Minor Misunderstanding | 7 of Cups

It’s not just about fantasy.

The Minor 7s are probably the tarot’s most baffling cards. My keyword for them is incongruous. Each of the 7s shows a figure at odds with their environment. In the macro sense, it’s the individual at odds with the collective. At the individual level we can see this dynamic as our ego at odds with our unconscious desires.

The 7s also suggest we’ve reached a plateau of triumph, but often in a way that implies the undoing of ourselves or another. With cups, we see their watery nature upended by the realm of air, with nothing to ground in.

Unlike any other card in the Cups suit, the 7 of Cups shows a group of disembodied cups floating in the air. They are rootless apparitions that hover before a shadowy person, seen from behind (perhaps the same retreating figure we saw in the 6 of Cups). Traditionally this card is linked to fantasy and illusion, and while this is a valid interpretation, the cards are more nuanced than their keywords. Because cups are the realm of the emotions, the 7 of Cups shows the self at odds with desire. In each cup we see a different emotion and its material corollary. We see that each emotion has a particular essence or character to it, one that we feel in the body. But these feelings can be uncomfortable and so we abstract them and disconnect from them. The message here is to bring the mind back into the body through somatic activities like deep breathing, exercise, spiritual baths, cold showers, and mindfulness. The body understands our desires, and by attuning to how and where our emotions hang out in our physical form, we can better understand ourselves and our impulses.

This post is part of the Minor Misunderstanding series by The Moon Unfolded. In this series I delve into some of the most perplexing and misunderstood cards of the minor arcana. To learn more about The Moon Unfolded and using tarot for creative grief work, click here.