🗡️Deep Dive - 7 of Swords 🗡️

getting to know the depths of the tarot, one dive at at time

Hello, 

How are you?

Before we begin I want to let you know about my course Journey Through The Tarot: Line Two, which is now open for registration here! During 8 weeks we journey through the fabric of ourselves using the archetypes of the tarot’s line two as a template for initiation. Open to those interested in the tarot as well as thinkers, artists, feelers, mystics and misfits. Early bird pricing for just one more week!

Ok onto our card:

I have pulled the 7 of swords for our deep dive - below you will find some ‘stats’ on this card, a summary of the common symbols, traits, meaning and journaling prompts and a mini ceremony recipe to get to know this energy further. 

7 of Swords: 

Planet - Venus

Element - Air

Number 7 – Wisdom / Internal Process

Astrological Sign - Venus

Key Words – boundaries, insight, focus, deceit, strategy

Symbols Associated: swords/ armour/ fox / pens/ theft

Major Arcana Connection - Chariot

Let’s start with the artomancy - this is my favourite way to get to know the cards. Here we are looking at the 7 of Swords from Purple Diamond Tarot deck. What do you notice about this image? Allow yourself to read it with your subtle body. Considering the different symbols, the composition, the colours and the feeling of the artwork. You may or may not become consciously aware of how your energy reads this imagery.

Whatever does or doesn’t come up - asking yourself if you feel aligned/ drawn to this image or not - do you?

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Here’s what I see in the image:

We see the number seven reflected in the 7 swords which are at different places along the body and cape, they form part of the armour. The cape and armour suggest courage and nobility, the quest to test the swords, removing those who no longer fit, changing the very make up of one’s protection takes incredible courage. The armour also suggests that the character is considering battle, but the mirror may be a clue that reflection and softness are needed in order to meet this challenge. The two moons which face inwards suggest that all is not as it seems, and with the head as the central moon, we know that there is shadowy aspects at play within the mind.

Here we consider the number -

What does 7 mean to you, luck/wisdom/a number you do/don’t like, what was your experience of being 7/17/27/37? Meditate on this within your own landscape. What can you deduce about your own experience of the 7 of Swords energy and symbolism, if the 7 of swords were a person, or a memory, an outfit, or a smell or a tree - what would you know about them? How would you feel about them?

We read symbols from our personal knowledge but also from our collective and ancestral understanding - symbols which have moved through the ages have a special potency to them, even when we read them without ‘reading’ them.

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Potent collective symbols within this image:

Sword – The tool which kills and creates knights, the tool which pierces, going straight to the point – aligned often with the pen, this tool is connected with communication. 

Moon – The lunar symbol is feminine and of the mystery. The cycles of the moon each tell their own story and the shifting nature of this light in the dark adds to the transformative associations.  

Armour – protection, costume, agility, and status  

Mirror – A tool for reflection, divination and seeing from another perspective  

Once we identify our understanding of symbols, we can begin to read not only the tarot but also life as with greater intrigue… 

Card guidance (Purple Diamond):

If you are feeling indecisive, focus on the present and allow the insight to come to you. You may have a feeling of not having enough; try to reframe this as an invitation for inner work and deeper love. This is an important time for honesty, and to confront yourself when it may feel easier to avoid and stay in patterns of suffrage.

Traditional card guidance:

Consider where we are taking the back door rather than showing up honestly. Where are we taking shortcuts of being in someway deceitful -this card indicates that this will soon come out, so make amends now. Conversely if you have a feeling of imposter syndrome connect to the truth in your right to exist.

How you might encounter this energy:

A call to release any faulty pieces of the puzzle. Where have you been calculating your truths based on equations that aren’t sound? It takes courage and patience to sit with your own algebraic equations of being and find the hollow codes. This work is needed now to forgo indecision and replace uncertainty. If you feel the deceit is outside of yourself, you are called to be still and take stock – trust your instincts. An enormous dollop of compassion is needed to sit with this card, can we hold ourselves in compassionate accountability and unconditional love ? This will allow us to course correct + heal.

Ways to work with this card:

• Call on this card to help with internal boundaries

• Use kindness as the path to presence, how can you reframe what’s coming up compassionately?

• Consider the power of your costume, your armour

• Work with the internal, are you distracting yourself from what’s within?

• Mirror work

• Connect with the magical fox as a totem

• Call upon Venus to help ease you into abundant thinking

Affirmation (spoken spell) to call on the wisdom of this card:

I accept any indecision

And give myself a hug

Knowing that with presence and trust

I will know soon enough

I offer a loving hand to myself

And am trusting enough to be true

With myself always

I know I am enough

Photo by Ricardo Cruz

A ceremony to move into greater receptivity of your truth

• go into a dark room

• clear your thoughts + take a moment to drop into the body

• close your eyes and picture your armour

• consider all the wounds and scars and protections you have built up along the armour of your being

• take 3 deep breaths 

• begin to trace along them, what do you feel from each one, are there any ready to dissolve, do any fall away? Which are firm friends?

• thank your body , truly

• call upon presence to help you formulate your new armour

• and let it be so, see yourself surrounded by the armour you need, today

• close your ceremony by giving thanks and saying - and so it is

Thanks for reading, I’d love to know your reflections on this card!

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