Strength / 7 of Swords
I received a reading from a gifted tarotist on my last birthday. Two of the cards drawn were Strength and 7 of Swords. I was going through a tough time, grappling with newfound consciousness of how I had auto-piloted through my life the past few years. It was a painful process, trying to pick up the pieces and figure out what I really wanted. My own desire felt buried, and the work I was doing to dig it up felt dangerous.
7 of Swords is a card that comes up often for me, like an old friend you don’t really like - but make yourself available to. This is one of the trickiest cards in the tarot, and traditionally has negative associations to it, like deception, theft, ‘a bad person’ etc. But if you’re working with a socially-conscious reader, they often queer the meaning. This card can instead tell you that survival tactics are a natural response within oppressive systems. That guilt, and all the negative feelings that come with it, is not your fault.
For me, this card speaks to the fetishization of suffering, and feeling guilty for just being me. This card serves as a reminder to me that I need to interrogate these negative feelings and tend to myself. It’s like that game, “stop hitting yourself, why are you hitting yourself?” Your taunter asks, all the while knowing they’re the one using your hand to strike you.
The thing is, we grow up in a world that tells us our authentic selves are not enough. We are met with messaging of ‘how we are bad’ at almost every turn - and that if we did this thing, or bought that or tried a new diet we would be ‘better’, be ‘good’, be ‘pure’. And it’s so tempting to think we could solve the problem of feeling ‘bad’ through an external purchase or regimen. The fact is, we can’t, because there’s nothing inherently wrong with us. We can’t punish ourselves into being good. When I see this card now, I tell myself: you do not deserve to suffer and you are not bad.
I will never forget the question my reader offered me, as we started to talk about the Strength card. ‘What are you afraid to let yourself feel?’
It is ok to feel ugly emotions, it is ok to feel like you might never heal, it is ok to feel totally out of control and wild - and it is ok to not have the slightest idea about what to do with that. It is ok to want things, even if the thing you want might knock your loved ones out of alignment with you. It is ok to feel like you aren’t the person people think you are, that you’re failing yourself and others somehow.
The strength card teaches us that gentleness is the only way through these feelings. This isn’t a card about taming, so much as it is about integrating your shadows through compassionate curiosity. There is a loving expression on both the person’s and lion’s face. They have formed an intimate bond of understanding and acceptance. It’s as though they’re saying to each other, “I am me, and you are me, so let’s honor that together”.
Gentleness is fucking hard, because we have been conditioned to distrust it. When we are met with gentleness from others or ourselves, it takes a lot of fortitude to stop and examine our impulse to dismiss it, to circle back and really listen to it. Wherever you are on that journey, you have my deepest admiration.