Five of Wands - I'm Not Wonder Woman?

Here we see Jason taking on the dragon who protects the Golden Fleece. Medea his lover and helper is close by his side to help him, with her three flaming wands. In life we all have our own personal dragons to slay. I call them shit sandwiches. Not one likes them, we hate them, unless you're addicted to a constant state of hyper-vigilance, which many people are, having grown up in chaotic and dysfunctional families, never knowing what's going to happen next.

Often the concealed lesson that lies within these dragons and sandwiches, is a revelation of exactly what we are made of when we find out our depth of character. But there's nothing easy about it.

The outcome isn't always positive, if we realize that we might be emotionally and/or morally bankrupt, collapsing under all the pressure, and we are paralyzed with a regressive inertia or fear of failure. We might even want or act on feelings of revenge or blame ourselves for having a meltdown that leaves us feeling like a very weak person.

This state I describe as being sick and tired of being sick and tired. I have to let go and turn it over to the universe of the God of my understanding, and ask for help. Sometimes we simply need to get a backbone and be our own heroine or hero and fight. It's a remarkable thing what having a little faith can do, one step at a time. I don't have to solve everything immediately, and I don't have to do it alone. I do have to decide to make some kind of compromise.

When I think I can solve these kinds of battles and struggles on my own, this is when it gets me into real trouble. I'll cut my nose off to spite my face, deluding myself into thinking I'm Wonder Woman! I accepted a while ago that I'm not Wonder Women, but I still have to remind myself of this fact now and again.

This doesn't do anything to change the fact that we'll still have dragons to slay, and shit sandwiches to eat, but if so, find someone to help you slaughter that savage beast, and get yourself an olive. It just might help the sandwich go down a little easier.

Five of Wands - Rumplestiltskin

Jason is faced with having to fight the dragon, in order to obtain the Golden Fleece. He has his lover and helper, the sorceress Medea close by his side.

There are many creative ways to fight, to defeat the monsters and dragons in our lives. Having our wands a flame, shines a light in the darkness so we can see clearly what we are up against, and to find our way.
Naming our monsters, speaking their name to another, is much like describing our feelings, which can help us to understand what they are. This gives us the opportunity to know how to cope, and they somehow loose their power over us, or we can rid them from our lives.

This reminds me of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale about the of the manikin Rumpelstiltskin, who gave the young maiden gifts, enabling her to spin straw into gold for the King who eventually promised to marry the young maiden, which he did, making her Queen. The final gift to the little man, was to be her first born child, if she could not speak his name, as she did not know what it was. It was then that the young Queen summoned a messenger to spy on the little manikin, to find out his name.

When the young Queen speaks his name, the spell is broken, and the young Queen is free from the emotional bondage of the manikin, and is able to keep her new born child. The manikin tore himself apart in his rage, once she spoke his name aloud, Rumpelstiltskin.

"The devil has told you that! The devil has told you that," cried the little man, and in his anger he plunged his right foot so deep into the earth that his whole leg went in, and then in rage he pulled at his left leg so hard with both hands that he tore himself in two."

Five of Wands - Intuition

When I was a child, I always sensed the presence of the Creator, the God of my understanding, even though it wasn't developed in the way it is now, the presence was there. An innocent trust was what defined my faith, and the way it was manifested, was through my intuition. My intuition was greatly affected by outside factors, and forces beyond my control, and diminished greatly for a time, and I lost my way in my adolescence and early adult life.

Like Jason, it seemed I constantly was fighting that dragon.  Fortunately I never completely lost my faith, and perhaps I was too stubborn to let people, places, and things to overpower me, and I held on, regardless of what was happening. Fortunately I have had many rallying helpers like Medea, akin to the High Priestess, who embodies the feminine power of intuition and instinct, to assist me in my dragon fights.

 We can have a creative vision, but the realities of life, in the form of the dragon represent the powers of the earth  resisting change. These can be found in the many material limitations, be it money, physical restrictions due to illness, or fatigue, and can coincide with fear of failure, inertia or apathy, that often are the cause of trouble, and struggle within the inner or outer self. These obstacles that arise, cannot be avoided in life, and accommodations or compromise must be made, while still maintaining the integrity of our creative visions, and lost treasure, like the Golden Fleece.