It’s only human.
Hello and welcome to the TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.
Today’s card is the five of swords from the Alleyman’s Tarot with art for this card by Sam Dow. This is my new favorite five of swords.
Ever since the Waite Smith Tarot deck of 1909 either created or popularized illustrated minor arcana cards, the five of swords has generally depicted someone striking a pose with swords at sunset. Mark Evans artwork for the Witches Tarot shows a dragonfly flying upward despite a whole frolick of fairies and five swords hanging over it like Damocles’ was having a clearance sale. All of these are heavy on the victory part of the phrase “pyrrhic victory” as they should. This certainly isn’t the full on defeat, stay down there and heal vibe that you see with the ten of swords.
Still, this card can touch an uncomfortable meaning. Life isn’t all rainbows and unicorns. Mistakes, for example. They are only human. Sometimes our posing at sunset victories come at the price of mistakes. In the Light Seers deck, the figure on the card is holding his forehead with a regretful vibe and a sense of ‘what the heck did I just do’. With this card, the silhouette figure looks like he is sitting in a chair and having a full on sulk. As any toddler will demonstrate, sometimes you just have to stick your lower lip out and have a good pout.
But then comes the trick of it. While you are pouting, you can also be re-assessing. If you learn from your mistakes, a pyrrhic victory is still a victory even when the thing you learn is what NOT to do next time.
Thank you so much for reading and listening. I always appreciate your likes, subs, shares, follows, questions and comments.
Speaking of comments, the comments have spoken and I’ll be cutting the deck into three stacks and drawing from the right stack for the month of August. We’ll try again in September and see if we can collectively come up with something different.
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