Card of the Day: Seven of Swords

Image description: The 7 of Swords from the Next World Tarot.

Today’s card is the 7 of Swords. The escape plan.

It’s an interesting card to read in the context of Valentine’s Day, a day that has so many of us feeling that the world (or at least today’s dominant narratives) is against us.

Today there’s a wheedling little voice in many of our heads. This voice might say,

“Are you in love? I mean, the right kind of love. Two of Cups love, obviously. And no queer, trans, extended kinship networks Two of Cupsiness, no way. Romantic and sexual love. Head over heels love. Chocolate and flowers love.

No?

Dang. What are you doing with your life?!

Suffering in misery, probably! Is it because you’re broken? Is it because you don’t love yourself, so nobody else can love you either? Is it because you’re in the wrong body? I bet it is.”

Even those of us who have found our way into counter cultural spaces and stories of anti-oppressive love are deeply aware of how this day, and its dominant narratives, cooperate with white cis hetero patriarchal norms in ways that hurt so many people.

And for those grieving a loss – a loss to death or to the unchosen loss of a relationship or even to the *chosen* loss of a relationship – there is little space for grief in this day.

For those of us operating within scarcity, or on the margins, this day highlights all the things that hurt and feel precarious.

No wonder we need an escape plan.

Cristy C. Road writes, “After reading the instructions, she still believed she knew a better solution… The 7 learned how to evade disaster – she questioned her actions multiple times, and multiple times came to the same conclusion to do it her way. The 7 of Swords asks you to do the same, but be mindful.”

Isn’t that what we all do as we become conscious of the cultural stories of heteronormative, cisnormative, amatonormative, mononormative love, and as we start to question, to challenge, to find a better solution.

Today, for all its fluffy marketing, is a sharp day for many of us. Good thing we’re also sharp.