Seven of Spades: an obstacle in the work, met with patience

Meaning

A Seven in Richmond's tables is trouble from one direction, and in Spades the trouble is in the work: “Trouble in some matter connected with your work”, “An obstacle to overcome”. Several of its lines turn to illness, and we leave them out.

We read the card as obstacles met with patience. The tradition sees its people as serious and persistent, holding themselves to high standards and growing stronger through hard stretches; it finds their path lighter when they remember that difficulties pass and ask for help when it is needed. The modern idea of every Seven as a spiritual test is later than Richmond.

In the spreads

The Seven of Spades sits at the middle of the Uranus row, under the Jupiter column, after the Nine of Diamonds, its Moon card. Its path runs through the Two of Clubs, the King of Clubs and the Jack of Diamonds, then along the Neptune row.

It gives to the King of Diamonds and receives from the Eight of Hearts, which is also its Neptune card. Its four birthdays, from 7 January to 1 April, have no cusp.

Life path and karma cards

Read from the Life Spread: the card before the Seven of Spades, then the ten after it, the order running on from the crown line back to the top right. The names of the places are Camp's, used descriptively.

Birthdays and ruling cards

The ruling card is the card of the life path in the place of the Sun sign's ruling planet; Leo takes the birth card itself and Scorpio two cards.

For every sign, as the tradition's modern rulers give them: Aries (Mars): Jack of Diamonds; Taurus (Venus): King of Clubs; Gemini (Mercury): Two of Clubs; Cancer (the Moon): Nine of Diamonds; Leo (the Sun): Seven of Spades; Virgo (Mercury): Two of Clubs; Libra (Venus): King of Clubs; Scorpio (Mars and Pluto): Jack of Diamonds and Six of Clubs; Sagittarius (Jupiter): Four of Hearts; Capricorn (Saturn): Four of Diamonds; Aquarius (Uranus): Two of Spades; Pisces (Neptune): Eight of Hearts.

Correspondences

Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.

Suit in Richmond (1893, p. 28)

The emblem of winter and the fourth quarter: the spade, “an instrument of labor”, and the acorn that “becomes a new tree in time”; quoted with its item on mortality left out sourced

The suit's season and planets in Richmond (pp. 27 to 28, 41)

Winter; Uranus, ruling “from a point of labor”, and Saturn, whose reading we leave out. Facts about his book, not about anyone born under the card sourced

Number in Richmond (pp. 42 to 45)

Sevens: trouble from one way only, an obstacle sourced

Richmond's table for the card (p. 166)

“Trouble in some matter connected with your work” and “An obstacle to overcome”, quoted with its lines on illness left out sourced

Our keyword line (2026)

Obstacles met with patience. our construction

Our theme for the suit

Work, Will, Routine, Inner Strength our construction

A suit element or a single planet

None in Richmond or any founding text; the sets other sites give disagree, and ours was dropped in October 2026 disputed

How the schools read it

Olney H. Richmond (1893)

An emblem of solar value 46 and spirit value 15, read through its suit, labour, and its number, an obstacle: one meaning under each of the seven planets, most of them events (p. 166).

Randall and Campbell, Lein, Camp (1947 onward)

Read the birth card as character rather than events. Camp's line adds the life path, the karma cards and the yearly spreads used on this page, and gives the card a nickname, which we do not use.

EsoTerrier

Read here as obstacles met with patience, lightened by remembering that difficulties pass and by asking for help.

Claims about it

• The cards, and the Spades above all, foretell illness, accidents and losses.

  disputed

  What the record shows: The tradition does read such events into the cards. Richmond's event lines are quoted here as history, and our readings leave them out.

• The Sevens are spiritual tests, the Sixes fate and return, the Nines universal giving.

  disputed

  What the record shows: Richmond reads the Sevens as obstacles, the Sixes as monotony and settlement and the Nines as disappointment (1893, pp. 42 to 45). The modern readings are the tradition's later development.

• Each suit has an element and a ruling planet.

  disputed

  What the record shows: No founding text gives the suits elements, and the sources that do disagree with each other. Richmond gives each suit a season and two planets (pp. 27 to 28, 41), which we report as his. We dropped the attributes in October 2026.

• Each card has a traditional nickname.

  disputed

  What the record shows: The nicknames are Camp's coinages, or Randall and Campbell's, not Richmond's; taken as a set they mark a text as derived from his. We use none of them.

Elsewhere on EsoTerrier

• King of Diamonds its first karma card, the card it gives to
• Eight of Hearts its second karma card, the card that gives to it
• Nine of Diamonds its Moon card, the card before it in the Life Spread
• Two of Clubs its Mercury card, the card after it in the Life Spread
• Natal Chart where the Sun sign that picks the ruling card is worked out