Seven of Swords

Fixed air: theatricality, new world, subversion

SEVEN OF SWORDS

This card is traditionally interpreted as being one of deceit. I think it has this aspect, but there is something else going on.

I don’t see this as just the card of deceit, but one of the hysteric and drama queen – visionaries who are rarely taken seriously and who can do some subversive damage as a result.

AQUARIUS III + SEVEN OF SWORDS

This card correlates with the third decan of Aquarius. You can learn more about the decans here.

Aquarius III is Otherworlds. This is the culmination of Aquarius’s visionary journey from exile to crossing to being resident in the otherworld itself.

There is no going back from the otherworld; the previous world has been lost. But what is in its place is a new world waiting to be born under the skill and care of the Aquarius III figure.

The Seven of Swords helps us to understand what this might look like.

The choice to abandon the situation, and the process of obtaining what swords may be salvaged is not simple, but arises out of long vacillation and consideration. The image of the man leaving the encampment is thus the product of this face, not the complex process which it is a result of. One aspect of the tension found here is a slowly growing disgust and frustration with the state of things.

– Austin Coppock, ‘The Knot’

The person leaving the encampment is not just doing so on a whim, but because they have urgent business to attend to in the otherworld.

The Seven of Swords is the place of the unruly feminine (the Moon and Venus) regardless of the gender of the individual under this sign.

In the design of these cards it might seem as though there is an emphasis on deceit but what I see here are large gestures of theatricality used to draw attention to what is concealed, hidden, occult.

By shouting loudly and making gestures – but making them aesthetic (like the tattooed cat outside the circus tent) – there is more chance that others will pay attention to the dire situation of the existing world and feel compelled to help build a new one.

This perhaps feels inauthentic but is no less real. The hysteric may appear deceitful but they are telling an uncomfortable truth.

It is true that when histrionic people express feelings, there is often a dramatized, inauthentic, exaggerated quality to what they say. This does not mean that they do not really have the emotions to which they are giving voice. Their superficiality and apparent playacting derive from their having extreme anxiety over what will happen if they have the temerity to express themselves to someone they see as powerful. Having been infantilized and devalued, they do not anticipate respectful attention to their feelings.

– Nancy McWilliams, Psychoanalytic Diagnosis

As McWilliams shows us, the hysteric, or the drama queen, can use dramatic effects to draw attention to real injustice, real harm, and the urgent need for change.

Is there a moment in your work-in-progress where someone could behave hysterically, or dramatically, to draw attention to a hidden situation or uncomfortable truth?