[Le Fanu]

I did a draw for the day and got the Seven of Wands and so thought it was a good card to post on. The way things have been going lately, this card was hugely relevant for my day and my current thinking.

The traditional meaning for this card is having to "defend your corner". This meaning immediately rang true for me. But the first thing I saw when I looked at the Quantum 7 of Wands was the vanishing point in the centre of the card, which immediately conveyed to me the sense I currently have of complications at work seeming infinite. As if everything is just going to go on forever. And my own incapacity to imagine otherwise.

I have been feeling very stressed at work of late, overworked, ill-equipped and questioning whether I really want this. This card speaks of the sense I have of my "cosmos" being in conflict, of being invaded. The resulting drain on my energies seems very vivid to me when I look at this card. One cosmos in conflict with another and of me having to draw on the resources of my own, inner cosmos to resist invasion from another. Two distinct forces which are not currently conciliating very well...

[Leo62]

Here's an image of the card

As well as being about everything you mentioned Le Fanu, I do feel that this 7 of Wands gives a sense of the intense energy that conflict raises. And yes, that can be draining, but it can also goad us into creativity. When this card has turned up for me recently (which it has done a fair bit!), it seems to be challenging me to rise to the challenge and raise my game.

This is definitely not a card of reconciliation, but it can be positive because it pushes us to dig deep into our resources and extend ourselves way beyond our comfort zone. Sometimes the conflict, for me, has been the sloth-like part of my nature wanting to hang on to that familiar old comfort zone and just not go there...but with this card there's no choice but to grab that want and jump in.

[Le Fanu]

Thank you for that angle on things and thank you for posting the image. Yes, you´re right, but it isn´t always easy to see this from the eye of the hurricane! But yes, it´s almost as if this card is goading you on to get your hackles up and jump into the fray!

Because you may get glimpses of those sides of yourself which you didn´t know existed and which conflict and defence bring to the fore.

[KarlThomas]

I like that in the collision of galaxies which the 7 wands refers to, there are stars exchanged from one galaxy to the other, pulled away, dragging clouds of dust behind them.

I love the thought of referring to conflict in a new mindset through this lens.
Can you picture the subtle healing possible in the following different verbal description of a fight?

"We've been exchanging stars lately".

It infers commerce, and value for value, even amid the turmoil. There's something that smacks of forces beyond our capacity to see; parts of our conflicts that enrich us, unnoticed.

I am hoping to find mind-expanding places like this, where these cards open me.

[Leo62]

Originally Posted by KarlThomas

"We've been exchanging stars lately".

LOL Karl, that's great! What a wonderfully enlightened attitude it implies.

Whether we like it or not, conflict is an integral part of life. As a writer of fiction I can tell you that it's an essential part of my trade...the first law of storytelling - without conflict there is no story!

[KarlThomas]

Thanks for that, Chris! As someone who avoids conflict, I need to manage my concept of it, and your relationship to conflicts in the storytelling context is a good reminder. There's juice in them thar hills: and one does well to remember that they are simply part of existing.

Oddly enough, I logged on here this morning to avoid opening a certain conflict-riddled email. Same sloth you are referring to, Kay! It is easier for me to pick a different direction to gaze, when sometimes the work is simply to face that conflicting reality, and deal.

Sigh! Off to the inbox.

[The 78th Fool]

Originally Posted by KarlThomas

Thanks for that, Chris! As someone who avoids conflict, I need to manage my concept of it, and your relationship to conflicts in the storytelling context is a good reminder. There's juice in them thar hills: and one does well to remember that they are simply part of existing.

Oddly enough, I logged on here this morning to avoid opening a certain conflict-riddled email. Same sloth you are referring to, Kay! It is easier for me to pick a different direction to gaze, when sometimes the work is simply to face that conflicting reality, and deal.

Sigh! Off to the inbox.

I can really relate to you on this. On so many levels I fear conflict and actively try to avoid it. Often this means I make matters worse as resentment is stored up, festers and eventually spills out more fiercely as a result.

Of all the images we created, this was one of my two least favourites. part of this is down to feeling dissatisfied with the image on a technical level but I'm rapidly realising it has more to do with being uncomfortable with the concept of the card itself.

The photo of the two colliding galaxies is fascinating yet to enhance the meaning, Kay rightly instructed me to go for quite a jagged feel in the design for the seven wands. The implied violence of the collision frightens me yet as Karl points out, there is positive healing energy to be found even in the most threatening of situations like this. Sometimes 'collisions' are inevitable and despite the violent upheaval, life ends up being enlarged and enriched. At other times, collisions are just collisions and as they say, shit happens. I'm starting to realise that's a valid part of being alive too.

Chris. xx

[KarlThomas]

It (conflict) is a valid and integral part of being, and one of the things I'm discovering in my studies is the value of embracing the parts of (myself and) my life which I would rather gloss over.

For what it's worth, Chris, I find this card design striking, in a manner of speaking.

[nisaba]

It's striking, but it's not the most visually successful card in the deck. The exploding space photography makes visual sense, as does the vanishing-point. But the Wands themselves look truncated, look pointless, don't even look unequivocally conflicted.

I have read somewhere, that when two galaxies collide, it's not slow and it's not painless, it has the o=potential to wipe out all life on all inhabited planets in both galaxies. the image shows up two central cores - but both of them are overlaid with Wands that do nothing but hang in space. The apron of stars between them, therefore, has lost some of the drama of the intergalactic tug o'war.

What the card does do well, not only with the vanishing point but with the way the Wands are arrayed in parallel convergence, is give a great sense of depth to space.