Day 10/12

We are drawing near the end of the 12 Days of Dreaming. Today is Day Ten.

The tenth day of Yule marks a pivotal moment across cultures: the rebirth of the sun after the longest night. A reminder that even in the deepest darkness, light does return. Not abruptly, not dramatically, but inevitably. Nature does not rush this turning. It trusts the cycle.

Today is also aligned with the virtue of Justice.

Justice is not punishment. It is balance. It asks us to look honestly at what is true within ourselves and in the world, and to live in alignment with that truth. Justice isn’t necessarily comfort, but it does offer clarity.

As we turn our attention toward October, a month of transformation and release, the card drawn is the Five of Swords.

Fives in tarot indicate difficulty, disruption, and challenge. The Five of Swords is no exception.

In the image, a dove, a symbol of peace, trust, and good intentions, is attacked by a darker bird. What was built as a safe dwelling becomes a site of conflict. Innocence meets reality. Trust is met by defeat.

The Five of Swords is called the Lord of Defeat. Two feminine forces, the Star and the Empress, combine in the fiery energy of Mars.

Astrologically, this card is associated with the Venus cycle and the myth of Inanna. In her descent to the underworld, Inanna must surrender every symbol of her power and stand naked before the throne of her sister, Ereshkigal. Only one may reign in a single realm. There are winners and losers. There is confrontation. There is undoing.

This myth hints at competition, comparison, and the ways we turn against ourselves, particularly when we measure our worth against others or against imagined outcomes. It speaks to the quiet wars waged internally, especially between women, and the subtle violence of self-comparison. And yet, Inanna also rises again. Stripped of illusion, renewed, transformed.

So I find myself asking: could this card also be about leaving comfort? About the collapse of what felt safe in order to discover what else is possible? I don’t know.

I don’t pretend to know what this card foretells for October. What I do know is that it suggests struggle. In the image, the dove has built a nest in what appears to be a safe place, only to be attacked. Trust becomes vulnerability. Relaxation becomes exposure. What felt like protection is revealed to be fragile.

Leading up to now, the cards have been clear in their invitation: open the heart. Open it in alignment with the body. Stay present even when the mind grows fearful and attempts to protect through prediction, armor, and control. Let the heart open anyway.

And then the Five of Swords arrives.

To me, it almost reads like doubt returning to the mind:
You felt safe. You built a home. You let yourself relax into peace and love. And look what happened.

Told you so.

There is a part of me that reads this card and feels that familiar tightening, the sense that the very fears I was asked not to heed may come true after all. That opening the heart inevitably leads directly to loss. That vulnerability invites attack. That trust is naïve.

Or perhaps this is simply the Five of Swords doing what it does best: revealing the dwelling of the mind. Exposing the structure of fear that dominates once vulnerability has already occurred. The card may not be predicting destruction, but exposing the place where the mind fixates, rehearses, and catastrophizes.

If love and uncertainty do find me in the months preceding this, then old wounds, doubts, and fears are likely to be triggered. They will surface. They will demand attention and ask to be worked through. Perhaps this card is naming that terrain.

The Five of Swords does speak of undoing, of dreams quietly built and then shaken. But swords belong to the realm of the mind. This is not an external catastrophe imposed from the outside. It is an internal undoing.

The dove nests. It trusts. It relaxes into peace. And the raven arrives as reality, as conflict, as the world intruding on idealized safety. The defeat here is not that the dove trusted, but that it tried to live in a world without opposition. That it held an unreal idea of peace that could not withstand complexity.

October may not be asking me to close my heart, but to release fantasy. To surrender the belief that safety means nothing will ever challenge me. To notice where I turn against myself when uncertainty appears. To recognize the moment when fear shows up disguised as wisdom.

I don’t know exactly what this card means yet. But parts of it feel familiar. The familiar map my mind follows when vulnerability knocks. And that itself could be the lesson of October.

To keep staying. To keep loving.

Affirmation:

“I do not turn away from myself when uncertainty arises. I stay aligned with truth, even as illusions fall away.”

Always,
Your Trusted Friend ✨