The Temple of seven
“Willing is not enough. We must do.”
2023 is a seven year. It follows a sacred spiral that weaves a return every nine years, completing a cycle of birthing, growing and learning, releasing and ending, before beginning all over again - hopefully wiser, a bit stronger, a bit more resilient, and certainly softer in the heart.
In the sacred tarot, seven is The Chariot, ruled by the constellation of Cancer, the Great Mother, the nurturer and cardinal water-born initiator. Cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn) are drivers; they initiate, begin and produce. The word cardinal is old, emerging in the 12th century medieval Latin (perhaps earlier), and held weighty importance. Fundamental, principal, chief, essential, that on which somethings turns or depends. These were taken from earlier, more specific functions: pertaining to a hinge, pole of the sky, pivot.
These are the words that describe the energy and calling of the cardinal signs, and that is the energy that underlies this year’s spiral round within the medicine of The Chariot and its ruler, Cancer.
VII - The Chariot
Ruled by watery Cancer, The Chariot speaks to us of readiness for the Next, integration of what we’ve learned, and the willingness to step into the unknown.
Chariot medicine is poured out onto the collective every nine years. So, we can look back and see what was happening on the world stage, and in our own lives with some easy math. The last four Chariot years occurred in 2014, 2005, 1996, & 1987. It’s important to note that these years, as well as Chariot years 1978 and 1969 and our next one in 2032 have all been solely Chariot years. When we add up the year’s numbers, they either result in 7 itself or 25. The major arcana goes to 21 and then begins again with 0, so 25 is automatically reduced to 7 as the primary tarot medicine for the year. (The last time The Chariot was present as a secondary energy was in 1960, which was a XVI-Tower year (16, which reduces to 7)).
If you’ve stayed with me so far, bless you.
So, The Chariot isn’t sharing space with The Tower card. It is taking up every available inch of consciousness within humanity as we trek through this year, doling out its wisdom as we go. In fact, it won’t share space with The Tower again until 2059 (a 16/7 year), nearly a century after their last partnership.
7 is a profoundly holy number. So very many spiritual teachings revolve around the sacredness of seven. We are told that the heavens and the earth were created in six days, and that God rested on the seventh, making it holy with Sabbath energy. The human body lives within seven primary energy centers called chakras. When balanced, aligned and properly awakened and functioning, we are able to connect and integrate divine wisdom within our blood and bone in unprecedented ways.
7 planetary bodies are visible to the naked human eye, and constitute the “inner” heavenly bodies that govern our human experience of divine influence. The outer planets (Uranus, Neptune, Pluto) are bridged via Chiron, the wounded healer, who teaches us how to step over the invisible threshold and reconcile with the shadow hiding inside our dark places. Speaking of planets, Uranus is the seventh from our local sun, and presides over revolutionary change, divine communion within human flesh and blood, rebellion against the status quo and corrupt structures.
In Egypt, seven was deeply sacred.
The Seven Hathors attended each pregnant woman’s labor, midwifed every birth, named every newborn child, declaring their soul’s truest destiny and calling. Additionally, Hathor as The Seven hails from the seven sisters, the Pleiades clustered in the night sky.
In Proverbs, wisdom builds her house with seven pillars. In the apocalyptic (meaning disclosure, revelation, awakening) book of Revelation, seven is a prolific number throughout the writing: seven churches, seven seals, seven trumpets, seven stars, seven angels.
When the cardinal directions (North, South, East, West) align with the Holy Trinity (Christian New Testament), we see the communion experience of seven once again. Merging. Integrations. There are seven branches on the Jewish menorah, with six outer branches curving inward toward the central pillar- the seventh- the light of God.
The Koran speaks of seven heavens. We’ve all heard the phrase ‘7th heaven’. Muslims walk around their sacred stone in Mecca seven times. In the ancient world, there were the seven wonders. The pyramids are sevens- blending squares with triangles, human and divine intersections of grace and power.
In a survey of 44,000 people, years ago now, more than 50% of participants named the number seven as their favorite number. I know it’s been mine as long as I can remember. I gave birth to my son in a seven year. In another seven year, I moved to a different house in a different city. I graduated high school in a seven year.
Think back on the last few seven years. 2014, 2005, 1996. What was happening in your life? What world/nation/community/family events were shaping you in those years?
Seven is both the destination and the jumping off point. It is summit in one sense and base camp in another. This is where our daily mundane self meets and merges with sacred eternity. Seven heralds the bridge between this understanding and the next, finishing one thought even as a higher one arrives and develops. It is the pivot point.
The Chariot holds this intense, life-affirming vibration within itself - a shining, spinning merkabah that shows us the complete human; whole, at last ready to receive divine, higher dimensional light for greater alignment, truer expression and bolder vision. Once we’ve reached this sacred moment in life’s journey, Spirit takes us by the hand and waits for us to disembark from the vehicle we’ve been traveling inside of, in favor of destiny’s siren song to our hearts. It’s a sacred pause, a deep inhale before stepping out into the vast evolutionary Next that awaits us as soulful beings riding human tides of finite lives.
The Chariot holds the tension between the urge for movement - forward, progressive, fresh, with the need to rearrange thinking to accommodate such newness. Bravery and willingness to try something new is a requirement within Chariot energy.
There is a sense of completion, but not ending. It’s more the knowing that what has brought us to this moment has served its purpose, and we are now fully readied for what we’ve been waiting for, if we are willing to step out and move toward it with our own two feet. The sacred seven is the crown chakra, where we open to the divine, for deeper understanding, greater healing and more profound guidance.
With the Chariot, we have traveled all this way within containers and mechanisms that have certainly aided us, all the while covering us with protective outer layers that separate us from unwanted and sometimes harsh elemental forces. But now, those containers are no longer right for us. The hard outer layers we’ve utilized are meant to be discarded. We are enough. We do not need to step into our next with all the pretense and protective gear. We can simply show up, ready to begin practicing new movements. The Chariot says, “Come, leave behind all those things you think you need that keep you safe and insulated. You are ready for something more real now, more true; the next part of your path is waiting!”
The Chariot, and the sacred seven of Spirit shows us the alignment of our bodies, souls and minds that come into agreement with divine will, divine purpose- our destiny that is bulging from within us. After the work of the six, The Lovers energy of last year, we have come to see ourselves in the way we interact, react, and experience the outer world- relationships, circumstances, all the many pleasant and unpleasant realities we face.
The Lovers (6) shows us the mirror in everything we see, feel, taste, think and know. We come to recognize that the external is truly a reflection of our internal beliefs. In The Chariot, we are ready to put that learning into action within our human lives.
What is ready to be finished? What has served its purpose and in now complete? What is opening to us, ready to be faced, moved into, stepped forward with? What new horizon is beckoning? How can we take a restful, sacred pause to take stock, shed, account for, realign and readjust, prepare to step away from or step into?
2023 holds this vibration. We have spent a lot of time considering the lives we do not want, the lives we do, the circumstances we cannot tolerate or share agreement and cooperation with. We have spent the last few years analyzing what is True, what is Our Truth, what we choose to create or desire to dismantle. We have observed, sometimes silently, sometimes with loud contribution to the conversation. In all this, we have worked with a deepening understanding of who we actually are in reflection/relation to what we encounter each day ‘out there’.
This year, with the medicine of The Chariot, we are called to take steps into the life and world we say we desire. To build it, to begin creating it, with action that aligns to our inmost truth. But we are called to do this from a profoundly centered, rooted place. Seven is deeply inward, not given to haste or rash activity. There is initiatory drive, but in no way reckless or rushing. Seven takes its time and moves with the Spirit, always.
Seven is a temple. It is where we enter to make the holy sacrifice on the altar of our hearts. We offer up what has been, what we are proud of and what shames us. We give up to the Spirit the bread and the water of our plans, our longings and our outrage over the wreckage and the wars within us. Seven sits, looking over all that has been made and mismanaged, produced well and miscarried. Seven sees it all and lets it all integrate fully, anchoring down into the deepest center, readying for the next round, the next circle, the next spiral.
Along for the holy movement, Cancer as the Great Mother breathes with us - the cardinal pivot point, the fulcrum and hinge - the doorway mechanism that opens the way into new spaces of understanding and expansion born of blood, sweat and tears. Cancer’s soft belly and breast welcomes our emotional vulnerability as we step out into new territory, but she shows us that vulnerability is part of the journey. She reminds us of the soft flesh hidden behind the hard shell armoring her outer self.
As we move further into this holy seven year, with the Chariot and Cancer as teachers at our side, we can remind ourselves that we are carrying with us the sacred temple where divine will merges with our human endeavor. Sacred rest does not equal inaction. Frantic hustling does not equal progress. Speed and quantity are irrelevant.
The medicine of seven marries intellectual knowledge with spirit-filled wisdom, ready to emerge in our outer world with inspired, mindful action. Each step considered, no matter how small. Courage to move into unfamiliar territory in the name of truer alignment to what your soul decrees is right and just. Anchoring divine inspiration to practical forward movements that honor and further soulful expression. This is temple magic. This is Sabbath magic. This is the calling of the sacred seven.
Blessings on your temple year!