Tarot Spread: Heartfelt Visions

Connecting to the core of the 7 of Cups

Whenever I teach the numerology of tarot in a class like Read Tarot like a Nerd or a seminar like the Structures of Meaning, I’m struck by the complex combination of mastery and trial that comes from the 7s, the number of experience and wisdom-seeking. That may be no truer than in the 7 of Cups. And the shift from a vague sense of indecision to a more precise understanding of the 7 of Cups as being a test of the heart is a gamechanger for many of my students.

The following tarot spread was designed to help you connect with your heart and understand your visions for the future (not only in terms of ambitions, but also creative endeavors) from that deep place of certainty that’s hard to grasp in logical terms. It was inspired by the 7 of Cups as I understand it from multiple tarot traditions and the imagery of the 7 of Cups as illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. If you want to understand more about the 7 of Cups (and the 7s as a whole), continue reading below the spread. It will help you better understand some of the concepts in the spread and why I focused on certain aspects of the card more than others.

If you have trouble interpreting the cards for each of the individual positions, consider choosing five cards that represent different visions of what you may want in your life, shuffle those, and deal them into the first five positions. Deal the last two cards from the rest of the pile as normal. Note that this should be a way of helping you understand how the spread works and how cards can answer these questions. It should not be a replacement for an intuitively divined reading. Remember that the 7 of Cups is tied to “irrational” heartfelt dreams, so any intentional, logical decision-making can undermine the purpose of the spread.

Fleeting Desire: What vision may be fine for the present but won’t stand the test of time?

Indulgence: What vision may seem the obvious choice to others but isn’t really my dream?

Poisoned Chalice: What vision is not what it seems?

Sabotage: What vision has no real benefit to me, only risks?

Sacred Heart: What vision calls to my soul?

Clouds: Why has it been confusing to understand what is right for me?

Dreamer: How can I support my heartfelt visions?

Generally speaking in tarot, the 7s tend to be a letdown after the easy flow of the 6s. If you’re familiar with the Qabalistic basis for 19th and 20th century tarot coming out of England, you may know that the 6s are associated with the sun (and harmony) while the 7s are associated with Venus (and victory). You may also know that some of the men who popularized the tarot meanings with which many of us are familiar were not always convinced of Venus’s strength.

In Liber Theta (the successor to the Golden Dawn’s Book T), the 7s are described as “what is required, within its respective element, to attain victory: valor and enthusiasm in Fire, imagination and creative visualization in Water, cleverness and adaptability in Air, labor and patience in Earth.” All of that’s great, but the explainer continues with a parenthetical: “(This does not deny that negative, even degenerate, aspects may be present as well; they seem to emerge easily, as if from personal weakness, within the Sevens.)” And there’s a footnote specifically for the 7 of Cups that doubles down on this: “the fact that these principles [of victory potential] are frequently abused and degenerated dur to human weakness is not the ‘fault’ of the principles themselves.”

Spread using the Out of Hand Tarot [OOP] by Jamie Sawyer

Essentially the 7s need to be great, but they’re weak, so they usually can’t deliver. The Golden Dawn and its popular offshoots gave the 7s titles like “Futility” or “Unstable Effort” (Swords) and “Failure” or “Success Unfulfilled” (Disks/Coins/Pentacles). And while the 7 of Wands was titled “Valor” (good for Wands), the 7 of Cups was titled “Debauch.” Through this lens, the creative visioning and imagination of the artistic 7 of Cups (astrologically tied to Venus and Scorpio through the system of decanic minors) becomes less inspiring and more hedonistic, something self-gratifying rather than an opportunity for deep connection.

The vision in Pamela Colman Smith’s 7 of Cups appears to show someone who cannot decide which aspiration to choose. But what if we changed that phrasing to “someone who is not sure what they want” or “someone who is choosing a dream from the heart?” This may seem a bit generous. After all, there is the poisoned chalice of victory with a skull etched onto the cup with the laurel wreath, and there are cups with a deadly creature inside, which could signal self-sabotage. But the rephrasing shifts the idea from a card of choosing from the head and future visioning, which is the realm of the Swords, to a card of dreams and heart-centered desires, which is the realm of the Cups. And this is important for understanding how the 7 of Cups works within the context of the sequence of the Cups, a concept I love to use in helping students reimagine The Hard Cards of Tarot.

The 7 of Cups comes before the 8 of Cups, a card of abandoning what is no longer in alignment and choosing a new path, even if it is difficult. How is that possible? Why would someone go on such a journey? They would only go on that journey if they had discovered what was right for them in contrast to the life they had been living before. It’s the result of embracing a new, aligned vision for the future. Whatever faults the 7 of Cups may have—and there are some, as there are in all the cards—it’s a moment when important, heart-based decisions can be made. It's the moment when everything could change because it becomes clear in a new and unexpected way. It’s not a time for deciding with the head but for letting the heart lead. Head-based decision-making leads to that indecision: how can someone choose rationally between multiple great options that are all unformed and nebulous? It’s all speculation.

The heart may not know which option is the “smartest choice,” but that’s not the point of a Cups card. This is creative visioning, dream-building, and seeking castles in clouds. It shouldn’t be logical. It should be a test of the heart, and the moment requires the person to let the heart (and the unknowable waters of the psyche) direct what happens next.

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