Pick up your sword.

On the power of mind, and honing your ability to make wise, swift decisions.

Come.

It’s time to pick up your sacred sword.

Because somewhere in your life, a decision is waiting to be made.

Somewhere in your life, you’re on the fence, putting off a choice to which you already know the answer.

Come with me as we explore the archetypal energy of The Sacred Sword, which is the ultimate symbol of wise discernment.

First, let’s be clear: a sharp blade is a life-saving tool in the hands of a surgeon, or a violent weapon in the hands of an unhinged attacker. How we choose to wield the sharp blade of discernment is entirely up to us. And while I endeavor to walk the path of non-violence, I also acknowledge the holy nature of this timeless symbol.

The sword can be wielded as a weapon to end human life. It can also be wielded to cut through karma, slice through illusion, and slay the demons of doubt, fear and malice living in your psyche.

But first, we need to understand how to use it.

Autumn: a time to decide

Each season contains codes of wisdom, pointing us toward virtuous action or non-action. Autumn has a particularly potent medicine around making decisions. The etymology of the word decide contains “to slice”; it is literally a process of separating your ‘yes’ from your ‘no’ with a clear cut.

Autumn is the season of the harvest, when the final grains of the year are cut, and the last food harvested. We bid farewell to the verdancy and richness of summer’s splendor, and turn our gaze toward the darker winter months ahead. For those of us blessed to live in ecosystems with deciduous trees, we also have the pleasure of watching the leaves morph through a rainbow spectrum before releasing from their branches and dispersing like burnt gold confetti over the wet grass and puddled pavement.

In late autumn and winter, my beloved Ben gets to work pruning. He’s a master gardener and landscaper, and has studied the art of pruning. He knows to use precision and discernment in each snip as he prunes an apple tree, rose bush or hydrangea, all of which require completely different techniques. From time to time, we’ll drive by a tree that has been badly pruned and he recoils in disgust, a pained look on his face, as if he’s seeing a dear friend for the first time after they’ve had their limbs hacked off by a ruthless bandit.

Pruning is a necessary act of maintenance, made of many tiny decisions. It requires skill, and is necessary for optimal health in humans and more-than-humans alike. Just as the ends of our hair split when we’ve put off a cut, our nails break off in painful jagged ridges when neglected, and the beard needs a tidy trim; we are beings who benefit from a good pruning. In addition to the physical pruning, our schedules, overloaded calendars and overzealous list of commitments also beg for a good pruning.

Let us not put off any longer that which we know needs our attention and action.

Pick up the sword.

Choice points: a honing device

Yogi Berra famously said, “when you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Let us call this fork in the road a “choice point”, which represents the liminal state at the very moment you are on the precipice of making a decision.

When faced with choosing one direction over another, a a helpful question to ask is, “how is my nervous system in this moment?” If you feel regulated, calm and rooted, chances are you’ll make a good choice that serves your future self. If you feel dysregulated, flustered, overwhelmed, stressed, anxious, fearful or ungrounded, chances are you’re about to make a questionable decision from an unstable place—you’d be better off waiting until you’ve regained your footing.

Another helpful question is "where is this decision honestly coming from?" If you're truthful, you may be able to identify that the decision is coming from your intuition, a good hunch, or from an array of aligned factors. Or, you may realize that the decision is coming from wanting to please someone, a desire to fit in, needing to prove yourself, wanting to look successful, or any other origins that don't actually align with your authentic inner wisdom.

Need some examples?

Here are some choices I’ve made and the state from which I’ve made them, which ultimately led to suffering, regret or uncomfortable reckoning:

• When I chose to launch another round of my mastermind

• Because I felt like I should, desired the financial benefit, and a coach I had hired suggested I do so

• Even though I didn’t want to and felt unclear

• Which resulted in my pulling the offer after I had already spent energy, attention, time and money on creating materials, assets and marketing emails which I will now never use
  

• When I chose to eat the second half of my sandwich

• Because the first half was so delicious

• Even though I was already totally full and happily satiated

• Which resulted in feeling like shit
  

• When I chose to send an email to a potential dream client

• Because I was excited about the inspiration of working with them

• Even though I hadn’t sat on it for 24+ hours or done sufficient proof-reading

• Which resulted in an unfortunate typo that sent me into a MAJOR shame spiral

Try out this illuminating framework! Not only have I learned invaluable lessons by looking retrospectively at my choice points—always proof read 3 times, wait 24+ hours to send an important email, never take action because I think I should—but I’m also building more trust with my ability to choose wisely by taking the time to reflect on my past regrets and painful decisions that led to extreme discomfort.

AND: There are no mistakes, only learnings.

I say “regret” because I do regret those decisions. I think we vilify regret too much, sort of like we vilify guilt. But regret and guilt are tuning forks. Some wise person I can’t recall said something to the effect of if you get to your death bed with no regrets, then you were playing it way too safe. And there is a difference between regret and mistake. While I regret sending that email prematurely, I’ll never see it as a mistake, because the searing burn of that moment gives me confidence that I will never ever do that again! Blessed be.

Let us look back at our choice points, and use our learnings to do better moving forward.

Pick up the sword.

The Diamond Blade: myth, song and story

Earlier this year, my friend Joe sent me a song called Black Willow by Loma, the chorus of which says,

And I'm wild enough
I carry a diamond blade, I'm livin’ on
All defenses down, and when I walk
I carry a diamond blade, when you said serve you
I will not

This song landed so hard for me that I immediately looked up the chords and learned it on guitar. It was one of the many songs courting me into learning B minor this year, which I did an entire podcast episode about.

I’ve always been drawn to minor chords and gritty songs like this one. Hauntingly beautiful, it feels like a sultry, quiet declaration of battle. I can feel the Warrior in me stir when I hear it. Contemplating the diamond blade, I think of Joan of Arc, propelled into battle with God at her back. I think of Will and The Subtle Knife in His Dark Materials, drawn by destiny toward love (the HBO series is epic—Ben and I have watched it twice and I’ve bawled my eyes out through the final episode both times, even though I knew it was coming.)

I think of the bodhisattva Manjushri, whose flaming sword of wisdom cuts down ignorance, illusion and duality, and is a timeless beacon of Truth for spiritual devotees across the globe. I think of Kali Ma, her ten arms each holding a weapon, called forth by the Goddess Durga specifically to deal with the demon Raktabija, who was beyond the power of all the Hindu gods combined to defeat. He multiplied each time a drop of his blood touched the earth, an awesome metaphor for the way hatred and fear tend to proliferate. And so Kali, in her wise discernment and fierce devotion, sliced the heads off each one and drank the blood, until only the original remained. With her sacred sword, she beheaded him, draining his blood into a skull cup and drinking it down before a single drop could touch the earth, saving not only the divine beings, but all humanity. I love this story because not only does it dismantle the patriarchal narrative that masculine power and wit will always save the day, but it also highlights the fact that Kali Ma did not hesitate. She knew what needed to be done, and leapt into righteous action. May it be so for all of us.

When it is time, may we pick up the sword.

The Ace of Swords: tarot and the mental body

Several years back, my brother Max and I did a yearlong study on the tarot. We created our own curriculum and spent 12 months in contemplation of the major and minor arcana. Each of the four suits—cups, wands, pentacles and swords—correspond to an element and a season, and represent a different aspect of the human experience. Swords relate to the element of air and represent the mental body. Whenever you pull a sword from a tarot deck, you are invited to consider the quality of your mind, the impact of your thoughts, and the weather in your current mental landscape.

Those familiar with tarot know that the sword suit is particularly brutal. In the classic Ryder-Waite deck, only three of the 10 suit cards might be described as relatively peaceful. The rest portray swords piercing a bloody heart, or stuck in the back of a lifeless corpse, or being carried away by a mischievous thief. And with good reason.

The human mind is the ultimate sword; the ultimate tool that can be weaponized, or wielded for peace and liberation. We get to choose, every day, how we wield this sacred resource of the mind. We get to acknowledge the vast power our minds hold, and the responsibility we must take of how we direct it, understand it, and cultivate its most optimal state.

Here’s to making swift, powerful, wise decisions this season, and every season.

Here’s to mining your choice points for golden reflections and necessary refinements.

Here’s to trusting your intuition as much, if not more, than you trust your brain.

Here’s to picking up the sacred sword.