Cosmic Tribe Tarot

FIVE OF WANDS

Frustration

A cold and lonely wind blows out the fires of spirit, art and sex. All of the usual strategies for rekindling the flames fail. Frustration surges like an angry thermostat. Inertia handcuffs us and leads us to an arid cell where guilt interrogates us, demanding to know why. But there is no satisfactory answer. And now despair is called in to rough us up a hit. In the midst of torment, however, we happen across our original spark. Patiently we can rebuild the flame and with it drive frustration and his ugly brothers into the past.

In the card the progress of the creative hand is stymied by the five thorny branches as it attempts to escape the lifeless slate wall. The cold stone saps the naturally passionate heat of the expressive hand while the roseless thorns press down, causing much pain and preventing easy escape. Paralysis threatens to move in for an extended stay. But, looking closely, we see the hand exercising its intuitive abilities. The five fingers are feeling their way through the thorny obstacles, patiently finding the path of least resistance and moving through frustration, guilt, and inertia with a minimum of hand intuits that experience is cyclical. It knows dry shells don't last forever. Soon the creative hand will have emerged from difficulty and will once again express itself constructively.

Divinatory Meaning

Should the Five of Wands block your reading, sift through your experience and see if you are frustrated in attempts to express yourself spiritually, artistically, or sexually. Do you take this frustration out on other people? Do you take it out on yourself in guilt-ridden attempts to explain your inertia? While there may be some readily resolvable reason why you are frustrated, as often as not you are simply experiencing one part of a cycle. Dry periods happen. Don't freak out and try to claim this new inertia as some proof of your unworthiness. Ask friends for support. Move forward deliberately. The patient hand knows the way to empowerment will soon be revealed. You are eminently worthy: all things pass.