5 of Swords - Let The Feelings Tell You Where To Go
“Perhaps you won the conflict, but at what cost? What really pushes others away? Perhaps you are feeling the despair left after a conflict. Walk away or go back and take a rest, let the feelings tell you where to go” instructors our Many Queens Tarot author Lettie Jane Rennenkamp. Banksy suggests “If you get tired, learn to rest, not quit.” And my original Tarot teacher Sandy Tiernan Mezner nicknames the 5 of Swords, “the pick your battles” card.
The Tarot's 5 of Swords: Picking Our Battles
Our card today suggests that we accept defeat. But what does that really mean? What does it mean to you to lay down your sword and move on? What arguments, fights and disagreements are particularly draining to you but that seem to be playing on repeat in your life lately? How does it feel inside your heart and body to be told via external guidance that you’ve reached the limit of your energetic ability to fight? Does your internal wisdom agree that continuing in this battle (or these battles if you have a few) will only harm you?
Five of Swords as Venus In Aquarius
The 5 of Swords astrological home-base placement is Venus in Aquarius. This is the second day in our 2021 readings that we receive guidance from Venus, who, like the Empress in the Tarot’s Major Arcana, is a lover not a fighter. But what does that really mean when we get down to the brass tacks of life where we don’t always have the choice not to fight? When conjunct with Aquarius, a visionary crusader, we are given the opportunity to transmute the cry for justice into efforts towards deep care for all beings, as if they are all our children. Venus tells us that restoring order and control externally requires doing so internally by feeling either the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat to its fullest expression. This approach prevents the shadow aspects of either of those expressions from becoming pathological blockages of the soul.
Today's Sky: Venus 40 degrees from Aquarius
Today’s astrological placement has Venus novile (40 degrees from) the first decan Aquarius. With a novile aspect being a symbol for gestation and ensuing viable birth of an idea, it is essential to assimilate the end of a particular phase or process to allow for the beginning of a new one. Most importantly, great deal of sensitivity is needed to be aware of this subtle energy in order to create the perfect environment for the seed of relationship, love, empathy and sense of beauty (Venus) to take hold in the womb of community, ingenuity, collaboration and idealism. What steps must we take at this time to honor the philosophy of love and the power of community?
Continue Building Intuition with The Tarot
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For this year’s weekday collective card draw column, we use Lettie Jane Rennenkamp’s Many Queens Tarot.