53-Four of Swords – Upright Rider Waite Deck

Your Chosen Card – Four of Swords Upright Rider Waite Deck

When upright, the Four of Swords indicates a time of repose, healing, solitude and recuperation. Note the word PAX (Latin for ‘peace’) in the angel’s halo on the stained glass window. Perhaps you are recovering from illness or need a break from stressful circumstances. In modern technological parlance, you may want to go off the grid for a while and recharge your batteries. After a period of rest and relaxation, you will be able to begin anew. Traditionally this card represents retreating to a meditative environment, such as a remote hermitage in the desert.

Keywords Upright: Rest from strife, time out, solitude, retreat, solace, peace, repose, a break, truce, temporary cessation of hostilities, respite, withdrawal, meditation, recuperation, R&R, convalescence, taking the time to recover from loss or illness, hermitage, oasis, tomb or final resting place, a period of tranquility away from struggle, mental attraction, going off the grid for a while, seeking spiritual guidance.

Timing: 20 Libra–30 Libra. Tropical, 13 October–22 October. Sidereal, 6 November–15 November.
Astrology: The expansive benefic Jupiter in the third decan of airy Libra, realm of the Waite King/Thoth Prince of Cups (Air of Water) and Justice (Libra). Jupiter is linked to the Wheel of Fortune.
Number Symbolism: 4 – structure, stability, order, logic, foundation, manifestation.

Rider Waite: The effigy of a knight in the attitude of prayer, at full length upon his tomb. Divinatory Meanings: Vigilance, retreat, solitude, hermit’s repose, exile, tomb and coffin; (R) wise administration, circumspection, economy, avarice, precaution, testament.

When Four of Swords is upright you can pretty much take it that life is going well but that’s when life takes us by surprise.  If Four of Swords is unclear it may help to choose a card from the Major Arcana to provide more insight into what it is Four of Swords is trying to tell you.  If you had a particular issue in  mind, or want to seek clarification on something else, you can also choose again to get more guidance.

This chosen card is part of your upright card reading for Four of Swords using cards from the Rider Waite Tarot Deck. You will find many more tarot pages that will be of great help if you need tarot card meanings. Use the search at the bottom of the page. We have some amazing tarot books for you to browse. Please see below.


Here are some snippets from a few of my favorite books

Complete Book of Tarot
Book Details
Complete Book of Tarot: When upright, the Four of Swords indicates a time of repose, healing, solitude and recuperation. Note the word PAX (Latin for ‘peace’) in the angel’s halo on the stained glass window. Perhaps you are recovering from illness or need a break from stressful circumstances. In modern technological parlance, you may want to go off the grid for a while and recharge your batteries. After a period of rest and relaxation, you will be able to begin anew. Traditionally this card represents retreating to a meditative environment, such as a remote hermitage in the desert.

Tarot Books

Creative Tarot: It’s easy to see why artists in particular connect to the deck. Tarot readers tell stories—stories that might not always have a logical sense but have instead an intuitive meaning. The story is guided by a feeling, or perhaps the mood a color suggests to the reader, or strange coincidences in the pictures. (For instance, on one card, three figures are hunched over their work, so that might be relevant because . . .) That is a creative act. And so artists, used to working in that way, often take to the decks like ducks to water.

Complete Book of Tarot: The Italian artists who painted the first tarot decks added a fifth, or trump, suit to the four standard suits to create a deck for playing a game similar to modern bridge. The early tarot decks varied in the total number of cards contained. As the tarot deck continued to evolve, the total number of cards eventually settled at seventy-eight.

  • Do get in touch if you looked for Four of Swords and we don’t have it listed. We would be more than happy to source the information for you. We hope you visit again for more online tarot information!

Tarot Triumphs: Tarot cards have been shaped by generations of human imagination and have acquired their own unique mystical and magnetic presence. We do not know exactly how and why they emerged, but they have certainly come to represent a kind of magical heritage. For hundreds of years, people have pondered the cards, read fortunes, and played games with them; they have recreated and varied the images and gleaned insights from them. Whether or not there was one person who invented the pack to start with, the human psyche, or ‘common mind,’ has done its work. If there was ever a single original pack, it has been altered, smoothed, honed, and tested over the centuries. We only need to think of the different artists and engravers working on all the different packs, creating their own version of the designs, each interpretation maybe just a little different from the last. Imagine, too, all those generations of colorists applying bright brushstrokes to the woodblock outlines, painting with intense concentration in humble ateliers to bring the cards into their full glory. Each of them may have dreamed about the cards in their own way and applied the colors just a little more inventively to leave their personal mark.1 And then we can recall the wide range of people who have used Tarot: nobles, common folk, merchants, gypsies, and travelers, all with their packs for game-playing, gambling, fortune-telling, and perhaps also for deeper reflection. Through all these hands the Tarot has passed, gathering meaning, accumulating the hopes and wishes of those who use it, triggering the imagination, and acting as a pathway to unseen worlds.