Five of Swords

Hi, and welcome back to the Tarot Card Catalog, the show where we take one tarot card and one story from somewhere in human history and let them mess with each other's meanings for a while.

Today's card is the Five of Swords, and today's story is the Greek myth of Medea, the woman who helped her husband become a hero and then, when he threw her away, did something so unthinkable that her name has been a synonym for maternal horror for like 2,500 years.

I'll tell you right now, this is not a comfortable pairing, but I think it might be one of the truest ones we've done.

Okay, let's start where we always start, with the card by itself, no story attached yet, just what it means when it shows up on its own.

The Five of Swords in most Rider-Waite-Smith-based decks shows a guy standing in the foreground, kind of smirking, holding a bunch of swords, sometimes his own, sometimes swords he's picked up off the ground.

And in the background, there are two other figures walking away, heads down, defeated.

The sky's usually a little stormy, a little unsettled, like the weather hasn't caught up to the fact that the fight's over.

Swords as a suit is usually mind and thought, words, argument.

Maybe spend some time doing that.

The Five of Cards.

Oh my gosh.

My brain is still in vacation mode, so I completely apologize.

I also have this nice hoarse voice for some reason.

The Five of Swords.

is a representation of conflict and loss because all of the five cards represent some type of conflict or loss.

But the five of swords takes it a little bit further.

And for that, I want to just note that there is a different five in a different suit that denotes also a conflict, but it's one where there is a hierarchy.

The Five of Swords depicts a conflict that has gone poorly.

There's one person standing with swords and two other people walking away.

This is depicting a very different conflict than the Five of Wands.

In the Five of Swords we see a bullying kind of conflict, and in the Five of Wands we see a conflict of equals.

Sometimes the absence of conflict is not actually an indicator of a healthy situation.

Sometimes the absence of conflict is actually an indication of unequal footing.

Caballo de copas.

Cinco de espadas.

Traidores.

As de bastos que gana.

And with seeing how Sage's past life worked, this card, this tarot card does not come at a shock at all.

This tarot card that she got is actually the Five of Swords card.

If you're paying attention on Patreon or YouTube, you'll be able to see that the Five of Swords is basically this guy.

He's holding a couple of swords in his left hand and holding one in the ground in the right hand.

As two people are walking away towards the water, so kind of towards their more emotional side while his back is turned.

I don't think that that's necessarily the energy that Sage was experiencing.

But whenever we dive a little bit deeper in here, we'll be able to pick out exactly what maybe why this card was pulled for her and for everybody else that is listening.

So it says the five of swords conflict is unpleasant for everyone, but even if you find yourself on the losing end, you can still walk away with dignity.