Card of the Day: Seven of Swords

I have a very intimate relationship with this card. Last year, I brought it with me to therapy because I was pulling it so often. I feel a deep tenderness for this hypervigilant fox, sitting on her sword, just in case.

The ancient Egyptians believed that the heart recorded all the deeds of a person’s life, and was needed for judgment in the afterlife. After a person died, the heart was weighed against the feather of Maat (goddess of truth and justice). The scales were watched by Anubis (the jackal-headed god of embalming) and the results recorded by Thoth (the ibis-headed god of writing). If a person had led a good life, the heart balanced with the feather and the person was rendered worthy to live forever in paradise with Osiris.

I learned of this myth a couple months ago. At the time, I read it like information. But on the night of the Spring Equinox, I felt the truth of it in my body. The weight of unfinished business, regrets, ruptures left hanging. As things change rapidly, I have been attending to these heavinesses on my heart, cleaning them up. Which may not mean what you think it means.

To navigate this time, to ride the waves of anxiety and joy, I need my heart to be light. That doesn’t mean that nothing touches it. To the contrary. The work becomes: what medicine do I need to apply to this particular heaviness—fear, anxiety, grief, overwhelm, regret—so that I can continue living with a light heart? Sometimes it’s reaching out to a friend. Or contacting someone I had a rupture with to say: “You are in my heart and I love you.” Or letting myself sob. Or writing. Or painting.

To live and die with a heavy heart is painful. (Resmaa Menakem would call it “dirty pain.”) It makes it hard to live and love and feel and really touch the tender heart of life and aliveness. Wanting to protect ourselves is wise and instinctual. But keeping the heart tender and light can be another kind of protection.