The 5s ~ life lessons
Embracing hard times,
embracing life’s battles,
embracing conflict, embracing sadness
Pentacles ~ It’s all about embracing periods of poverty and suffering
with grace
and quiet dignity.
Poverty,
challenges, escapism, building character, suffering, enduring, survival
5/Pentacles ~
The five of pentacles is bracing us for
difficult times to come. It’s all about
weathering the storm, being able to hold out, finding reserves of strength and
fortitude we never thought we had.
Sometimes this card also reminds us that we’re not going it alone. We have solace in the fact that we share the
adventure.
This card is all about the dark journey in
life and preparing us for it’s imminent descent upon us. But it also reminds us that this bleak period
we must pass through won’t be forever.
Reversed:
Our world may have been turned upside down
once upon a time. But this may only be a
memory that we’ve tucked into the dark recesses of our mind. This card reversed also tells us, “Remember!
Remember what you learned!” You may
need that knowledge again in the near future.
My Personal Connection:
This is such a bleak looking card with such
bleak and low energy about it. It screams
poverty, penny pinching, a low point for some people on a variety of
levels. I feel a very personal and
intimate connection with this card. I
was raised by a grandmother on social security during the 1960s. She received $400.00 a month. Even during the 1960s this meant a very tight
and uncomfortable budget. She received
this check in one lump sum at the beginning of every month. My grandmother bought groceries for the
entire month during one shopping venture, except of course for bread, milk (used
sparingly, and mostly for cereal or cooking), and eggs. However, what she bought at the beginning of
the month didn’t necessarily last till the next check arrived. Mother Hubbard’s cupboards were pretty bare
the last week of each month.
We often visited relatives during this time,
knowing that we would be served the very traditional lunch at each house… my
Great-grandmother Smith, Great Aunt Tracy, even my grandmother’s daughter, my
Aunt Bonny would lay out a delicious spread of home-canned peaches, home-made
bread, a variety of sandwiches and meats, along with tea or coffee. I don’t really think they knew how desperate
our circumstances were. It was just such
an ingrained family custom, you didn’t leave anyone’s house without something
to eat!
The result of this childhood trauma is that
stability in itself and financial stability are extremely important to me. I’ve married for this reason, and I’ve
divorced for this reason. I’ve also
learned along the way that the most stable dependable financial source is
myself. And through this discovery I was
delighted and somewhat surprised at the fact that I’m actually very good at handling money and working out successful comfortable budgets that I
meticulously stick to.
It has taken me a life-time, but I finally
made peace with the five of pentacles.
Swords
~ It’s
all about knowing when to fight instead of retreating, it’s an illumination of
strength and will.
Fighting,
perseverance, bravery, retaliation, enemies, victory
5/Swords ~
The
five of swords is all about life’s battles, how we choose them (because we do),
how we fight them, and how we live with the final results of these
confrontations.
It’s all about having enough strength and
determination to face our demons, but at the same time, it’s being in touch
with the core of who we are, learning to accept defeat, learning to accept
victory, and being able to put it all in perspective. This can be such a tricky card, because you
can lose even if you win. You need to be
able to see the big picture, to rise above ego, to tame emotions that thrive on
revenge and negativity.
Reversed:
Think again before embarking on a singular
campaign of confrontation. Learn to let
some things in life role off your back.
The weight has become too great, and the consequences of challenging
them profoundly dark.
My Personal Connection:
Anyone who has lived any life at all has gone
through a number of scraps and battles, fisticuffs, squabbles, estrangements,
disagreements, and petty fist fights (all figuratively speaking, of
course). We all know what it’s like to
lick our wounds from these encounters, and we all carry emotional bruises and
scars as mementos of these battles.
Some of us have endured more of these
encounters than others, and some of us have learned the art of fighting more
astutely than others, and some of us have either taken great pride in our
victory, or retreated in shameful defeat.
Hopefully all of us have learned something from our experiences.
This is not saying that everyone’s life is
only full of strife, disagreements, and negative energy, not at all. But when this tarot card comes up, that’s
what the focus is.
The five of swords is telling us, “Life is a
battlefield.”
Wands
~ It’s
all about getting caught up in life’s trivial squabbles and tribulations. It’s all about maintaining boundaries.
Discord,
squabbles, chaos, disagreement, immaturity, disillusionment
5/Wands ~ This card encompasses life’s irritations.
It’s disagreements, falling out, counter opinions. The five of wands is most representative of a
group of individuals who are at odds with each other, but it can be so much
deeper than that. Sometimes this card
represents inner conflict. Conflict
encompassing loyalty, decisions, or any million things that any individual may
have on their mind, or in their life.
This card wreaks of chaotic scattered
energy. Before anyone is able to come to
any intelligent decisions or conclusions, this energy has to be calmed,
stilled. When this card comes up, we
have to look at our lives, recognize it for what it is, and release it.
Reversed:
The reversed five of wands has two things to
say in readings. It’s generally pretty
easy to recognize the message.
The first ~ It’s passing. This chaotic, bickering, indecision, it’s
lifting. Hang tight, calm will
descend.
The second ~ until the situation show cased in
the reading is resolved, this energy will remain a daily part of your
life.
You’ll know which scenario is yours. Trust me.
My Personal Connection:
The chaos that is this card followed me for
ten years with my ex-husband’s family.
They not only hated me and immersed my husband and myself in this
negative sludge of dismal energy, but also my children (known unceremoniously
as “The Others”). I found most amazing
the fact that even among themselves, this energy carried forward with back
stabbing, favoritism, shady business deals, pettiness, control, and childish
squabbling.
I found the only solution to free me from
this tarot card, and it’s abundance of negative energy, was to completely
remove myself from their circle. Of
course, this meant divorce.
With that end, I made peace with this card
(and the universe).
Cups
~ It’s
all about embracing sorrow and suffering and surviving the experience.
Sadness,
loss, mourning, suffering, courage, potential 5/Cups ~ This is the card of mourning. It’s heavy with sadness and grief, sometimes
with regrets and bitterness. It can
represent the grief and mourning from the death of a loved one; but we grieve
over other losses too, lost opportunities, personal intimate losses… the loss
of a relationship, health, youth, choices, material things.
There’s very somber energy around the five of
cups, heavy energy, but this is okay.
It’s okay to grieve, it’s okay to cry, it’s okay to experience human
emotions on such a base level. It won’t
be like this always, only for a little while, this card tells us.
Reversed:
When the five of cups is reversed, it’s
telling us that we’re so wrapped up in what we’ve lost, we don’t see what we
still have. For some of us, this card
reversed may also point out the fact that we are in the midst of working our
way out of it.
My Personal Connection:
We have all lost someone. We’ve all experienced the physical death of a
family member or friend. We’ve all come
through the loss of a partner through the end of a relationship. We’ve all experienced the death of a beloved
pet. Some of us have experienced the
death of a way of life, either through the end of a career, or some other major
change unique to us and our situation.
We’ve all experienced loss of some kind.
This card will point that out to us in a rather cold-hearted matter-of-fact
way. “It’s part of life.” says the five
of cups. There’s a time to mourn, and
there’s a time to move on.
Source:
The Ultimate Tarot Guide:
for Your Personal Tarot Journey
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