Wandering
In numerology, the number four is the glue that keeps all the other numbers together. It is not the most glamorous of numbers, nor the most exciting, but without it, nothing would ever get done. The four deals with things the rest of us would rather not know about. It is not flashy, but a quiet, gentle, miracle worker. As you make your way through your day, make sure you don’t skip over the things that you consider boring. We all have to do things we don’t enjoy in order to get to the things we do enjoy; it is just how all of this works. You can’t build a house by starting with the roof. There are things in your life that you need to deal with, including boring, unexciting yet necessary things. So, take a nice deep breath, roll your shoulders out, keep your back straight and your chin up, and lean into the deeply grounding nature of the Fours of the minor arcana. Get done that which doesn’t excite you, so that which does excite you can come out to play. If you need extra inspiration, remove the Fours from your deck and put them somewhere you can see them throughout the day. Let them be a visual reminder that necessary is the new sexy.
Fives
Whether you like change or not, it is and will always be the only constant we have here in the physical world. There is nothing in our lives or in our knowledge—albeit limited—of the universe that escapes the inevitability of change. Nothing stays the same, ever. Yet despite this one constant, I am always surprised by how many people just can’t get comfortable with change. They cling to the world as they think they know it, and hold on for dear life. Is it any wonder that so few people actually rejoice when they see the Fives show up in a reading? Your personal bias or beliefs about change will direct your response when one of these cards walks into your reading. The Fives in the minor arcana show all sides of our responses to change, from pain to loneliness to conflict, as well as what happens when you get into the vibrational vortex of change. These cards move us through all aspects of the energy that change brings into our lives. The Fives show us what things need to get left behind, and that some changes are meant to be made alone. The Fives also show us how to walk the path of change as a way to benefit ourselves and those around us. However, like most messages from our guides, these lessons can only benefit us if we are willing to hear them and allow them into our right now experience. As you learn to walk the vibrational path of the Fives, hopefully you will start to see them as indicators of growth and expansion and not harbingers of destruction.
The Five of Swords is often said to show victory at a cost, or, you could say, defeat at the hands of a self-important bully. It really does depend on how you view that “go get ’em” attitude. Not everyone is comfortable with the thought of winning at whatever cost, yet you probably hear people say they will do whatever it takes to make their dreams come true. Here in the Five of Swords that statement of doing “whatever it takes” is being put to the test. This card really does ask the question, “What are you willing to do for a small win?” When you decide to walk with this card, you will have to decide if you see winning as an act of personal growth or something that takes from someone else. You will also have to decide how you feel about your reputation. Wayne Dyer once said that when he would give a speech to one thousand people, one thousand different versions of his reputation would walk out of the door. In other words, what other people think or say about us is literally out of our control. What’s more important to you as you walk around collecting all of those fallen swords? Is it what the people who walk away think of you? Or is it what you think of all you have achieved?
Remember, on your way to your dreams, there will always be those who want nothing more than to tear you down and see you fail. The Five of Swords asks you if you will let those people inside your head rent-free and allow them to dictate the terms of how you see yourself and the life you are working so hard to build. Never lose sight of the fact that the suit of swords represents thoughts and words that you repeatedly think, hear, or speak. These words are the Five of Swords you see on this card. They can all do harm, or they can all act as cord cutters, liberating you from the bonds of the past self, but again, it all comes down to how you decided to walk with this card.
The Five of Wands is a card I love to see in a reading. For me it is right up there with the Tower card. Funny enough, my personal reader always seems cautious to gauge my reaction when this card shows up. This is because most people see this card as a conflict, which of course it can be, but the thing I love about all the Fives is that none of them are set in stone. I see the Five of Wands as a challenge card, one that lets me know that I literally have five magical wands at my disposal, but it is up to me to get them organized and focus that energy onto the target of my goal. The energy of the wands is not a gentle energy to work with, so it really is easier said than done to get all of this energy to point in the same direction at the same time. This is why, for a lot of people, this card means conflict, possible aggression, and regret; but it doesn’t have to be that way. Pathworking with the Five of Wands teaches you that when the challenge of fast-paced change shows up at your door, you don’t have to continually hold your breath waiting for something to drop from the sky and crush you. I have no intention of sugarcoating this, as the Five of Wands is a difficult card to work with. But remember that as you get into the vibration of this card, the path does become a little easier, and before you know it you will be more than willing to hold those five wands in your hands and use them for what they were intended for: magic.
The Five of Cups in many ways illustrates the emotional consequences of change, what we get to keep, and what needs to stay behind. It indicates what emotions serve us moving forward and what emotions we have grown out of. In this respect, the Five of Cups is an indicator of emotional growth. The pain of loss and death of the old self are apparent in most versions of the Rider-Waite inspired decks. The feeling of sadness in this card is important. This is the emotion you need to feel, and to tap into, in order to have that burst of emotional growth necessary for you to be the version of yourself that you need to be to reach your goals, manifest your dreams, and grow your dream seed. One of the reasons many people turn to meditation is to better understand and control their emotions. Meditation allows you to see your emotions as something essential to your spiritual growth, but not important enough to dictate the terms of it. In other words, we learn how to use our emotions as a guide, but we never let them make our decisions. Pathwork with the Five of Cups is similar to this process. Think of the water as a flowing river upon which you are riding; as the river moves you along, the view will change, as will the people, places, and experiences. The experiences available to you farther down the river that you cannot currently see will be very different than the ones you are having now, but in order to have them you have to accept that your view is going to change. Allow yourself to feel whatever emotions arise as you leave the shore and embark farther down the river. However, don’t linger there, or you will block the excitement and curiosity that the adventure is bringing your way. Think of the two upright cups in the card itself. The knocked down cups are the experiences you are leaving behind at the shoreline, and the upright ones are yet to be filled with what comes next.
The Five of Pentacles may not look like it is the card of comedy, with its cold wintery scene and forgotten and forlorn figures, but every time this card manifests itself physically in my life, it does so in such a humorous way. I don’t know if it is because I have walked the path of this card so many times now when it shows up it seems like an old friend letting me know I may have my manifestation energy pointed the wrong way. Many interpretations of this card from the Rider-Waite school depict a truly miserable scene, but is the Five of Pentacles actually a miserable card? This is where pathwork can allow you to see that misery is really a matter of perspective. Sure, you might think that your car breaking down on the hottest day on record, when your mechanic is on holiday and you have no money in the bank because it’s still five days until payday, is a miserable way to
spend a day. You also may think that having the airline lose your luggage and the bank put a freeze on your debit or credit card due to suspicious activity when you only have $40 worth of cash with you for a four-day conference sounds pretty miserable also, but do those events actually cause misery? One could argue that these types of situations push us way out of our comfort zone, build character, and make us think about what other resources we have at our disposal. Like all the Fives, the more you walk with them, the more you see they are all pushing you to the same place, which is change. Doors close and challenges happen for a reason, and oftentimes we need to dig deep and prove to no one but ourselves that we can achieve our dreams, regardless of what obstacles line up before us. Just keep in mind that no one ever said birthing your dream into the world would be easy or pain free. Loss and change go hand in hand. So go ahead and grab that hand, and let it lead you to a place where new things are just waiting for you to show up and introduce yourself.
Pathwork
Intentional
One of the best ways to get over the icky feeling most people get when they see the Fives in a reading is to intentionally work with them for as long as you feel pulled to do so. You will bring their energy into your day deliberately. No, this is not a lesson in masochism, but it is about getting you comfortable with being uncomfortable. This is also exactly how you are going to pick your card—choosing the one that makes you feel the most uncomfortable. When you look at the four Fives in a row, which one makes you feel the most hesitant? If you could avoid this card, why would that be? The reason you don’t want anything to do with it means you really need to work with it.
Take a nice deep breath and lean into your unease. Slowly sink into the valley of the uncomfortable shoe and start talking out loud about all of the things you don’t like about this one particular card. Get it all out, everything about it, how it makes you feel, and why you don’t want to feel that way. Keep going until you have nothing else to say. Once you have finished your verbal exercise, stop and think about what change in your life is making you feel this way. All of the feelings and thoughts you just voiced more than likely echo how you feel about the changes now presenting themselves in your current situation. Continue this exercise until you start to feel bored with this card. Once boredom sets in you know you will have shifted your resistance to it and the change it will bring along with it.
Intuitive
Many times in my coaching practice I hear clients talk about knowing they need to make changes in their lives, but they don’t know where to start, or they need things to change, but they don’t know what needs to change. This is when working with the Fives can be incredibly helpful. For this exercise, pull the four Fives from your deck and place them facedown, one on top of the other, in front of you. Read this exercise through completely before you begin. Place both of your hands on top of your four-card stack, and close your eyes as you take three nice deep breaths. Keeping your eyes closed, spread the cards out and pick just one. Open your eyes and place the three remaining cards back in your deck. Either hold your selected card in your hand or place it somewhere you can easily gaze at it. Think about how you could fix this card. What solutions could you offer the figures in the card? Consider which figure on the card seems the most approachable to you and direct your solutions to that figure. Maybe you could even suggest to this figure how you see the scene in this card as an opportunity rather than a challenge. This exercise puts you into the position of the observer. Learning how to see challenging situations from an observer perspective allows you to view the change for what it is—normal, natural, and needed. Perhaps by talking to the figure in the card, you opened up some insights that you too will find helpful and that will move you out of a stuck energy and into a flowing one.
Wandering
If you are one of those people who doesn’t like change, then working with these cards either deliberately or when they show up in a spread is going to be difficult for you. In fact, you would rather think of anything else than what these cards are saying. Well, guess what? I am giving you permission to do just that. For this exercise, you are going to need a timer of some sort. I want you to set it for two minutes, and then hit the start button when you are ready to start this exercise. Ready, set, go!
What is the first thing that pops into your mind when you look at the four cards of the Fives? Where does your mind take you? Follow your thoughts until the buzzer on the timer goes off. I encourage you to document this in your journal or somewhere you can locate it again. Where you allow your thoughts to go may be the answer for why you can never reach that one goal you have always wanted to achieve, why you can’t ever seem to land the job you really want, or why you can’t seem to keep a relationship for an extended period of time. The more you take notice of your ever-wandering mind, the clearer the path of escapism will become. And before you know it, you will be able to catch yourself before you get too far down the trail.
Sixes
After passing through the changes and challenges of the Fives, the Sixes are a welcoming sight. Although they may not offer you rest just yet, they do open up space for you to make clearer decisions about where you are headed and what sort of conditions hold the space for the next phases of your journey. The Sixes may not be what you expect, but they are exactly what you need, especially having just come through the energy of the Fives. In some ways, the Sixes are a bit like Temperance, as they offer you somewhere to gather your thoughts, look at your actions, consider the lessons and loves of the past, and prepare for your next point of expansion. Just like with Temperance, you cannot linger in the space they provide, even though it might be tempting to do so. The Sixes can be nurturing and nourishing, but at the same time they will require some work on your behalf. There is an element of personal responsibility in these cards that is impossible to escape. Perhaps you have been blessed up until now, and it is your turn to bless those who now need your assistance. Maybe what you have been through in the last five cards has you longing for the days before you ever started this journey. Possibly you have decided that, all things considered, you have done pretty well, you have had a few small victories, and now you are considering trying your luck somewhere new, where you have never been before. Decisions will need to be made, but not just yet. Allow yourself time to soak up the lessons the Sixes have to offer, as you will need them moving forward, regardless of what you decide. It may even be in your best interest to make your way around all four Sixes and experience what each of them has to give.
The Six of Swords is the card of journeys, but where that journey leads will depend on what changes happened under the Fives. For a mental card, there is a lot of movement here. You could be taking a journey of the mind and shifting your ideas and beliefs. You could be firming up mindsets and building better boundaries around new and exciting thoughts and sparks of inspiration. Or you could find yourself on a physical journey, literally moving from one place to another. There is no doubt that movement is happening. One of the things I have always found interesting about this card, and all of the many ways it has been represented from one deck to the next, is that we cannot see the destination of this card. Never have I seen a card that shows where we will end up once we have finished with the Six of Swords. Maybe this card doesn’t know. Perhaps we ourselves are not meant to know. Instead, we are left with one single focus, and that is the journey itself. Far too often, we focus on the event of seeing everything come together and we forget that we have to put one foot in front of the other in order to get there. It is a gradual process of getting from where we started to where our dreams are fully manifested. We grow, change, and evolve over the course of that journey, often becoming new and different versions of ourselves. So where are you now? Who are you now? How much further do you have to go before you are the person who can live the life you want to live? The Six of Swords is here to help, guide, and support you to go from one version of yourself to the other.
The Six
of Wands wants to congratulate you on a small but significant victory. It is probably just excited you made it through the Five of Wands in one piece. Not blowing yourself or others up is always something to celebrate. You might not see it as much of an achievement, but it has far-reaching repercussions. One of the lessons I have learned while working with this card is that small victories are far more important than the larger ones, for if we didn’t get the small wins, the big ones would never happen. That is why I tend to see the Six of Wands as the personal win card. It’s like when you accomplish something small in your day that would normally go unnoticed or unappreciated. It could be things like cleaning out your closet and throwing away all the clothes that have holes in them and donating everything else that no longer fits or interests you, or decluttering your garage so your car can finally fit in it. It could even be treating yourself to something special, just because you bloody well deserve it! The Six of Wands teaches us to never see any accomplishment as unworthy. Size is irrelevant with this card, and titles like “big” and “small” have no place in the larger scheme of our life. This is mainly because we actually don’t know which of our “personal wins” will be the one that causes the biggest and most amazing change in our lives. While this card is around, celebrate all of your achievements. Revel in even the smallest victory. Keep the energy of success moving.
Pathworking the Tarot Page 15
