I saw the acronym SWOT today defined as strength, weakness, opportunity, threat, and having recently pulled out the Wild Unknown Oracle, I thought, let’s try pulling for the collective on this. Was SWOT originally meant to be a tarot spread? Maybe someone who knows can tell me in the comments, because my running across it was pretty random. As so much is.
I’m going to go out of order because there’s a thematic connection between Strength and Opportunity: quiet, dark, rest, a breath. For Strength I pulled The Empty Room (but if you look at the image, it’s a dark empty room) and for Opportunity, The Cave. I suppose the Cave might be occupied but it could also be a dark empty room! Both these cards have light in them too, but in the form of faraway stars. The Cave also has hands and plants. And possibly, ever so faint eyes, so maybe the Cave is occupied after all.
For Weakness, two cards jumped out, the King and Prayer. These are the only two cards in this spread to show much color: yellows, oranges, reds. The King has a hand holding…a button? A coin? My eyes are old. Prayer shows a hand reaching as if out of the grave.
For Threat, the Faultline. Things you don’t need a card to tell you!
So what does this mean?
First, the calling out. Why are our prayers weak? Is it not the time for prayer, but perhaps the time for taking responsibility ourselves? And for holding ourselves accountable for that which we do and don’t do?
Second, some literalism. Is the Empty Room a source of Strength, or has our Strength left us? Or both? That’s something for us all to ponder. If we are in the room, then it isn’t empty. This card, with its stars and black space on the walls, speaks of space. Space is connected to grace, not because they rhyme, silly, but because grace requires space, the space of curiosity, the space of not knowing, the space of wondering how we came to this particular place on this particular path.
Also, the eyes in the Cave speak of beings who might have found sanctuary there. Sitting next to the Faultline, the Cave makes me think of structures that protect and shield when an earthquake happens. Like standing in a doorway or sitting under a sturdy table. A Cave might not be safe in an earthquake, but it also might be. And too, faultlines are connected with other Ring of Fire events besides earthquakes, like volcanoes erupting. And tsunamis. Choose your Cave wisely. What opportunity is lurking there? What scares you that you don’t realize is actually your friend and bestie?
So think about this literally but also metaphorically because clearly, faultlines have formed in our populations too.
The King. Well yes, Kings are weaknesses. Especially if you pray to them, WTF.
There’s another card I haven’t mentioned yet, the card at the bottom of the deck, the Eternal Child. This card shows hands, a sun, a rainbow (so here we have colors appearing again). The Child in a dark Cave would be using some imagination, I think. The Child would be thinking creatively. The Child here doesn’t correspond with any one of the SWOT positions, but with all of them. The Child, perhaps, asked for a king to fix things. The Child, perhaps, doesn’t want a timeout. The Child, perhaps, doesn’t want the Faultline to point at the self. The Child says, it’s somebody else’s fault, surely! But the Child also is blessed with faith and the ability to imagine solutions, imagine a better world, imagine the ways that look impossible to adults. (And the Child will be far more delightful and effective at all of this after a nap.)
Humanity, what you think is not possible could be the creative way out. But let’s not grasp at straws. The Empty Room says to me, think it through, take a breath, wait a beat, ponder the unknown, and consider the infinite directions into which your chosen action could lead.
Think it through, take a breath, wait a beat, ponder the unknown, consider the infinite directions.
Think it through
take a breath
wait a beat
ponder the unknown
consider the infinite directions
Think it through!
Overthink it!
But don’t underthink it.
Thank you for reading.
Quiet Bonnie 