I notice right away the continuity of the color scheme between these two cards, the mucky sick yellow-green which pervades the 7 of Cups and which the Princess of Swords is confronting. The same muddled, grey background in both cards too - tired and dreary and difficult things about...
The more I work with the Thoth, the more I come to like it's court cards. They take some getting used to if you are coming to the deck from a primarily RWS (or even TdM) background, but...the courts have always been a bit of a challenge for me to read, especially the pages. There is a certain lack of...clarity, distinctness at times, or at least that was my experience when I was first learning the cards. In the Thoth, though, I find it's much easier to get a grasp, and each court card is very much its own, quite clear message. In this case, the princess of swords is about confrontation - both kinds. On the on hand there are external issues, diffuclties, obstacles that you might wish you could avoid or run away from but which in fact you really should stand up and face; and on the other hand within yourself, that need to turn the sharp sword of logic and critically examine your own actions, perceptions, approach to things. This princess has an airy, transparent dress and wings - she is young, flexible, able if she chooses to adjust, adapt. And despite all the chaos around her, she is bright green - for youth, renewal, spring, growth, possibility...
The 7 of Cups is titled Debauch and indeed, we see a see of muck, poisonous slime dripping down from those cups, the two downwards triangles, the tigerlilies... We have Venus in Scorpio, in a way bringing together the worst traits of both of those signs - overindulging, self-indulging in destructive impulses, turning a certain intensity in the exact wrong direction. We have dark skies, mucky seas, venom drip...the entire scene makes me think of nausea...And actually, its perhaps for that reason that I know exactly what this is referring to. See, I kind of have a cluster of problems involving a bunch of dental issues, the most serious of which is a tooth which had been causing me pain since last September, and which I was told in December needs a root canal or extraction. I've been ignoring the issues, and it's gotten to the point that taking TONS of ibuprofen doens't help enough and prescription pain medication dentist gave me makes me so nauseated I cannot eat anything which given my already less than ideal eating habits...and yeah.
Why don't I do anything about it? Because I am stressed with other things, because I am moderately paranoid about doctors and dentists, because I don't have dental insurance and I KNOW trying to get into a lower cost dental school clinic will be a bother, because I just don't feel like I have the mental energy to deal with the issue. Same reason I've been all kinds of other issues as well, but well. This has become a bit of an acute problem, I suppose, and Thoth has something to say to me about it:
Deal with it. Just deal with it. Put on your big girl clothes, grab your logic-sword, and do something. Take a good look at what you've been doing and why that isn't working for you and what you should do instead. Realize that yes, this is going to involve some external hassle and dealing with obstacles and things and/or people you may not want to deal with and that...you need to do it anyway. Fight the slimy-icky things because constantly taking so much pain medication that you feel too sick to eat is not a long-term solution for success. In this case, continuing to do nothing about the problem is very much Debauch, self-indulgence in a very self-defeating sense. Fight that impulse: just deal with the chaos this is causing already.
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