The 7s ~
To tend, to steal, to
defend, to decide
Pentacles
~ It’s
all about taking care of what you have.
Its about learning to hang on to what’s yours and the idea of making
things grow.
Ownership,
care taker, safe-guard, nurturing, frugality, obsession, hoarding, caution.
7/Pentacles ~ This card is all
about taking care of what you have. This
most often refers to money and material matters, but with the tarot, as we
know, this can encompass so many other things.
Sometimes this card comes up when someone needs to take action or make
an important often time-sensitive decision and they’re dawdling, either caught
in a moment of self-doubt and hesitation, or frozen with dread and fear.
The character on this card often tends to
over-analyze. He’s hesitant to make any
changes that might mess up the quo pro, even if those changes would be
positive. (Isn’t it best to keep our
garden as it is, without digging anything up, without planting anything new,
without changing the scenery or the topography?… he surmises, leaning placidly
on his hoe.)
“Act now!
Hurry! Stop just standing
there!”… the 7/pentacles often shouts in vain.
Reversed:
Something imminent is on the horizon, which
is going to shake up your world, rattle your coin purse, or empty your
wallet. Your frozen objectivity about it
all, your reluctance to make a decision, or act upon it, is not going to change
this fact. Instead of feeling powerless
and allowing yourself to be swept along on this wave, put your feet firmly down
– you can feel the bottom, it’s there – stand up and stand up for
yourself. Take control of your life.
My Personal Connection:
All through my life I have vacillated between
calm complacency or worried stress regarding money and finances. And for the majority of my adulthood, accompanied
by this unnerving vacillation, I was married.
I have realized in retrospection that the two times in my adulthood when
I have been single, briefly in my 20s and now in my 60s, were the two times in
my life I have been the most solid and stable financially. Not wealthy, mind you, but stable,
comfortable, able to take care of things and then some… All By Myself.
My relationship with the seven of pentacles
has been as unpredictable, difficult, and acidic as the relationships in my
marriages, which never felt financially stable, no matter what the conditions,
because I had absolutely No Control of the money or how it was spent.
The financial circumstances of my partners at
the time did not alleviate the stress and worry, whether we were in a feast or
famine mode. One husband’s late father’s
estate was worth several million dollars, and my husband earned almost $100,000
a year all on his own by renting out his own prime farm ground. What did we live on at this time? The small amount of money he made working at
a local retail shop (for health insurance reasons, he told me). That’s it.
No money that was ever made on his farm property in Iowa touched our
household in Nebraska; what it did do is knock my daughter out of financial
assistance when she applied to college.
The other husband, as he himself admitted,
“couldn’t keep a dime in his pocket”.
The famine side of things was enormously stressful and worrying while we
were together, the worst in my life, and fortunately this weird relationship
and period of time was very short-lived.
I kept thinking there has to be a balanced center here somewhere.
But now, at this time in life, at this age
and stage, I’m fine. I’m free. And in this freedom I’ve made peace with the
seven of pentacles. If you are having
issues with this card, know that there is a way through it to a solid and
acceptable solution.
Swords
~ It’s
all about the thief and the very real prospect of losing something we
value. It’s about being naive or
vulnerable enough to find ourselves in the position of “victim”.
Thief/theft,
stealth, scruples, gigolo, vulnerability, con-artist, carelessness, advantage,
deception, paranoia
7/Swords ~ It’s all about stealth and deception,
this card. I’m sitting here trying to
think of a positive connection, but I’m at a loss. This card takes, takes, takes from you, just
as some people you run across in life.
And I always say to my tarot clients, so much so that it sounds clique
to me, “Sometimes what’s stolen isn’t just material things, but intangible
necessities like joy, self-confidence, trust, and love.”
The more life you live, and the more run-ins
with this card you have, the more difficult it will be to remain optimistic,
the harder it will be to trust people.
You’ll find it difficult, if not impossible, to fall into friendships or
love with wide-eyed breathless open anticipation. Caution will sit on your shoulder, shrouded
in black, all morose and scowling, whispering doubts in your ear.
Reversed:
If you’ve brought this card up in reference
to doubt about an individual or a situation, never fear, this card reversed is
making a positive point. Carry on, with
whatever it is, whomever it is, and move forward. Flick Caution, that irritating little
bastard, off your shoulder with a flip of the wrist.
My Personal Connection:
This card represents everyone who has ever
stolen anything from me… the pink cheeked fuzzy lipped boy my sophomore year of
high school – he stole the valiant idealism with which I viewed men. The snaky-eyed chattering woman who
befriended me in my 40s – she stole my trust in other women and my sense of
comfort in friendships. Some of the men
I’ve been married to attempted to steal my self-confidence, a healthy self-ego,
dreams, goals, joy, and laughter.
The seven of swords erupts with the dark
realization that the immaterial ethereal things stolen from us are by far more
devastating and destructive than any material object could ever be. Material objects are easily replaceable; but
those things we can neither feel, touch, or see may be lost forever.
A pox upon the seven of swords, beware of his
presence, cull him from your existence.
Wands
~ It’s
all about knowing when you need to stand your ground and defend yourself, your
position, your opinion, your loved ones, your home, or your reputation.
Defense,
altercation, arguments, courage, will power, strength, paranoia, combativeness
7/Wands ~ Stand your ground; draw the line; be
on guard; hold your own… these are all phrases that come up for me with this
card. And the appearance on this card in
the traditional Rider/Waite gives us these messages, that poor figure using his
wand in both hands as a weapon to hold off the torch bearing angry hoards. But this is just the surface, we barely see
the picture; and we actually don’t even see the most important part of the
picture… the angry hoards. We only see
their wands.
Who are they?
Why are they angry? Why must we
be on the defensive with them? What will
they do to us? What power do they hold
over us? How can we regain dominion over
them? How can we disarm them? Are they real, or are they only alive in our
imagination?
When you’re able to answer any or all of
these questions, you will have the full story for this card. If you don’t know the answers, or are
unwilling to try and find them, you will forever be frozen in this battle
stance.
Reversed:
Sometimes this means that someone has power
over us, or that we’ve foolishly, and sometimes unwittingly, handed it
over. Sometimes this means that we’re
about to lose our footing, our advantage, and we’re going to slip, falling into
defeat. And sometimes this means that
we’ve over-reacted, that we’ve been too dramatic and feisty and hot-headed for
too long and it’s time to knock it off.
Personal Connection:
Think of how much of your life has been spent
being “Battle Ready”. And in retrospect,
how many battles did you really have to fight, and how much time did you waste
in this stance? It’s not our fault, not
always, and not totally. It’s the world
around us and its harshness, its brutality, its energy of hostility. This sounds so dark and pessimistic, I know,
but the seven of wands carries this energy.
It’s also a card of futile unnecessary fear. A wise lady once told me, a teacher she was
at college, “99% of what you worry about will never transpire”. It’s true.
Be still all you merciless silly fears. Be gone all negative destructive energy. I banish the scary shadows on the walls of my
life. I kick the nightmares and doubts
from the dark recesses of my mind.
I raise my wand, not in a defensive mode,
prepared to strike, but as a salute to the victory I now taste through all the
challenges of this earthly life in this incarnation.
Cups
~ It’s
all about reaching that point in your life that awaits a decision. It’s about living life fully, making sure you
keep all your options open.
Decisions,
options, choices, indecision, hesitance, mania, scattered energy
7/Cups ~ We may have wanted to have a variety of choices in our life; we may have
wanted to reach a point where we could make the decisions and feel in control
and heady with personal power; we may have reached a point where the world was
knocking on our door, and all we had to do was choose our pot of gold, follow
our chosen rainbow, and reap the rewards.
But it’s almost never that easy (except maybe for a few golden magical
individuals who seem to possess the key of
fortune). For most of us, decisions come
up and it turns out to be quite a quandary, often leaving us confused,
perplexed, bewildered, and unsure.
When this happens, and you might feel sorry
for yourself or wonder how you got in this predicament, left to make some
monumental decision that might change the course of your life, remember this…
there are a gazillion people out there who don’t have a choice. Be grateful that you do.
Reversed:
Sometimes this card shows up when someone is
frozen with the inability to make a decision, and so often this card shows up
when the decision is time sensitive.
This card is often telling us, in the most colorful way, using one of my
grandmother’s favorite quotes: “Shit or
get off the pot.”
My Personal Connection:
My life has always been impacted by my own
decisions and choices, sometimes for the good, and often for the worst. How different everything in my life might be
right now based on different decisions and choices that I could’ve taken. The thing is, in spite of difficult spots now
and then, I wouldn’t change anything.
If I were to change the tiniest most miniscule detail, I might be
missing a child that’s part of my life.
I might not have written a book.
I might be on a completely different spiritual path. I might not be living in the unique and oddly
skewered old house we’re so fond of. I
might not be working where I am, connecting with a group of people important to
me.
If I were to change any of these seven cups,
the decisions I’ve made over the years, I might not be me. Make your life choices and decisions and
don’t look back. Live your life with no
regrets… Embrace the seven of cups and give it a good solid kiss right on the
lips.
Source:
The Ultimate Tarot Guide:
for Your Personal Tarot Journey
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