn’t help Nature – or me – to get the importance of Nature-connection across. I need to speak as The Hermit. The significance of the Hermit’s nine dots being at her throat – where words form – is how I come to this conclusion.

I then count seven dots on her dark blue zip. The Chariot (number seven in the Major Arcana) is in the heart area. The Chariot shows a sort of mobile home, does it not? Sheltered but with the ability to move. Nature is home, and it is everywhere, everything. Wherever we are, we are home. The weeds growing in the pavement will confirm this for us if we stay silent enough to pay attention to them. We know this in our hearts, but we forget. These seven (Chariot) dots at her heart realm remind us that we always carry home with us – home is everywhere, because we are Nature, our very hearts are Nature.

Finally, the yellow belt she wears contains eight dots – referencing the Justice card (in the Tarot de Marseille, anyway – number eight is Strength in the Waite-Smith, but we aren’t using that today, are we!). Nature will rebalance the mess that the world is in. I know this in my gut (belt area), even though all signs seem to say otherwise. That doesn’t mean that humans can’t help, because humans are Nature too. But ultimately, Nature will rebalance things. That message is strong. It is in my gut: the eight (Justice) dots appearing at the queen’s gut highlight this.

I am about to decipher the meaning of the 12 dots on her crown when I accidentally look into her eyes, conscious all of a sudden that I have been staring at her collar and her chest area, and that this is rude. It could be seen as sleazy – a man looking at the queen’s chest! I flush bright red, hot in the face, as I see her wave her red sword before me. But no, she is still smiling. She knows what I was doing, that I was only reading her for messages. And these were the messages that she wanted me to receive. It’s fine. Phew.

I get up from the cosy green seat, put my hands together in the Buddhist gassho, and I bow to the queen. I thank her for her wisdom – which she managed to share without saying a single word – and I leave the immaculate white space. I wander back to this world where I type letters on a screen, which people across the world pick up telepathically. It strikes me how strange life is. 

That’s all for now, friends. Thank you for being here – and please check out my Therapeutic Tarot Sessions and my courses embracing Tarot and Nature if you’d like us to work together. You can also sign up for the Tarot Blog newsletter (different to my main newsletter) below to receive occasional email updates (roughly monthly) with the latest posts.

Smiles from Scotland,

Stephen