The Monthly Arcana: July 2025
This page may contain affiliate links which may allow us to collect a commission when you click and make a purchase through the links on our site. There is no additional cost to you for doing so.
Guidance for the Month Ahead from Spirit Element
You know what I got out of July’s reading? Being strong just isn’t working anymore.
When reading through these cards and reviewing last month’s cards, I realized that these cards represent the moment when I felt I’ve had to be strong for far too long. And now, the armor is too heavy and protecting myself feels like too heavy a burden to bear. And maybe you’re feeling that too. Maybe you’ve been holding it together, staying calm, doing the right things, making the hard calls... but underneath it all, you're tired in a way that being strong can’t fix.
I pulled this month’s cards and immediately felt the tension between showing up as the strong one and secretly wondering when it’s my turn to be held. Warrior Woman came forward from the Earthcraft Oracle, and I could feel her asking: What does it mean to be strong when you're not sure you even want to be anymore? What if strength looked like asking for help? Or softening your tone? Or letting someone else lead for once?
This month isn’t about quitting or falling apart—it’s about rewriting the definition of power. Not the kind of power that impresses people or keeps you in control, but the kind that lets you rest without guilt, speak your truth without defending it, and walk away from what no longer fits without needing to make a scene about it.
If you’ve been feeling the cracks in your usual approach—like your old patterns of pushing, performing, or holding it all together just aren’t working—then this message is for you. July is your invitation to let the performance drop and let something truer open up. Let’s see what the cards have to say.
The Cards Pulled for June
The Thesis - Warrior Woman
This card represents the general energy or theme for the month and sets the tone for the focus required during the next several weeks.
The Domain - Judgment
This card represents what’s within your control this month. This is your opportunity to develop sovereignty and to take intentional action.
The Periphery - The Magician
This card represents the things that are beyond your control and that you will need to come to terms with or something you need to move on from.
The Axis - Eight of Blades
This card represents how you can stay grounded and restore your sense of peace or stability.
The Codex - King of Elixirs
This card represents your key to enlightenment. It shows you what you can learn, gain or improve when you embrace the energy of the month.
“Strength should always be complimented by softness. If you resist too much, you will break. Thus, the strong person knows when to use strength and when to yield, and good fortune and disaster depend on whether you know how and when to yield.”
- Liezi
The Thesis - Warrior Woman
Summary: Warrior Woman is a sacred archetype—but when over-identified with, she can become rigid, performative, or isolating.
Drawing Warrior Woman immediately felt like July would be a classic power month. Something bold, self-protective and with a lot of forward movement. But we can always go a layer deeper, looking beyond the obvious. It's easy to say July is about going to battle but instead of immediately feeling like you have to defend yourself, ask what caused you to feel like you had to pick up the sword in the first place.
Warrior Woman in July asks:
Where have I confused survival with identity?
How have I been rewarded for being unbreakable—and what has it cost me?
What might I be able to receive if I let someone else hold the sword for a while?
This month isn’t about using your power to win (conquest) or protect yourself (defense). It’s about learning how to hold all the parts of yourself—your power, your softness, your fear, your truth—together in one cohesive, honest self who doesn’t feel the need to defend the truth of who you are. The warrior rests not when the world stops attacking—but when she no longer sees a threat in every direction.
The Domain
→ Judgment
Summary: You get to decide what you’ll fight for.
Judgment says you don’t have to live your life by an old rulebook. You don’t owe anyone your continued participation in a story you’ve outgrown. In fact, allowing yourself to be reborn is the most radical form of spiritual authorship you possess.
July gives you full permission to respond differently, to wake up mid-sentence and say, “Actually, this no longer feels true.” You are not being called to fix something broken—this is not about that. You’re being called to recognize when your spirit has outgrown the space that it's in and to answer the call for something “other” when you feel it tugging at you.
Shift in Perspective:
What if “stepping into your power” isn’t about action at all—but about answering the call to evolve, even when that evolution requires you to disappoint others?
Let the old version of you grieve her final battle . The real war is over. The warrior’s next task is choosing what life she wants to fight for—not just fighting because this is what she’s always done.
The Periphery
→The Magician
Summary: You can’t control how others use their own power
This one’s slippery because in a way, the Magician is all about your control and your ability to manipulate your desired outcome. It shows up when you have the chance to control the narrative, shape the energy, and alchemize the elements. But when this card appears for this question, the truth becomes: you don’t get to decide how others use their tools.
Not every magician is a benevolent one. And not everyone is working with the same moral compass as you are.
The Magician in this position is a mirror to your own discomfort with watching others manipulate energy—charisma, influence, resources—in ways you wouldn’t or can’t. This month challenges you to stay in your lane of truth, even when others’ energy seem shinier, louder, or more immediate.
Your Task:
You can’t micromanage how others manifest. But you can sharpen your own magic in silence while refusing to compete with others.
Let them put on the show. You’re building your own legacy and it doesn’t need to put on an act for anyone.
The Axis
→ Eight of Blades
Summary: Free your mind of hypothetical drama.
This card is a confrontation with mental self-containment. Not mental clarity—but mental entrapment.
You may think the problem is “out there,” but the Eight of blades are here to tell you, you’re in a prison of your own making. You’re the only guard and you have the only key. Your thoughts may be reinforcing arbitrary rules like: If I don’t engage or push back, I’ll lose respect. If I take a break, I’ll fall behind. If I forgive them, they'll have power over me.
None of those are true.
Grounding Practice:
Start with: What if I’m not trapped? What if the danger isn’t real.
Your nervous system might be wired to look for a war. Teach it how to feel safe and to respond to real threats, not hypothetical ones.
The Codex
→ King of Elixirs
Summary: There’s more power in the things you didn’t say.
Ah, here he is again. The King of Elixirs arrived in June as your axis. In July, he ascends as a beacon of your enlightenment.
This tells us that emotional intelligence is your curriculum right now—not as a buzzword, but as an actual skillset. The King of Elixirs governs emotional regulation not emotional reaction. This is not about repressing your responses but learning to refine them—in a way that serves your emotional stability.
He is the antidote to Warrior Woman’s sharp edges. He doesn’t undo her power—he just reminds her when it’s safe to sheath the blade.
Enlightenment:
What if the key to sustainable leadership isn’t sheer force—but emotional fluency?
What if emotional depth wasn’t the opposite of strength—but its most advanced form?
Closing Reflections
There’s true power in letting go of the version of you that was built for battle. July is asking you to let go of the need to perform and to start leaning into what you actually need moving forward. It invites you to put down your sword—not because you’re weaker, but because you’re finally safe enough to stop proving you’re strong.
This is a month to:
✦ Rise into a new version of yourself, even if others don't understand the change
✦ Recognize when strength becomes self-isolation
✦ Observe how others wield their power—without losing your own center
✦ Release outdated mental narratives that keep you small or stuck
✦ Let emotional fluency become your most trusted form of leadership
As you move through July, consider these questions:
What kind of strength have I been praised for—and is it still serving me?
Where am I performing power or strength instead of embodying it?
Is my strength a signal or a shield? What am I really trying to say—or protect?
What might open up in me if I stopped needing to be the one who always knows, always leads, always holds it all together?
What kind of power would emerge if I let grace lead instead of grit?
What part of this month’s message stirred something in you?
Share your reflections in the comments or tag @spiritelement on Instagram with what resonated most. If you’re ready to explore tarot as a tool for integration and inner mastery, not just divination, join the list for my membership, The Seer’s Guild—where we don’t just pull cards, we live them.
Decks used in this reading
Earthcraft Oracle
Antique Anatomy Tarot
