The Eight of Swords can represent feeling trapped, confined, restricted or backed into a corner or having your hands tied. It signifies fear, terror, anxiety and psychological issues. It is a Minor Arcana card of hopelessness, helplessness, powerlessness, slavery, persecution and being silenced or censored.
A little like the Devil, the Eight of Swords gives us a picture of bondage. It presents a figure with their hands tied, blindfolded, surrounded by sharp swords. This can be a difficult card to see emerge in a spread for it is a card that demands you investigate your status as a victim and acknowledge your own role in any possible downfalls that may be occurring around you.
To gain more understanding of how we might see this energetic play out it helps to see through the eyes of an Australian women who felt trapped and bound by the imprisonment and public judgements.
On August 17, 1980, at a campsite near Australia’s famous Ayer’s Rock, a mother’s cry came out of the dark: “My God, my God, the dingo’s got my baby!” Soon the people of an entire continent would be choosing sides in a debate over whether the cry heard that night marked an astonishing and rare human fatality caused by Australia’s wild dogs or was, rather, in the words of the man who would eventually prosecute her for murder, “a calculated, fanciful lie.” A jury of nine men and three women came to believe the latter story and convicted Lindy Chamberlain for the murder of her ten-week-old daughter, Azaria.
There is no question that the Azaria Chamberlain case, the subject of film with Meryl Streep taking the role of Lindy Chamberlain, remains one of the most famous Australian trials. It is a story that still captures the imagination of the media.
The Chamberlains fought to prove their innocence, until they reached the end of all legal means available to them. But suddenly, bowing to multiple pressures, the Northern Territory released Lindy and established a Royal Commission to review all the evidence. Ultimately, the Chamberlain’s convictions were quashed and they were exonerated. Four years later they received some compensation.
Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about the Chamberlain case is that it helps us address both the upright and reversed interpretations of this card.
On the Labyrinthos site it states that “getting the reversed Eight of Swords is a good sign, since it shows maturity and self-acceptance, and a recognition of one’s own power and responsibility – especially after a long struggle of doubt. It means that one is capable of making conscious decisions because they are confident in who they are, and their power to affect change in both themselves and the world. It’s time to free ones self from the past and proverbially clear out their closet, creating room for new things and experiences”.
Lindy Chamberlain is a remarkable example of someone who was able to rebuild after such unimaginable suffering.
Waltzing With Matilda's 