Still plugging away at the #dropm78. I’m only twelve days behind.
Day Twenty One. November 4th. Seven of Wands.
Definition: Sasha Graham says sevens represent mystery. Yeah, I think it’s pretty clear at this point her numerological themes were not ones that were guiding Pamela when she was drawing the cards. Waite says the Seven of Wands represents valor, being assailed and outnumbered, and positional advantage.
Detail: What is the Elsewhere Tarot presenting?
A top-down view of a desk, with a loose manuscript on it, seven pens arrayed, and a cup of coffee. No computer. Hmm. Pens as wands. Writing as the medium of purpose and desire. This is the “Elsewhere” tarot. It’s about worlds. Pens as a tool of making worlds. The loose manuscript isn’t something being read. It’s something being worked on. Words as a tool of making worlds.
Day: I very much resonate with the idea of words as the essence of what makes worlds. The words as I play journaling games make the real imaginal worlds of the experiences I have in them and things I do.
Discovery: What’s on Pamela’s Seven of Wands? A dude backed against the edge of a precipice, defending himself with his living wand against six living wands with unseen wielders coming at him. Pamela’s Seven of Pentacles shows a farmer with a bumper crop, and I wrote about his body language and facial expression showing his weariness and self-doubt about how he’d traded his time and work for the crop. Does the guy here on the Seven of Wands also look doubtful? He certainly looks concerned, and defensive. Is the guy on the Seven of Pentacles right to doubt? Yes. Is this guy on the Seven of Wands right to doubt? Yes. He’s up against a precipice, and outnumbered.
I really don’t see how the RWS Seven of Pentacles means valor, vantage, and success like Waite says. I don’t get that vibe from it at all. Card after card it feels like he’s imposing some meaning that suits him on something Pamela drew with a different assertion.
I am coming to think of the cards as barriers. The self-doubt of the farmer on the Seven of Pentacles is a barrier. It’s keeping him trapped in the activity of farming and selling, the commodification of his time, rather than the pursuit of his truer purpose (whatever it might be) that he feels. The situation of the dude on the Seven of Wands is a barrier. He is on his own, and opposed by a cohort with their own living wands.
Is this the progression of the Minor Arcana? The suits are things we need to cohere in ourselves to attain who we should be, and the cards are barriers that may oppose us on the way. It’s brilliant by Pamela, if so. I’m eager to see how it plays out.
There are no barriers outside of the temporal world. Time. Death. Cycles. Cohering the suits in ourselves is attaining who we should be and transcending the barriers.