day 32: seven of swords (playing)

11/30/2020

Peace family! I hope this finds you well :)

Today's card is the Seven of Swords (Moon in Aquarius), brought to you by the High Priestess (Moon) & Aquarius (Star). Folks haaaaate this card! If you've ever gotten a tarot reading (or watched one on YouTube), you know this is the liar / thief/ sneak / cheat/ doo-doo head card. It's kind of appalling that this card has such a dickhead reputation because its parents are simply lovely.

The High Priestess (Moon) represents our intuition based on lifetimes of experiences. Aquarius (Star) is the transparency & vulnerability of healing after trauma. When you combine these two energies in the Seven of Swords, you have someone who can't help but expect the worst (& gives zero fucks about saying so), because their experiences thus far have been so terribly... terrible.

Let's look at the card literally:

First, can we agree this man is a great performer? I say that because he wears such a peaceful, happy expression, but you just KNOW the way he handles things must hurt. He's holding onto nearly every sharp sword (sharp word) he's received, refusing to release the blades (release the blame). Behind him are painted tents (pain, intense); he's trying to sneak away but he's not stealthy (not healthy). See those dark figures in the bottom left of the picture? They are coming for this man. He smiles but he is hunted on his path (haunted by the past). Yet he attempts to escape from the shadows that lurk (escape from shadow work). Maybe he's drunk...? Maybe he means to walk upright but he's dealing with an unconscious swoon (unconscious wounds) ? There is so much gold behind his back (gone on behind his back). Despite the betrayal, he keeps his cutting swords (cutting words) to himself. If he says anything, it's gentle words (chin to sword). He doesn't like to make a scene (no seeing), which is paradoxical af bc he's putting on a whole show.

However he's not invincible ; he gets that this trick hurts (gets triggered). He looks innocent enough but when he lets them fall, his swords (words) cut deep. He never owns up to it though; he only says I was just playing. When this happens, it calls attention to the fact his painted tents (pain intense) have open rooms (open wounds). For every room (wound) aired out, there is still another one hidden behind. He can't heal (katana/heel). It seems that for every step he takes forward, he takes a step back. He can't get a good grip, can't handle it. I mean he could... but he'd have to hold steel (hold still) , open his eyes & face the plain (pain) & the light.

What's the point of running from your shadows anyway, if your eyes remain closed? Aren't you just keeping yourself in the very dark you're afraid of?

Here's my Seven of Swords story:

I went to the same high school as many of my friends from grammar school, including my best friend since the first grade. Although we had been super close up until that point, we began to grow apart. Our differences were magnified by the fact that we gravitated toward different friend groups. We had friends in common still, but we weren't in the same clique anymore. I was relatively popular up until junior year, when I cheated on my boyfriend with his best friend (refer to the five of cups story); after that I became kind of infamous & I became very aware of people talking about me behind my back, including my friend from the first grade. I felt like I deserved it though, so I let it ride. Meanwhile a mutual friend of ours confided in me that she was bisexual, & that the "boyfriend," she often referred to was actually a woman. Not long afterwards, my childhood friend had a sleepover birthday party & I went. I was kind of uncomfortable because the girls there were acquaintances of mine but friends of hers, & it didn't feel like a safe space. Once again, its just that feeling of being talked about. Finally one of the girls there came out & asked me why I'd hurt my ex-boyfriend the way I had. The question caught me off guard & instead of considering whether I owed them any answers (I did not) I found myself explaining my choices & defending my decisions to a room full of girls who were not my friends. When I could tell I hadn't convinced them that I was right to follow my heart (nor had I convinced myself...), I switched topics. I think I was trying to explain that we all do things we could be judged for & maybe they shouldn't be so freaking judgmental, but I just blurted out that the one girl who actually was my friend & had confided in me & was not at the party, was bisexual. I tossed her secret to the wolves to get those bitches off me. On Monday at school, my best friend from the first grade told our mutual friend that I had outed her. I tried to explain why I did it, & that I didn't mean anything malicious (just playing!) but our mutual friend has never been my friend since, & I've never been friends with my friend from first grade since, either. We're all cool or cordial or whatever, but that's it. I guess I'm trying to say that hurt people hurt people, & I was the hurt person who lashed out in the worst possible way. If I could have just processed my own disappointment in myself for how I handled the boyfriend situation, I wouldn't have projected my guilt by seeking anyone's approval & trading the gossip about me for gossip about someone else.

What are y'alls Seven of Swords?

18 Comments

Author

all of us.

disclaimer:
this is a magical space. magic is, by nature mischievous. with that being said, you should know that sometimes these pictures move & switch themselves for no apparent reason. i try to go back & put them in their rightful place as soon as possible but i don't always catch them in time. if you are reading a post & the pics don't match, don't fret.
the words won't move.
keep on reading.

12/1/2020 06:04:08 pm

(transparency & vulnerability) healing after trauma.

I thought about this one quite a bit. My just playing story is more about watering down interactions, so the interaction appears like folxs are "just playing." I have alot of these instances but there was a friend that made a snide comment to me during a friendly conversation. I remember pausing mid response to her and just let it go, that it wasn't anything. She was just playing....I realize packaging situations like this means that I am trying to get out of honoring myself and what is happening in front of me. I didn't like the way the comment made me feel and instead of having an awkward or hard moment with my "friend", I push it down.

Tee

12/1/2020 08:33:55 pm

Well, I just talked about this on the previous card (4 of pentacles). I have a secret that prevents me from being more open with men. I friendzone them instead of admitting that I'm attracted to them. It's how I avoid rejection. I finally told one guy once he was married. I was kicking myself because he told me I should've told him then. The only reason he finally moved on was because he thought I wasn't interested in him. He was pretty hurt that I never told him. Had I been more transparent back then, maybe I wouldn't be here now trying to figure out how to be my authentic self in public.

LMP

12/1/2020 09:41:43 pm

Ugh.
When I was in my 20s, I had a boyfriend who I was no longer attracted to or in love with, but I didn’t want to deal with it. I kept fooling myself thinking it would improve. It wasn’t a horrible relationship. It was lackluster and he didn’t love me either. I was mean and lashed out. Our sex was completely without chemistry. I moved across the country to be with him, but if I’m honest, I was with him so I could move across the country. I thought moving back to the West Coast and being closer to my roots would help the relationship and we could settle down. So I convinced him to move to LA to work on his movie career, even though I didn’t actually want to live in LA, and I didn’t believe in his ability to have a movie career at all.

I paid for the move because he was broke.
Moving didn’t improve the relationship.
But instead of breaking up with him, I said, let’s be polyamorous! He was like, um, ok.

Enter New Dude. You know the type, kind of slimy and a little bit couch surfing style homeless and not even all that good looking, but charming and full of compliments and good in bed? Yeah. He gave me attention and excitement and told me I was “stunning.”
My boyfriend was like, we can be poly, and I’m pretty much ok with you dating anyone but Dude.
So boyfriend went out of town and OF COURSE I got all hot and heavy and did “everything but” with Dude. So boyfriend gets home, I tell him, he’s hurt and justifiably pissed, and we both know that things are so broken that they are finally over.

I had dragged him to LA and turned our relationship poly when I did not really want either. I was just deceiving myself and him and hurt him when I could have been honest.

Dude and I continued dating in a poly relationship, and when I went out with another guy, he became possessive and verbally abusive, and I thought I loved him and took it, but I just loved the drama after blowing up my boring and mostly sexless relationship. Then he started dating this lady who was big in the pagan scene and had a lot of money. He broke it off with me to be monogamous with her. What a mess! The last I heard they started selling meth.

**im not trying to bag on people in poly or open relationships or say that my behavior was a good representation of poly. I was obviously not doing poly well, I used it as a way to get what I wanted and then I cheated and defeated the entire spirit and point of being poly.

Man. I have the urge to apologize to that ex boyfriend. I have not thought about that bad behavior of mine in a long time.

Cheryl

12/1/2020 11:46:55 pm

The thing that stands out for me on this one is the need to justify my behavior to others, when in fact, my mistakes and my triumphs are mine. I have been on the receiving end of hurtful comments which folks (often men) try to deflect with “just playing” which usually ends in them learning that “I am no playing” I take it all very seriously for better or for worse.

Ruth

12/13/2020 08:25:22 am

I felt this. The whole "it's just a joke, lighten up" crap is so often used to hide behind sexist behavior. Oh snap. GASLIGHTING. This card can also be seen as the gaslighting card. Others gaslighting you, and then you gaslighting yourself, why? Because our minds get so polluted by the gaslighting of others that we learn to do it to ourselves.

Holy shit.
Thanks for being the catalyst for this . Wow.

Kelsey

12/2/2020 12:12:29 am

My Seven of Swords story is not so much a moment of "Just playin'!" but rather a lashing out with the energy of "I'm not playin' anymore!"

This year, I've been thinking a lot about friendships that I've lost over the years--especially the people that I realize I really miss and wish I were still connected with. I guess I didn't realize I was losing the friendships as it was happening. I just thought we were drifting apart and that it was natural, and that we'd somehow drift back together again. Only that hasn't happened.

With this card, I'm specifically thinking about a person who was one of my best friends through middle school, high school, and again after college (we didn't go to the same college, but remained connected enough during that we got close again after we graduated).

"Hurt people hurt people."
With this specific friend, I always kinda questioned her love for me. I think I had some expectations of how I wanted to be treated as a best friend, but I didn't know how to communicate that stuff with her (or anyone really), so she probably never knew how I felt. I wanted to be special! I wanted her to always think of me first or put me before other friends of hers. I wanted her to consider me in a way that was like, reserved for me. Because I wanted to do that for her, and often did.

One year during her birthday, I was butt hurt because she had made her plans without me and didn't really include me in the hatching of her plans. When I called her to ask what we were going to get up to that weekend, she said, "Oh, I'm already in the City with J…" and then proceeded to tell me that she'd see me later at the spot everyone was planning to meet at for her birthday later that night. As if I was some random friend and it didn't really matter if I was there or not! J wasn't a mutual friend of ours because they met in college. I wanted to be in his position in that moment, and felt hurt that I wasn't.

So I said to myself, "Fuck it. If I'm not important enough to her to include me in her plans, then I'm gonna make my own plans." I made myself less available for the weekend by deciding to go out of town with my family early the next morning, which gave me enough room to drop by the spot for her birthday, but not stay out too late. Because of that, I decided to be DD for another friend who knew I couldn't stay out too late.

Later that night, my best-friend-the-bday-girl got super SLOPPY drunk. So sloppy drunk that she was very entertaining and hilarious, but also, no one wanted to deal with her or be responsible for her. She was literally getting dragged/carried from person to person. I should have just left like everyone else, but I couldn't. I needed to know she was gonna be ok. I even tried to leave her with a friend I knew she'd be safe with, but as I tried to walk away, he literally chased after me while dragging her along to give her to me.

"Hurt people hurt people."
I yelled at her all the way home, in front of two other friends I was driving home. I yelled that she should be more responsible for her safety and that it was so reckless to get that drunk without having a plan for how she'd get home safely or have a safe place to crash for the night if not going home. (In my mind, I was like, "Where's J now?")
I yelled about the fact that I had to get up really early the next morning and that she didn't even think about that this was causing me to stay out later than what worked for me (she of course didn't know I had to get up early the next morning, and really I was thinking something like, "Look at how many people didn't care enough to take you home and make sure you were safe, but I'M here.")
I yelled, and really let her have it. My poor, messy drunk, best friend on her birthday. She was just having a good ol' time being drunk on her 24th birthday and I yelled at her.

I'm not sure I ever apologized, and while we remained friends for a little while after that, life took us in different directions and we drifted apart. It's been over 10 years now since we were last in each others' lives, and I miss her. I want the chance to apologize for that night and potentially reconnect to be friends again, but I don't know if I'll ever get that chance.

12/2/2020 06:12:31 pm

YEARS ago my best friend & I lived together. During that time, we were building a business together. At the same time I was working & going to school.

At some point I grew depressed, dissatisfied with life. Then one of my favorite aunts died suddenly of a brain aneurysm at 55 & months later one of my favorite male cousins committed suicide by hanging himself. The pressure of the new business, busy with work and school while dealing with these deaths was too much! I packed my bags and moved to Cali to be with a beloved. I left my bestie with no rent, no one to babysit her babe and abandoned all my things in the apt with her. She called, I ignored her. She left nasty voicemails, I deleted them. We didn’t talk for 6 or 7 years after that.

*Thank goodness we connected again. I apologized and so did she. We hugged and cried it out. Water under ye bridge now.

Ericka

12/2/2020 08:06:26 pm

All I know is, this is the EXACT card that came out when the guy I mentioned in my previous post who had decided to go marry his ex fiancé (after 4 months of my time invested in him) and lie to me about her being pregnant as the reason they were back together. Whole time I’m thinking she is lying about it to get back with him, and HE was the one making up the pregnancy story. 🤦🏾‍♀️ I tend to want to see the best in people, even when they show me what they are about. I was the one that thought I could change them, Glad I can see better now.

Becks

12/3/2020 09:53:04 pm

I haven't replied in a few days but I'm learning so much and this card brought up old and new swords. I get called "crazy" or "throwed off" allot. I'm not bothered by it but I absorb everything like a sponge, so this card made me realize I'm holding (probably allot more than 7) swords and I'm the fool on the card smiling eyes closed cutting myself with mine and other folks swords. My relationships in life for the most part have been abusive in multiple ways my kids father was the worst though and he would do/say allot of things and then say stuff like " I didn't mean it I was just doing too much" or " you tripping I was playing" he got his own set of swords and used to rationalize his poor behavior with excuses. Now I'm making excuses for the man; m still in love with but just passed away he wouldn't let me help him carry his an

12/3/2020 09:58:53 pm

My bad pushed the wrong button I wish he would have maybe he'd still be here I am learning that ppl will give the funny/crazy/strong ones things to carry because they don't want carry any all the while they're in their own shadows but not acknowledging their darkness so they try to dim your light because it's blinding them

Oubria Tronshaw

12/3/2020 10:33:06 pm

May he RIP and the tightest hugs to you.

12/5/2020 03:35:20 pm

Thank you so much and I truly need and receive the positive energy and those tight higs

Tanasia

12/5/2020 10:48:08 pm

I would say that this card represents all the times I used to justify sleeping with my ex while still trying to be in my current relationship. I would say...essentially I'm single...he has a wife...until we get something solid, I'm doing what I want. Nah. I chose this relationship, and I've also chosen to cut off my ex cold turkey and remain on the straight and narrow. I love him. Period.

12/6/2020 01:56:57 pm

I’ll be honest. This card stumped me. I read this post over and over until it finally clicked. When Oubria asked the question, “What's the point of running from your shadows anyway, if your eyes remain closed? Aren't you just keeping yourself in the very dark you're afraid of?”, I realized that I have down-played so many hurts that I have experienced in life.

Like old boy in the card, I close my eyes to the pain and keep trudging along. But I feel like the unresolved hurt is dragging me down in the present.

I have been “dragging” my feet on a healing project I have been working on for over a year. Then I beat myself up daily for not being as far along as I feel I should be. Hell, I feel like I should have finished a long time ago!

I hide behind being gentle with myself and “everything happens when it’s supposed to.”

In all honesty, I fear failure. I fear creating another project that will be overlooked, yet again. I fear not living up to my potential. I fear that I may heal others, but I won’t be healed.

I hold on to failed relationships, failed friendships, failed projects. I have a hard time believing I can succeed “this time around”. I keep a smile on my face and keep trudging along, but it’s painful. I feel as if I’m dragging across shards of crushed glass. Each step closer cuts deep. ‘’

To answer this question, with a question: “What’s the point of waking up if you’ll just keep falling asleep?”

12/6/2020 02:19:30 pm

I really appreciate your comment because I keep thinking about this card & how a big part of it is "keeping your sword (word) to yourself." & I didn't feel like I portrayed that well enough. I think that's what you can focus on to pull you through to completing your project regardless of the fear of failure; as long as you keep your word to yourself & do what you promised yourself you would do, it doesn't matter how "successful," it is bc the true victory is the fact that you showed up for YOU. (Kept your swords/word). Thank you so much for sharing, it really helped. :)

12/21/2020 12:32:59 pm

Thanks so much for the added insight. I will keep my word!

12/13/2020 08:19:06 am

When I saw this 7S I was like NOOOOOOOOOOO. Because this is shadow work which means it's the SELF-deception card, and I'm like DAMMIT.

For me, it was a moment where I really effed up as a mom and broke a confidence without even noticing. That my penchant for over explaining things STILL causes me trouble, and that I need to be more mindful of that, otherwise people will stop being able to trust me. I used to be really bad at this, or just wanting to tell people things to try to make things better but I end up telling people other people's private business, or sharing what isn't mine. I have gotten much better at NOT doing that, that I was complacent, and didn't notice that yeah, if I'm not careful, if I'm not mindful I will do that again.

And, also.
Projects and things. Sometimes side quests are exactly what's needed, and sometimes side quests is just me avoiding the boss fight as in, the real work that needs to be done. -__-

Dela

12/17/2020 01:35:47 pm

Playing.

This is a weird shadow for me. Growing up, my mom's moods were always random. One wrong word and she can completely spark a non stop outcry of how me and my sister are good for nothing children. I hope I'm exaggerating, but that is how I remember my childhood to be.

There was a time my mom tried cooking one of our staple dishes "in a healthier way" she said. I tried it and said "This tastes weird." ((oooof, now I know how much that feels like a blow when you put so much time + effort on a meal only to hear your kid say it tastes weird )) And my mom goes "Well tHaNks" obviously hurt. I said I was just playing to hopefully soften the blow. But as a kid, what do you do?

So I learned to just keep my mouth shut and not say anything. Like at all. Just to be safe. I had a bland attitude at home. One worded responses. You know the emo type.

Fast forward to my first boyfriend in HS. I was known as not saying much, barely talking at all. And one day he and i were in the car. And he asks me something like "Where you wanna eat?" I say nothing, staring out the window. He goes "Hello???? Can you say something!? I feel like I'm talking to a fucking wall!!!" He says that looking at my a raising his voice. By this time I really don't want to talk, his temper got the best of him. So I fall silent, responseless... and wait patiently for him to take me home.

Fast fast forward... the same cycle seeps into my current relationship. Wherein which my boyfriend and I were having an argument/disagreement. He wants to keep his distance, and I walk after him trying to get him to talk. I try everything, making a joke, asking him to talk to me.... I was being hella toxic just trying to get his attention. I landed on saying "Do you speak English!?" And he gets so riled up and triggered... i felt so bad. I said "I was just playing." When obviously I wasn't and I just wanted his attention.

This pattern of harming someone out of your own temperament just to get the response or reaction your ego craves... is so toxic. And that's my 7 of swords story.

40 days
of shadow work