On July 22nd we exit Cancer season and move into Leo.
Our tarot card for Cancer is Major Arcana VII, The Chariot. It’s the last card in Line One of the Major Arcana.
Since our tarot card for 2024 is also Leo’s card, Strength, this year’s shift from The Chariot to Strength is an especially significant time to review what we are shedding. It’s time to outgrow what no longer serves.
To help us make this shift, I want to focus on the Minor Arcana card, the Seven of Swords.
The Sevens of the Tarot
In all the Sevens in the Tarot we are being asked to engage in some inner work, yet it feels like there is some external situation that would resolve our discomfort through action.
For example, we know we’re in Seven energy when we think, “If only this other person would call me, I could relax. If only I didn’t need to worry about everyone else doing their jobs, I could take a break. If I knew how the outcome of this decision would make me feel, I could peruse this dream.”
And for many people seeking advice from the Tarot, that is exactly the energy they bring!
But, the medicine in the Sevens is not about getting to peace in the future, it’s about experiencing peace in the present, in the space of the unknown — scary as that might seem.
The Chariot VII
The Chariot is aligned with the sign of Cancer, the crab. Just as a crab can move from land to water thanks to its protective shell, when we’re in Cancer energy, we’re rapidly moving from watery emotional states back to solid practical thinking.
It’s tempting to give all our attention to our life’s situation, the exterior reality; but, when life feels chaotic, the real awakening that we’re being called to is learning how to listen and tend to our authentic inner being.
When we move from The Chariot to Strength, we’re outgrowing a container. We’re leaving behind a protective shell.
That protective layer looks good, it’s what the ego identifies with, but it’s ultimately a barrier to our conscious spiritual awakening.
This contraction is perhaps felt most acutely in the Seven of Swords.
The Seven of Swords
The traditional explanation of this card doesn’t really do justice to the actual soul of its message.
Historically, this card has been described as someone who is sneaky. The figure is and stealing the enemy’s swords. He acts impulsively and alone, so he can’t carry them all.
But sneakiness/thievery is simply not what is at the heart of the Seven of Swords.
Remember, in the Sevens we feel like we should be doing something externally, but the medicine is actually to pause.
Since the Swords represent the mind, the Seven of Swords is calling for pause and stillness in our thinking, which is that last thing an ego wants!
The real story of this card is told through the physical movement of the figure’s head and body.
His feet and body are moving forward, yet his head is turned to look behind him. He carries five swords, more than he could actually wield, yet his concern is in the past.
What better depiction of an egoic mind could there be?
Most of us live in a constant state of unconscious unawareness of the present, and our miraculous nature of being.
We are consumed by fears of the future, and we constantly stoke those fears with stories from the past.
But, why?
We have forgotten that we are each born perfectly deserving of love because we are love.
Every single being on this planet is born an expression of perfection and love. We don’t earn it through deeds or actions, we are it.
We come into these bodies because there is some expression of light, of being, that we are uniquely able to bring forth.
We are here to remember that we are miraculous.
When you see that you are love, you remember that there can be no separation from love. But, to remember this, we must first forget it.
If you were to tell a child that you struggle to love yourself, that kiddo would not know what you meant. It would be like asking a fish if it enjoyed water.
The ‘self’ that sees itself as separate from love is the egoic self. We aren’t born with an ego, it develops.
The shift from the child-self that knows it is love, to the adult’s egoic self, begins for most at about age ten.
At ten, we each took a look around at the adults in our lives, and we realized that they had gone to sleep. They were asleep to the miraculous connectivity and oneness of being.
And at age ten, the only coping tool we had to make meaning of this realization was blame.
We started to blame ourselves, both for not being enough, and simultaneously being too much.
We believed that our innocence wasn’t enough to wake up our care-takers, and that our authentic self was too much for them.
When we hear the profound truth that everyone is also constantly walking around with this deeply held fear and belief of being both too much and not enough, it’s like a hilarious prank!
At the heart of the Seven of Swords is this feeling that no matter how much we’re doing, we should always be doing more, because at our core we are fundamentally separate from love.
The real-world situational examples where the Seven of Swords presents itself are endless. Here are a few that have come up in my readings recently:
Moving forward with a job search because one opportunity wasn’t a good fit, but still looking in the rear-view mirror at every unhappy past employment experience.
Wanting to find a partner to have a child with, feeling like I’ve done the work to meet the right person, yet still being single.
Returning to blame a relationship that ended 10 years ago for all the challenges that came afterwards. Crediting the past for the limitations on future happiness.
The list could go on and on. And in every lived experience of the Seven of Swords, an even longer list of things we are already holding could be made.
This fear that we won’t have enough — be it money, work, love, health, family, is universal — even and especially in the face of objective abundance!
Working with Seven of Swords as Medicine
“Nobody who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God.” — Jesus
“What in this moment is lacking?” — Zen master Rinzai
Beneath times of anxiety, fear, and worry, there is a story that something is lacking.
But if you ask yourself, as Zen master Rinzai would ask his students, “What in this moment is lacking?” you will see that on the level of the mind, you cannot comprehend or answer.
It is only the ego that is attached to time. It can only survive by creating a future and a past.
Spiritual masters of all traditions have pointed out the fact that now is the key to peace and enlightenment.
Like the figure in the Seven of Swords, when we’re looking over our shoulder to the past in order to plan for a future, in which we fear we wont have enough, we can’t be present for the present— which is where we always exist!
This is not an intellectual exercise. It is an exercise of attention: can I look clearly at this moment and really see it?
One way to clarify this exercise is to try and not be in the present moment. If we are regretting the past or obsessing about the future, where and when is the regret and the obsession?
It is here. It is now.
If our attention wanders — into fantasy or memory — was the present moment diminished? We may have lost its beneficence, but we didn’t ruin it. When we are confused about the present moment — or ignoring the present moment — where but in the present does our confusion and ignorance occur?
When we give our total attentiveness and awareness to this present moment, we begin to see with practical clarity that a) we are not broken parts of a lovelier whole, and b) that we are not parts at all, and so c) there is nothing to fix or do.
If the Seven of Swords is showing up for you, it’s time to come home to your authentic self. It's a call to listen to the self that observes, the watcher. There is nothing to fix, there is nothing to forgive, and there is nothing to judge.
Bring your awareness to the present moment. You are here, and it is now. This is the space of limitless abundance, and it is your birthright.
You could never be too much or not enough. You are not separate from love, you are it. You lack nothing here in the now.