Let Annoyance be Your Teacher

Friends! Our streak of new cards continues! We haven’t seen the Five of Wands in a long time, and while it’s a conflict-themed five like the rest of them, this one has to potential to be generative, even inspiring, making for an exciting reading when paired with our other two cards.

We begin the week with the Queen of Cups, who appeared last month as we were navigating an emotionally murky landscape in the pursuit of peace and integrity via the Six of Swords. This is a time to remind ourselves of the huge accomplishments we’ve made when it comes to allowing ourselves to be soft, to care for ourselves, and to be brave enough to open up to the world and others, all while maintaining strong and loving boundaries. Let yourself really feel how your relationship with yourself has grown. Do you feel relaxed enough to be yourself in places that once felt nerve-wracking? Have you learned how to withstand life’s ebbs and flows with grace? To honor your own cycles - emotional, spiritual, and physical?

This card sets a gentle and formidable tone for our entire reading, so while we have the chaotic Five of Wands next in line, we’re more than prepared to withstand and even gain insight and energy from its wildness. If we stay rooted in the loving equanimity of the Queen of Cups, that is. Sure, part of me sees this card and thinks “gird your loins!,” but this Queen isn’t full of girding energy! They’re relaxed, flowing, and quietly impressive. Like its associated element, the Queen of Cups moves like water, flowing around obstacles, changing approaches while remaining true to themselves, ultimately unruffled by small splashes on the surface.

If we take the time to appreciate and invest in our Queen of Cups practices and ideals, the bickering and even outright fighting of the Five of Cups will be a momentary annoyance at first, then a catalyst for focus and change later in the week. I’m laughing at having this card at the center of a reading for the week of Thanksgiving, a holiday notorious for family conflict. Tempers may be short this week, both yours and others’, as well as a general feeling of “too many cooks in the kitchen.” Try to see the overarching theme of collaboration here; even though it might not be working smoothly, there’s a base intention to get things together, and our reading tells us that enacting the approaches of the Queen of Cups - understanding, calmness, patience, a focus on love, and flexible but strong boundaries - will help us get through the tangle of action and communication unscathed.

Looking at these cards, I’m struck at how distance seems to be the helpful approach. The figures in the Five of Wands are all stuck close together, wielding their long wands in some attempt to build a structure. Long sticks, it turns out, don’t mesh well together without a plan or unified purpose! Taking space, as we see in the Queen of Cups and Two of Wands, allows room for calm and perspective. Only then can we choose the next steps forward.

Pay attention to ways you get caught in the fray this week. Are you getting drawn into other people’s conflict? Activated by strong emotions or people with uncompromising visions? Are your rushing into fix things without being sure your help is wanted or the problem is even yours to begin with? This is all extremely human behavior, and this five is not appearing in a dire way since it’s followed by the long-reaching perspective and ambition of the Two. In other words, sniping, conflict, and mixed messages may actually help us to identify what we really want this week. Let yourself be annoyed, but instead of rushing to fix or even understand the problem, see how it might direct you to a different goal; rather than rushing into the fray, get through it with the grace of the Queen of Wands, and then use the lesson to find a vantage point that’s truly yours. The conflict of the Five of Wands can point you away from whatever drama is unfolding and towards a place where you feel solid, grounded, and ready to grow.

I’m a little amused by this reading. It’s (thankfully) lower-stakes than the past few, and the carryover from last week (Temperance, the final card —> The Queen of Cups, our first here) tells us we’re integrating big Major Arcana teachings into our everyday life. Take a moment to celebrate that! The practice of temperance is becoming a part of our persona. We’ve got this. And, personally, I’m feeling called to set an intention to reframe annoyance, conflict, and clashing interests as ~*sacred teachers*~. If I’m doing the work to be seated firmly on my Queen of Cups throne, watching my emotions come in and out like the tides without acting on them rashly, I can observe the chaos of the Five of Wands with a gentle smile, thinking about how I can choose to pick up whichever sticks I might want to plant for myself and let other people swing the rest around wildly; I just won't be around to get whacked by them, thank you very much.

A few notes about the Two of Wands. I feel like this is a little bigger than the reading makes it seem. Again, we’re honing in on something, and this week it’s action. If you’ve been wondering which steps to take on a new path, you might have some specific insights about that coming through this week after observing what’s not working for you or other people. Again, let failure and annoyance be your teacher! The Two of Wands is about broadening your horizons while biding your time. Don’t rush to launch just yet, but be sure to appreciate newfound clarity. It may be hard to identify with the Five of Wands creating a distracting vortex in our week, but it’s there and might also be a path out of annoyance and into your own power.

A final note is that this is mirroring the end of our monthly reading, whose last card and our card in the “opportunity” position is another two, the Two of Swords. This overlap makes me wonder whether we’re gathering information about a larger, more transformational change towards the end of the month. Just something to be aware of; I’m curious to see how it’ll unfold.