The Archetype and The Tarot: The Trickster and Seven of Swords
Through the the Trickster and Seven of Swords, this week invites us to embrace the disruption of our usual patterns and question our truths. Can we allow the Trickster’s mischievous energy to reveal the hidden aspects of our lives and see the value in unpredictability?
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The Trickster Archetype
This one’s a classic, isn’t it? I think just about every cultural tradition throughout history has tales of the Trickster. From Loki in Norse mythology to Coyote in Native American lore, these figures are known for their love of chaos, disdain for normalcy, and ability to reveal uncomfortable truths. At its core, the Trickster illuminates what lies hidden, forcing us to confront our shadows and embrace transformation through paradox.
I often picture the Trickster standing over a giant cauldron of soup. On the surface, the broth appears clear and pristine, much like the orderly lives we try to maintain. But the Trickster, with a mischievous grin, stirs the pot, scraping the bottom until the muck we’ve tried to ignore rises to the top. This debris represents the parts of ourselves we’ve buried—our shadows. The Trickster excels at revealing what we’d rather keep hidden, forcing us to face the uncomfortable truths we avoid.
In this way, the Trickster serves as a mirror, reflecting our shadowed patterns and exposing our own hypocrisy. We might judge another’s behavior harshly, only to have the Trickster show us where that same behavior exists within us. By bringing these buried aspects into the light, the Trickster pushes us toward growth, even when it feels unsettling or disruptive.
But the Trickster doesn’t just reveal shadows—they also test boundaries. When we’ve drawn a line in the sand, created rules or limits, the Trickster often appears and asks, “Oh really? Are you sure?” They invite us to reexamine our structures. Are we being too rigid, too unwilling to face the shadows that bubble just beneath the surface? The Trickster forces us to question whether our boundaries are truly necessary or whether they’re simply keeping us in a false sense of security.
The Trickster is also the master of paradox, embodying both order and chaos, light and shadow. Just when we think we’ve made sense of them, they shift, becoming their own opposite. This paradoxical nature teaches us how to hold conflicting truths simultaneously. The Trickster forces us to sit with ambiguity and uncertainty, showing us that the tension between opposites can be a source of wisdom.
Because of all of this, I find it incredibly difficult make a list of light and shadow traits of this archetype. As soon as something feels like a shadow trait, I hear the Trickster whispering, “Are you sure? Perhaps it’s a light trait in disguise.”
When the Trickster comes up in a reading, I believe we’re being called to examine our relationship with certainty. Do we have the capacity to disrupt our own complacency?
Some questions to consider this week:
Where in your life are you avoiding uncomfortable truths, and how might you allow the Trickster to bring those shadows into the light for healing?
What boundaries or structures in your life feel too rigid, and how can you invite the Trickster’s energy to help you question whether they are serving your highest good?
How do you respond to uncertainty and paradox? In what ways might embracing the Trickster’s love for ambiguity open you to new perspectives or opportunities?
In what areas of your life have you become complacent, and how might the Trickster’s disruptive energy help you break through stagnation and embrace transformation?
Seven of Swords
Here we see a figure who looks to be tiptoeing away with five swords in their hands. Behind this figure is a camp of some kind. Both the background and foreground of the entire card is field of yellow.
Please bear with me as I write about numbers for a minute. You might remember me mentioning that I think the fives of the minor arcana represent some kind of destabilizing event. The sixes tell us about the ways we metabolize, integrate, and/or expand from that change in the fives. With the sevens, we take this expansion or fullness of the sixes out into the world with an action or doing of some kind.
To me, the sevens, then, are where we take all of the experience of the suit—from the ace to the six—and relate with the external world through it. I like to think of them as the way we follow through after the experiences from the first six cards. (It’s also a sort of last hurrah of this external relating before we turn inward with the eights.)
In the specific case of the swords, we’ve examined our experiences of having to be right, or having to win, with the five. In the six, we leave our certainties behind.
Where this lands us in the seven, then, is a place of having to relate with familiar patterns in an unorthodox manner. Despite all the yellow in the Seven of Swords, to me, it actually represents a big, huge gray area.
So many things could actually be happening in this card. The figure does seem to be acting in a sneaky manner, but does it necessarily mean they’re stealing those swords? If they are, maybe they’re trying to reclaim the five swords they lost a couple cards back. Or maybe they’re trying to prevent someone else from being stuck in their own rigid, Five of Swords beliefs. Or maybe stealing these swords is what’s best for the greater good. Or maybe they get a thrill out of stealing. Or maybe they’re just stuck in some awful situation and they are utilizing their clever wits to get out of it.
Adding to all of that are the two swords this person has chosen to leave behind. Why not take them too? I tend to think this is meant to invite us to wonder about the whole concept of: what is enough?
I believe that, overall, the Seven of Swords is asking us to look at the ways we manage the gray areas of our life. Where do we draw our lines in terms of our beliefs about when it is okay to steal or lie or otherwise behave in a less-than-direct manner? We all have this line somewhere. Can we sit in contemplation with some of these questions:
Does this not-socially-acceptable act feel icky on any level or does it feel empowering?
Are we trying to get away with something or is this way of doing things truly necessary?
If we feel we must lie to somebody, can we do it without lying to ourselves?
Where can we admit to ourselves that we have to take from another in order to get what we want or need?
Are there times when we feel that speaking the absolute truth would actually be more harmful than telling a lie?
How does this pair work together?
It feels to me like the Trickster and Seven of Swords are practically the same archetype. I think they work together by underscoring one another, by emphasizing the big overall message of each one.
Give that, here’s what I think the call is this week: can we accept, and make friends with, our own inner Trickster?
It’s kind of meta in a way. Can we use the Trickster energy to find our own Trickster in the shadows? And once we do, can we allow it to shine a light on some of our uncertainties, such as:
Can we come to own the fact that sometimes we are the Trickster?
Have we ever used our Trickster energy to make ourselves feel superior or inferior to others?
Where have we maybe been a little hypocritical with our own boundaries?
And, perhaps most importantly: What kind of mischief can we engage in this week?
I can’t help but notice how much the Trickster has been at play while I write this post. I can’t think of a previous archetype/tarot post that’s had so many questions. How fitting that, even in this writing, the Trickster has been guiding us away from certainty at every turn.
Let’s get through this week of tricksy energy together! Tell me how you’re doing with it in the comments below or send me a DM. I’ll be holding you all with extra love and support this week! 💖🙏💖
Thank you for this brilliant insight Jenna. It shines the light deep into our psyche, asking us to look around.
Oh I’m gonna have to sit with this one! That question of “what is enough” really struck me