Minor Arcana, Swords
Seven of Swords
strategy, stealth, risk, caution
Upright
Looking back over one shoulder, a figure tiptoes away from a camp with an armful of swords and leaves two behind. Waite admits the meanings vary widely: design, attempt, hope and confidence, along with quarrels and a plan that may fail.
When a clever shortcut at work looks tempting, count who would be affected and what you left behind. Planning quietly can be sensible in a delicate negotiation. Ask whether you would be comfortable explaining the plan afterward, in front of everyone.
Reversed
Talk takes over when this card turns. Waite gives good advice, counsel and instruction, then slander and babbling, so the same words can help or harm.
Go and ask someone who has done this before, and listen to the parts you dislike. Watch what you repeat about others, especially at work. A secret plan shared too widely tends to stop being a plan.
A card is a prompt for reflection. It cannot promise a result, and it is no substitute for medical, legal or financial advice.
In Waite's words
Upright: Design, attempt, wish, hope, confidence; also quarrelling, a plan that may fail, annoyance. The design is uncertain in its import, because the significations are widely at variance with each other.
Reversed: Good advice, counsel, instruction, slander, babbling.
From A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), Part 3, on Wikisource. The meanings above are by Cast & Chart.
Card art by Pamela Colman Smith, 1909, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.