Wands · Fire
Five of Wandsfor Aquarius · Work and Career
"Competition isn't the question. What you do next is."
Six quick picks first, then your reading
A posse of youths, who are brandishing staves, as if in sport or strife. It is mimic warfare. Wands represents passion and the five card represents conflict. Together this card represents conflict and rivalry (especially over ideas). Rivalry can lead you to achieve things you didn't know possible, but it can also engender resentment.
You are in conflict with someone-- but do not take this as a bad thing. Being challenged on your ideas is healthy and competition can lead to greatness. It's okay to want your needs met; it's okay to make other people upset. Romantically, this card can signify that you are fighting with a partner about something important to you or that you have a lot of people vying for your attention. Be kind to others, you can be respectful while disagreeing. Disengage if it becomes a dirty fight.
Someone is not arguing in good faith-- they are taking energy from what really matters. Perhaps you are letting yourself get riled up by something you cannot change. De-escalate and assess if this situation is making you grow in a way you like.
Its place in the deck.
Where it shows up.
Five of Wands for Aquarius in Work and Career
The Visionary
Wands are the fire suit, so the Five of Wands sits in Aries. Aries sextiles Aquarius, which is help that has to be taken up rather than help that arrives. What it asks for is this: spend the energy on one thing today. Aquarius is perfectly capable of that, which is exactly why not doing it needs a better excuse. Upright, the loss is happening rather than being feared, which is the harder and simpler thing.
When reading about work through an Aquarius lens, the Five of Wands says that you feel like work is where you prove the system wrong, a problem you solve from thirty thousand feet, and something you will leave the second it stops being interesting. This has either led to you building something no one else could see, or to leaving before anyone could build it with you. You have not asked yourself what you actually want from this work, only what you think you should want from it. The Aquarius blind spot in it is being ordinary, or worse, being needed in a way that pins them down.
In practice that can look like a new role or project. Whatever form it takes, it is breaking, and the loss in it is real.
Somewhere else?
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