January 26, 2011 - The Five of Wands

I'm getting ready to head down to Santa Barbara for their film festival.  Santa Barbara is a place of my greatest joys and deepest sorrows, a place of dreams and hopes, haunting, lovely and terribly problematic, for me.  I keep going there for many reasons.  It inspires me, fills my heart.  There are good friends there.  And the place itself calls to me as strongly as any person.  My first love is there; perhaps my first love is Santa Barbara and he, is the second, the embodiment of the place.

Sometimes when I find myself in Santa Barbara, I see my first love.  We are "friends" or we try to be.  It is a relationship that is problematic for me, but psychologically rich so I keep working it as it keeps working me.   It seems I may see him this trip, my first love.  Of course, it is just as likely I won't.  This is part of our dance, the on and off, ebb and flow of us.  Most of me is sanguine, finally, although there is a part of me, still, that frets and fusses over the yes and no, he will or won't.  So I asked the cards what I should I keep in mind this trip, if we meet.  The Five of Wands came (the Five of Candlesticks in the Jane Austen Tarot).

The Five of Wands, like most fives in the Tarot, is about struggle.  Looking at the young men sparring, this isn't a full-out, knock down, drag out battle.  It's a minor skirmish, which doesn't mean that you won't get hurt.  The Five of Wands is one of those days where nothing seems to go right, where a dozen small annoyances make for one very bad day.  It's a card of quarreling, competition, and hassles.  I'm thinking this is not a particularly auspicious card for this visit.  Oh well.  These days I'm a wait and see kind-of gal, so we'll do just that, wait and see what comes.