This card is one that I have a love / hate relationship. This is the Eight Of Swords card from the Tarot Of The Hidden Realm Deck. This person may gaze deeply into your eyes, wishing they could tell you about all of the feelings, emotions, obstacles in their life. They want to open up, but they are unable to, or in reality feel unable to. They are bound by many things: trauma bonds, soul contracts, fear, ego, honor. Unwilling to let go, mostly out of an inability to see a different perspective on their situation, they hold fast in the space they are in, protecting themselves from what they think (or internally have decided they know) will happen if they ever let go. The only advice I can give to anyone in the Eight of Swords space, when you hold onto something so tightly, you kill it. The universe will move you into releasing that which no longer serves you either by your hand, or by your lack.

There is a few ways that an Eight of Swords can move forward. The first method is moving into the Nine of Swords where they pull back, become guarded against anything that could undo the bind they are holding so tightly on to, and fall back generally into a space of darkness within. Think of this as a Hermit space without the higher self entanglement. Nine of Swords can have a benefit of the knowledge of what you truly want to fight for, but you aren't ready and so that can allow you to keep that which you want at arms length.

Secondly, you could move into an Eight of Pentacles energy where you go into working fast and furious on building your empire and therefore you don't have time to work on anything else. In this energy you can move into exhaustion, or because you are still focused on what you desire perhaps work very hard at getting not a lot done. In that space you are generally aligned with a Four of Cups energy where you may be obsessing on your choice, or any of the seven set where you are working hard at thinking about your choices rather than acting on your choices.

I love what the Eight of Swords tells us, because it is giving you that nudge from the Universe that you are not truly bound, and can leave and move forward at any time. I hate that we usually choose to stay out of fear in the situation that we are in, and let our desires sometimes slip away. Rarely, the Eight of Swords energy slides over to the Eight of Cups, and your higher self wins by walking away from what you needed to leave behind. This can lead to that Nine of Cups where you have realization of what your heart truly desires and then that Ten of Cups where you complete the past to start a beautiful new beginning in love.

For me that winning is what I hope for out of every reading, even when it isn't in the cards.