To a young seeker.
The Five of Wands Peril & Positivity
Fives are difficult cards. Challenges, learning opportunities – apparently we shouldn’t say problems…(As I may have said, and we also shouldn’t say ‘shouldn’t’, according to therapists. As what happens happens. Deal with it.)
The Rider Waite deck shows men fighting with staves (could also be Morris Dancers after a few too many ales,) The Housewives Tarot short definition is: Competition. Fighting. Inner Strength.
The positive from this card is: don’t fear conflict, focus on the inner strength you need to prevail, or, at least, compete to the best of your ability and keep victory in mind.
A positive attitude is more likely to help than assuming the worst will happen, which often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. A 1950s housewife might have said, ‘turn that frown upside down.’ Particularly useless advice if you’ve ever suffered from depression. However, sometimes we have to ‘fake it to make it’. Every cloud has a silver lining. Just cheery inanity? No, because optimism works. It leads to happier people. Even in the midst of a Five of Wands melee = or anywhere people hit each other with big sticks.
The Osho Zen Tarot calls this card Totality. (This is a pack best used for meditation or surprising your own subconscious, rather than reading for others, unless you’re among Zen Buddhists.) Three female trapeze artists about to clasp hands mid-air. If you’re a high wire act you must apply all your attention to the task in hand. Don’t let the mind cloud the issue. Too much thinking and you’re about as much use as Hamlet – where everyone ends up dead eventually, because an overgrown Kevin the Teenager couldn’t sort himself out.
‘Keep it simple, stupid’.
Which is some distance from the conventional interpretation of the Five of Wands: conflict, struggle, rivalry. A battle. War. A difficult card, indeed.
It can be read as a reminder that victory will require personal sacrifice – something Hollywood screenwriters are encouraged to include as nobody wants to see characters handed everything on a plate. It doesn’t match most people’s experience, which is that success requires a long, hard struggle. And courage and positivity. ‘Cry Havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!’ Henry V. Shakespeare. Or a quote that resonates better with me: ‘Or will there be a World War, and all the expense and inconvenience that entails.’..’ Money. Martin Amis, Written in the early eighties when a nuclear war remained a strong possibility, perhaps the final war, the end of the world as we know it.
It didn’t happen. Our opponents even packed in Communism, an ideology that killed far more people than the Nazis, but is judged less harshly for some reason. Perhaps they ‘meant well’. ‘It hasn’t been tried properly yet’. Unfortunately there’s still a small but influential minority of do-gooding twits scattered throughout the BBC, The Guardian and throughout Academia, and in their American equivalents. I don’t mean ‘Liberals’, shock horror, but actual Communists who are hoping for the eventual triumph of Marxism. Fortunately we are more likely to see what evangelical Christians are hoping for: the end of the world as heralded by the Four Horsepersons of the Apocalypse. With all the expense and inconvenience that will entail…
War is damaging, even if you win. So even if you are good at fighting, or have a sharp tongue, a quick wit and a thick skin, the greatest martial art is to avoid a fight in the first place.
While staying as fit as possible. And ever vigilant.
But don’t be too anxious.
While the five of Pentacles, (Discs, Coins and other circular stuff,) denotes anxiety over money, the five of Wands, (Rods, Batons and anything else stick-shaped,) symbolizes anxiety over your own bad habits or past mistakes. Guilt helps no one, not even the people affected by whatever you did. Neither does criticizing yourself too harshly. ‘You failed, you always will, you never were any good’ and so on, till you’re running around beating yourself up like the five guys in the card. (‘Excuse ME! The five persons. Who may be transgendered’ Vital message from our social justice crusader there, fresh from a perma-froth rage on Tumblr.)
We need some fear to survive but most of us overdo it. The wise warrior does not dread a hypothetical future but deals with conflict as it occurs.
Positivity isn’t what I’m best at but I used to borrow Ricard Mayinger’s mindset for an occasional, perhaps irritating, pep talk, which you probably didn’t need anyway: ‘this is the best village, in the best country etc’. Which was and is true. We are in the warmest, wealthiest part of the country, which may not be as prosperous as Germany, but it’s much more interesting and there are very few guns, unlike America, and we have a free health service and a social safety net, despite the best efforts of the Tories. And it’s great you and Raph are doing so well,
Go us!
love
Dad
ProsperoTarot 