Maybe not always so lucky.

Lucky number 7. The 7 deadly sins. 7 minutes in heaven maybe? 7 days of the week. We ask this number to hold quite a lot.

I’m personally a fan of the number, as it comes up a lot for me. Both my psychic and fate numbers are 7 (psychic number is the digits of your birthday added together, fate is the digits of month + day + year). Seven feels logical to me. Not rounded, but there’s a weight to it. It’s more than halfway there if 10 tends to mark the completion of a cycle. I tend to see the number 7 a lot if my eyes are open. 7 and I are pretty good friends. For the most part we tend to get along well.

As I’ve been on my tarot journey, I’ve been really intrigued by numerology. A month or so ago, I picked up Norman Shine’s Numerology book, and though it is outdated in some ways, the interpretations of each number has gotten the wheels in my head turning. The number 7, he writes, is “the ultimate reminder of the limitations of the material world. The number is the symbol of the Greek god of time, Chronos, and reminds us that everything that has limited duration is not wholly real.” Wow, mic drop.

He expands more on his definition and study of the number, and puts succinctly later in the passage that in dealing with the limitations of the material world, 7 deals with having a “sense of time, or a lack of time”. This is where I got hooked. If you know anything about me, this nails my personality on the head and also speaks to my fascination (and frustration) with liminal spaces. The in-between. The position of being neither here nor there. In terms of time, feeling like you have all the time in the world but somehow still not having enough. Somehow still feeling constrained by the limited number of hours in a day, a week, a month, or a year. Feeling the abundance of the time you have but either simultaneously or in the next breath mourning its loss.

So how does this play out in the tarot? For the Majors, The Chariot and The Tower (base number 7). Driving forward, getting in alignment, and having things crumble before your eyes. In the Minors, the Seven of Cups speaking to a variety of choices and sorting through illusion within them. The Seven of Coins/Pentacles showing imagery of watching plants grow, an acknowledgement of the duration of waiting to reap what you sow. The Seven of Wands showing conflict, showing a moment of blockage along the desired path. And finally the Seven of Swords, speaking of potential theft but also a time of acting strategically and gathering the necessary tools or skills needed to continue along the way.

All of these sevens to me speak to our relationship to time, timing, and potential reactions when time does not play out as we expect. Sometimes that timing forces you to drive forward, or maybe double back, reconsider your speed, reconsider who you’re bringing with you along the way. Evaluate your limitations, those that are “real” and those that are more illusion — the number 7 in this case asks you to consider if those realities or illusions are actually as separate as you might think after all.

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I started this post in August of last year, came back and made some revisions on March 25 of this year (another 7!), and have come back, once again, in a wildly different space and time. I wrote about the 7 of Cups on my instagram the other day, and I come back on the first day of Mercury Retrograde in Cancer with the Chariot and the 7 of Pentacles beside me, telling me that my forward movement right now (or my reversal with the retrograde) is to tend to the seeds I’ve planted right where I am. My forward momentum is standing still. Diving deeper. Exploring all angles, shining a light in all the crevices I’ve never seen before. Paired with the Star (number 17, a number I’ve been seeing a lot lately, and the card associated with my Sun in Aquarius), this spread is a reminder that exactly where I am is where I need to be.

I’ve been feeling restless in my body today, and whenever I see the Chariot, that restlessness seems to intensify. I see it and I think “where am I being called to go next?” but in this moment, the message is clear to stay still.

I pulled this card after a group meditation session of about 230 people over video chat, sitting in the energy that surrounds us on this Juneteenth, and I was asked to consider the question, “Can where you are right now be enough?”

Can where you are, right here, right now, be enough?

This question is absolutely one of context. When I ask this question of the United States, of any imperialist nation, of any former (and currently) colonized land in this current world, I think of the line from the Robert Frost poem that tells us that we have promises to keep, and miles to go before we sleep. This journey of justice is miles and miles long and we’ve only just begun. And when I bring this question to an individual and ask if I’m doing enough with my positions, if I’m doing enough with my body, my voice, my money, my actions, sometimes I truly don’t know.

But this spread can serve as assurance and a sort of anchor for a while. If I can trust this message long enough to trust that I’ve planted the necessary seeds, and the work now is to tend to them, to assist them, to wait and watch for them to develop and grow as they need. Sometimes where you’re headed is exactly where you need to be. Sometimes what feels like inaction is exactly the action you need to take. Sometimes what you might perceive as “inaction” is a series of actions that you’re learning to do without realizing — related to how you move, perceive, operate, and exist in this physical world. The 7 is full of contradictions. It’s an odd, uneven, and sometimes imperfect and non-circular cycle. It’s up to you to take a moment and listen to understand if it is your time to drive forward or take a moment to sit still.

As with many of my blog posts, wrapping up in a cohesive way is quite challenging. If you’re still here, ask yourself, and you don’t have to answer right now, if where you are, right here, right now, can be enough.