For the last three days in a row, I have pulled the Seven of Cups as my daily card. The Seven of Wands was lurking at the back of the deck yesterday too. In the Greenwood deck, the Seven of Cups is titled Mourning, and the Seven of Wands Clearance, and I have a strong sense of a letting go and a shifting of patterns with these sevens. Seven is a number associated with spirituality and mysticism - there are seven traditional planets, seven days of the week, seven notes in a musical scale. The tarot sevens are often seen as moving into the unknown, needing to have faith. Aleister Crowley, in his Thoth tarot, saw them as a weak or passive manifestation of the element - the Seven of Swords is often associated with cunning and deceit, the Seven of Cups with daydreaming and being out of touch with reality. After the balance and harmony of the six, the seven asks for reassessment and reflection. Something comes along to break the balance, and we are called to go deeper, to find a new level of authenticity in our expression of the element.
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| RWS Seven of Cups |
Mathematically, seven is known as an "irrational" number, which cannot be represented as a simple fraction, and it has some strange properties. Taken symbolically, seven is therefore associated with the unusual, the irrational and strange. In astrology, the septile series of aspects, where the wheel of the zodiac is divided by seven, are linked to changes in our fate, forces of destiny at work beyond our control. Just like the tarot sevens, septile aspects are seen as being elusive and often difficult to interpret clearly. Septiles are associated with spiritual and emotional maturity, and inspiration, and can also show the stories and myths which inspire us and by which we live our lives.
The Seven of Cups is telling me, over and over, to look to my emotional patterns, to the images and visions that fill my mind, to figure out which ones are real and to focus on those. This is the card of castles in the air, of fantasies which may or may not have any connection to our reality. But an inner reality can affect our outer reality - for example, if we believe that we are unlovable, we may struggle to accept the affection of those who love us and end up driving them away. Our thoughts can create reality, as every magician knows. Many people interpret this card as overwhelm and overindulgence, a lack of focus and an inability to choose between the many opportunities offered. And this may be the case. But the sevens always ask us to step up, to move past temptation and escapism. If we - well, I - can do that, I can find my authentic vision and work to make it a reality.
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| Greenwood Seven of Cups |
The Greenwood, however, adds a new twist to this interpretation. This is not a card depicting temptations, like the RWS image above, this is altogether darker. Giving up a comfortable fantasy is hard, as is all change, and this card seems to be asking that we acknowledge that. I am stripped back to bare bones, no more delusions, and must mourn the death of the old ego even as I seek that new and authentic vision.