seven of cups
seven of cups
Written by Victoria
Thinking critically is both a skill and a curse. You are not blissfully living life when things happen to you, good and bad. And it doesn’t help if you are spiritually inclined, because you are constantly decoding the scenario. A symbol, a word, a song playing in the thrift store.
With the Seven of Cups, I keep coming back to illusion. But the more I sit with this card, the more I wonder which illusion we’re talking about.
The life you imagine for yourself, or the life you’ve been taught you’re supposed to want?
Art brought me to this question.
There is something beautiful about paying for a suspension in time. Buying the supplies, renting the studio, clearing a few hours in your day. All of that effort to sit inside your own little bubble and make something that, until now, has only existed in your head.
To just play, and believe in your craft.
Sometimes that bubble is healthy. Sometimes you need somewhere to put what you cannot explain in a conversation. Somewhere to express yourself without immediately having to defend what you mean.
But that suspension comes at an expense. A literal expense, sometimes. Materials cost money. Space costs money. And even when you already have everything you need, you still have to give it your time.
Which leaves you with a choice, and the responsibility of deciding whether it’s worth it.
I think that’s where things become uncomfortable.
Because sometimes we’ve already been taught that it isn’t.
You can enjoy it, but don’t take it too seriously. You can make something, but only after everything else is done. You can have this part of yourself, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the person everyone expects you to be.
And “everyone” doesn’t always mean society. Sometimes it means your family. Your spouse. Someone whose opinion you’ve carried for so long that you barely recognize it as theirs anymore.
You hear it in your own voice.
So when people talk about finding your truth, I think about this. The private work of figuring out whether you actually believe something is a waste of time, or whether you’ve learned to feel guilty for wanting it.
That can be its own healing journey.
The Seven of Cups makes me question the picture we’ve accepted. Being responsible. Being successful. Being the right kind of partner, daughter, or professional. There can be so much wrapped up in that image that we never stop to ask whether we want to live inside it.
You’re meant to be one way, when really you want to be another.
And then the thing that gives you somewhere to express that difference gets called an escape.
Maybe it is. But what are you escaping from?
This is where the Eight of Pentacles belongs in the conversation for me. The practice, the repetition, the craftsmanship. The hours you spend learning how to make what you imagine. There is nothing especially imaginary about the receipt for your supplies or the time you spent working.
The bubble takes real effort to sustain.
I’m not saying every desire needs to become your career, or that wanting something makes the expense disappear. I’m wondering how we decide what deserves our resources, and whose expectations are making that decision with us.
The video I’ve included brought me to another part of this. The illusion of inclusion within the art world.
What does it mean to call a space inclusive? Who gets invited into it, and what are they allowed to say once they arrive?
I find myself thinking about the responsibility of a curator. From the outside, someone might see a person choosing work and arranging a show. But there is research behind those choices. Context. A responsibility to understand what you’re presenting and how you’re presenting it.
Which artists are being placed beside one another? Whose history is explained? Whose work is expected to speak for an entire community? What does a visitor leave believing they’ve understood?
Those choices matter to me because art helps shape how we see each other. What we remember. What we put in books. The perspectives we inherit, and the biases we may never think to question.
Being a curator is a nuanced profession. It requires knowledge and judgment, even when the people walking through the room don’t see all the work behind it.
And I don’t think that responsibility ends at making an opening night feel welcoming.
If inclusion depends on smoothing everything over, what are we actually including?
Can the work confront the people in the room? Can it question the institution presenting it? Can an artist be welcomed without being expected to make their experience easier for everyone else to digest?
I don’t think discomfort alone makes an exhibition meaningful. But I also don’t think keeping everyone comfortable should determine what gets shown.
There has to be room for the work to do something.
To complicate what someone thought they knew. To reveal something they had the privilege of overlooking. To let an artist express an experience without immediately turning it into a reassuring message for the audience.
That’s part of why I’m drawn to art in the first place. Someone has taken the time to examine something, live with it, and give it a form we can stand in front of.
And now we have to decide how closely we’re willing to look.
That feels like the Seven of Cups to me.
The beautiful picture, the promise, the possibility. Then the responsibility of examining what is actually there. Including the things we want to believe because they make us feel better about the world, or about our place in it.
Maybe the message I’m sitting with is about where we allow ourselves to imagine, and where we need to pay closer attention.
You can have the bubble where you paint. You can give yourself those hours. You can decide that expressing yourself is worth something, even before anyone buys it or understands it.
And when you step outside of it, you can question the expectations waiting for you.
Who decided this was the sensible life? Who decided your work was an indulgence? Who decided inclusion should feel comfortable for the people who were already in the room?
I keep thinking about what happens when the bubble bursts.
Sometimes you lose an illusion you loved. Sometimes you finally recognize an expectation you never chose.
And sometimes that is where you begin making something of your own.