The Chariot
The Chariot
Number 7 Water Cancer
A major arcana card: the big weather rather than the daily forecast.
Upright
drivecontrolwinning throughdirection
Forward, by will. The Chariot is held together by the driver and nothing else: two sphinxes pulling in different directions, no reins in the picture, and it still moves. This is the card of getting through something by deciding to, and it turns up for people in the middle of a hard stretch they are in fact handling.
Reversed
pulling apartspinning wheelsforce without aim
The two halves are winning. Reversed, the Chariot is effort without direction, or direction without the effort to hold it: a lot of motion and no distance covered. Sometimes it is the driver: forcing something that would go better if steered.
What is in the picture
Two sphinxes, one black and one white, harnessed to a chariot with no reins. The driver holds them by attention alone. Take the attention away and the picture comes apart.
What it says about…
The line a reading leads with, depending on what you said you were asking about.
A bit of everything
Upright: you are getting through this by holding your nerve, and it is working.
Reversed: a lot of effort going in and not much distance coming out.
Love and relationships
Upright: pursue it properly or let it go. Half-pursuit is the one thing that will not work here.
Reversed: two people pulling in opposite directions while insisting they are not.
Work and direction
Upright: push. This is the stretch where momentum matters more than elegance.
Reversed: busy, and going nowhere. Stop and fix the direction before adding more hours.
Money and security
Upright: a plan held to for long enough to work. Do not change it again.
Reversed: competing financial priorities cancelling each other out.
Me, honestly
Upright: you have more discipline than you credit yourself with. Look at what you have already carried.
Reversed: willpower is not the missing ingredient. Direction is.
A decision I am stuck on
Upright: yes, and then commit hard enough that the decision stops being reopened.
Reversed: not until you know which way you are actually going.
With other cards
With Wheel of Fortune
Luck and effort in the same spread. The turn is coming from outside and what you do with it is entirely yours, which is as fair a division as the deck ever offers.
If this card leads
Hold the line for one more stretch than feels necessary.
As a yes or no
Upright, it reads as yes. Reversed, no.
“I can hold two opposing things together and still move.”
Draw it in a reading
The meaning above, applied to something you are actually asking about.
