The Ace of Swords reversed and Forgetting

Ya’ll, I completely forgot it was blog post day! I woke up this morning, made my coffee, started the woodstove, and then went to settle down with my morning pages. But wait! Wednesday is usually the day that I write my blog instead of morning pages. And usually I have some idea of what I’m going to write about, an outline, or even a nice rough draft to edit. Not today! Today I didn’t even remember that blogging existed.

Weird, right? Does this happen to everyone? I presume it does: things just skip our minds. They fall through the cracks. They disappear into the clouds. They are forgotten. And this forgetting happens without any effort on my part. Sure, lots of times I’m trying to put something out of my mind, to not think about a thing, sometimes for lots of good reasons and other times out of laziness or avoidance. Then there are times when I intend to remember and just plain forget.

All of a sudden I’m remembering a podcast I listened to where this topic was discussed. I can’t remember who the guest was but it was on the Rich Roll podcast and the interview was about dementia… or maybe it was developing routines. Maybe. Listen, it’s still early and I’m a bit discombobulated and obviously writing off the cuff here. Let’s see if I can remember the gist of what I do actually remember.

So, the reason we forget things, even when we intend to remember them is because they are stored in a part of our memory where things that haven’t happened yet are stored. There’s a part of our mind where memories of things that did already happen are stored and that part is a bit easier to access, especially if we access it often and strengthen those neural pathways. The part where we store memories of things that we are intending to do, is a little bit trickier to access because we haven’t actually done the thing yet so the pathways aren’t as strong.

This is also why it is difficult to start a new routine, but easy to maintain a routine that is already established. If we have lots of memories of doing a certain thing at a certain time, then we know our routine and perform it easily. If we have only a few memories, or just an intention to do a certain activity at a certain time, we more easily forget to do it. I’ve only been blogging on Wednesdays for 10 months now, but I don’t always do it on Wednesday morning or in the same location. In this context, it’s easy to see why it skipped my mind.

And since this is the Willow Path Tarot blog, of course I need to relate this forgetting to a card in the tarot deck. It surely needs to be a Swords card because the Swords represent the realm of the mind and this is a very mental activity of remembering that we are talking about today. Then I thought about how the act of remembering is based off of routine and habit and patterns. When we don’t have those things we are at the beginning of the road, at the Ace. There is a sense that we have a fresh new idea but it hasn’t fully formed yet and therefore it is easy to forget.

Ace of Swords tarot card from the Shadowscapes tarot deck.

I love the Ace of Swords card because of that sense of new, fresh mental energy. Ideas are forming. Thoughts are bubbling. There’s enthusiasm and sparks of inspiration. The Ace of Swords shows up in a reading when you are ready for some fresh perspective, a new take on a situation or a fresh start. It can be an aha! moment when you finally grasp a concept and are ready to build on that new knowledge. It can be the inspiration to pursue a new goal or set off down a new track. The Ace of Swords is the essence of mental stimulation, a mind ready for the pursuit of knowledge and the development of wisdom.

But what about when you forget to follow through? You have a glimpse, an epiphany, a shouting of aha! Then you totally go back to your routine and forget all about it. Well, that’s got to be the reversed Ace of Swords. You had that insight, it did happen, but then nothing comes of it. You go back to your old ways and nothing changes. Oftentimes, what happens then is that you have the glimpse of a vision again later. It keeps coming back, peeking at you, wondering if you’re ready for that next step yet. When the Ace of Swords reversed shows up in a reading, ask yourself if you’ve been here before. What insight are you having now that you’ve had many times before and not acted on it?

I’m not throwing any shade on you. Not in the slightest! We all have opportunities for change and fresh ideas and new starts, and we kind of let them pass us by. This is natural and even healthy, I think. Sometimes we are not ready. Other times the timing is off. We have more to learn, we have things to wrap up, we can’t pull ourselves away from one more episode of our favorite show. And that’s fine. Life doesn’t have to be constant ideas, movement, inspiration, and new things. The beauty of most ideas is that they come back around again. We get another stab at it at a later date, hopefully at a time that works better for us.

Ace of Swords reversed tarot card from the Rider Waite Smith tarot deck.

So the Ace of Swords reversed is that peek at a new perspective. It captures our attention; we are struck by a new way of thinking. But then maybe it doesn’t amount to much. We forget to follow through, or we can’t muster the energy to make a big change at the moment. And that’s fine. My advice would be to honor that insight with your acknowledgement and consciously choose whether or not you are going to pursue it. This is not about trying to forget on purpose, but rather, trying to push off remembering to a later date. Does the brain work like that!?

And then there are the little things that you forgot on a daily basis, like writing a blog post, or picking up the milk, or an annual doctor’s appointment. You make it home at the end of the work day and you have no milk and a call from the doctor wondering where you were at 1:22pm when your appointment was scheduled. You hadn’t thought about it all day! And then you remember that you drew the Ace of Swords reversed as your card of the day that morning. It was just how today went, you forgot a few things. Hopefully they weren’t that important. You can write the blog post a day late, make some milk at home in your soymilk maker, and reschedule that appointment for another day.

It’s fine to not be perfect on a day to day basis. We all forget something at some point. Let’s not worry about it too much. When it does finally happen, you stare blankly as your friend asks you why you didn’t show up for a lunch date, you can rest assured that you’re not a horrible person and it’s probably not dementia. It’s just a brain that has a lot going on and let one thing drop. Make your apologies and don’t dwell on it. Our brains are mysterious places, energy moving along neural pathways in sometimes unpredictable ways. We don’t have to understand why we forgot to be ok with forgetting. This is just another opportunity to show yourself love and acceptance and move on with your sweet day.