7 of Swords a 2nd day in a row! Yesterday I explored its deceit aspect, but what is its message today? Let’s look at the Lumina imagery. It shows a yellow astronomical body rising from behind a dark landscape. Dark mountains indicating hidden challenges. Dark waters indicating stagnant emotions. The body could be the Moon, but it looks like Mercury to me. Mercury being a messenger and a communicator, this card represents secrets being brought out to the open. That which is hidden is rising up from its dark confines and out onto the open. Seven swords fracture and split Mercury, similarly to how the Moon is portrayed on this deck, as I discussed a couple of days ago. This shows the fractured mind that is the result of hidden secrets and deceit. The yellow stands for the clear awareness that causes one to reveal them with honesty and truth.

However, according to the LWB, this card also means “going it alone.” As we know, the RWS card shows a man sneaking away with swords. At times we need to come to the conclusion that our carefully crafted web of needs that ties our progress to others and to external circumstances needs to be cut off. When we believe that this or that needs to happen before we can fly; when we think we need this or that person to help us so we can succeed; we may entangle ourselves in a series of blockages and obstacles that have no ultimate reality in truth. When that is the case, we are called to, like Mercury on the card, rise above the black mountains and the rotten waters of self-imprisonment and onto the sky of freedom and grace.

The Maiden of Swords is the mindset that allows us to do that. A swirl of thoughts and constructs spirals around her. She sees them for what they are—ultimately untrue obstacles and exterior entanglements—and slashes them with her sword. Freed from the moors of that dark lake, our life can then set sail towards evolution, accomplishment, joy and peace that are not dependent on anyone else or any particular set of circumstances. We reclaim our inherent freedom now. We are free. We are free!!! Today, untie yourself. Let your Spirit rise up from that which has no right to hold it down.