Sarah Taylor

VII — VIII — VII

The numbers that come up in a tarot reading are just as significant as the cards to which they correspond, and this week is telling us a story with numbers alone.

Seven of Wands, Eight of Swords, The Chariot -- RWS Tarot deck. — Seven of Wands, Eight of Swords, The Chariot from the Rider-Waite Smith Tarot deck, created by A E Waite and illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. Click on the image for a larger version.

Seven is often connoted as the number of completion, or of a particular completion. It is the mid-point where Spirit and matter meet. It is the confluence of what is unknown and known.

In this way, something is asking to be integrated, and there is a sense of completion around the two aspects of Spirit and matter coming together.

In tarot, I believe that when we meet the Sevens we meet the idea of “consciousness” more fully than we have before. We have an opportunity to see ourselves in a different light, and we are only able to do this when we step back and inquire into the nature of who we are. [Reaching the mid-point: the Sevens in tarot]

This doesn’t happen without a struggle. It is hard work to birth something that is out of awareness. There is a part of us that simply doesn’t want to go there. This part is the gate-keeper to the unconscious, which protected us when we were young from experiences that were too painful or difficult for our childlike selves to deal with. (It also protects us from legitimate danger, negotiating our physical safety in the world.) However, it still stands sentry to the vaults that lie within us, not trusting that we can surrender to the chaos that leads to liberation.