Riding to Your Own Rescue

Weekly Forecast for 5/6

We haven’t had a visit from the Five of Swords in a long time now. This card, as upsetting as it looks, is quite straightforward, and like other swords cards the feeling behind the image is very legible - ten swords stuck in our back, three swords piercing a vivid red heart, or like this week a figure gloating over some unfair sword distribution. When something this sharp is in action, it’s hard to miss. This week, hurtful situations come into focus: What or who is doing us harm? Or, what has done us harm in the past that is getting awakened in our life now?

All tarot cards unfold on a spectrum. For some of us, this card will be acute and occurring in the present. For others, it will be a muted echo, or something emerging from the past that we have to contend with. But for all of us, this moment is appearing as a turning point. The fives are the midpoint of the journey from ace through ten. How can we see this challenging moment as a catalyst that will push us to the next stage? Rather than getting sucked into the disarray, we can choose to observe, learn, and let our new knowledge inform our next steps.

More specifically, this card is pointing us towards seeing conflict with new eyes, and the fact that we have two knights following this image is really driving the point home. I like to think of the knights as the “teenagers or tarot.” They’re young and tender but utterly convinced they know what they’re doing. Similarly, we’ve been working on reframing on difficulty with equal parts passion and awkwardness. What about confrontation have you been, well, confronting? This week we’re finally confident and ready to act according to our new and chosen values. It’s not the most elegant thing, but it may be just what we need to push through the sticky terrain of the Five of Swords.

In fact, we might be overzealous when it comes to analyzing and acting in light of the betrayal, hurt, or shady behavior shown in the Five of Swords. Our enthusiasm isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’ll be especially important this week to take a moment to make sure we’re clear on why we’re rushing into the fray, whether it’s in our own defense or to course-correct away from a mistake.

We have two main impulses at work here: Fire (the Knight of Wands) and air (the Knight of Swords). We want to do things and make changes and we also want to communicate our thoughts on the matter. Both of these cards echo recent readings. We had the Knight of Swords as our opportunity card for April and the King of Wands (basically the Knight of Wands once they’ve been given a promotion) as our theme card for May. In this sense, both energies are welcome. Make room, though, for the knightly traits of enthusiasm that can lead to blunders, missteps, and awkwardness. If our hearts are in the right place, being a little ham-fisted about things isn’t so terrible. But the Five of Swords is a complicated setting: It’ll be easy to get lost in the weeds and exacerbate an already sticky situation. Make sure you’re steering in the direction of clarity and change and not upholding the conditions that frustrate you.

The advice I’m sensing from these cards is that to be healthily engaging with the drama of the Five of Swords, we’ll need to be light, agile, and ready to move on. Imagine running into any tension with clarity and verve. We can do things to change a bad situation a la the Knight of Wands just as we can use our voices to advocate for ourselves and others. The trick will be to know when to walk away and stop arguing, trying to prove ourselves, or trying to change situations that are stuck at best and, at worst, invested in staying stuck.

The Five of Swords is somewhat of a trap. Clearly, some injustice has been committed on this forlorn shore, but if we linger there with bad actors or unreliable influences we can end up perpetuating the very dynamics we’re striving to shift. That’s why The Knights’ presence here is welcome. Their impatience is actually an antidote, so honor the part of yourself that’s had enough with the tension shown in the Five of Swords. Rush in, liberate yourself (or others), and make your escape. This is no place to build a home, and this week we have plenty of armor on to keep us safe as we make difficult choices, edit our schedules, and speak up. Once we’ve done our part, we can ride into the sunset and towards a better future, armed with priceless experience about what doesn’t work and who we can really trust.

This week, embrace:

• Really taking in what’s not working

• Advocating for yourself and others

• Making changes when things aren’t working

• Strong boundaries

• Adhering to your values

• Doing the right things imperfectly and in the moment

This week, avoid:

• Getting taken in by people’s arguments when you know they’re acting in bad faith

• Staying invested in harmful situations

• Acting outside of your values, even if it feels good in the moment

• Power imbalances, cruel language, zero sum thinking