Day Twenty. November 3rd. Six of Wands.
Definition: Sasha Graham says sixes represent harmony. Pamela’s Six of Pentacles was alms for the needy, with a strong vibe of a stratified social order of haves and have-nots. Inequity. Waite says the Six of Wands represents victory, and also the bringing of good news.
Detail: What is the Elsewhere Tarot presenting?
A horrific card. Sketchy shadow figures. One resting casually under a mushroom cloud. Others burned into a wall or fence like the nuclear shadows of victims in Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. Other figures on the other side of the fence. It’s about barriers between worlds. It’s about the visibility of horrors of a world to those outside it. It’s about the callousness of those who ignore horrors. You can live in hell and be unaware you’re living in hell.
Day: Hmm. I wrote for the King of Pentacles about my occasional recurring dream of realizing I’m in Hell. But that dream I know I’m in Hell. Does the casual dude on the Elsewhere Six of Wands know he’s in Hell? Is he callous, or unaware? I’ve been thinking that Sasha Graham’s theme of “desire” for the Wands is a little off. I’ve been thinking a more accurate word is “purpose”. The living wand-ness of purpose of being who you should be. The purpose represented by the holy spirit as not halos but flames in classical religious art by El Greco and Giotto and others.
Discovery: Pamela’s Six of Wands is a dude on a horse who’s claimed a wreath with his living wand. And he has a wreath on his head too, so the meaning is clear. He has won the contest. All the victories are his. There are other people in the background with wands, but the main figure on the horse is the celebrated winner.
So, like Waite says, it does represent victory. Historically, laurels are the trophy for victors in athletics, music, and poetry. Later in Rome they were for martial victory. When one person wins, others lose. A laurel is a zero-sum game. The same as the Six of Pentacles. Inequity. Stratification. Though is one figure in the background also wearing a laurel? Maybe?
And I don’t believe the world is truly a zero-sum game. I believe we can create mutual victory. Are the sixes about stratification in a zero-sum world, and then that dude in the back with a laurel himself is Pamela saying she doesn’t believe it either? Hmm.
I don’t see much connection between the Elsewhere card and Pamela’s card. Perhaps the connection is that both zero-sum thinking and callousness are barriers to worlds we truly want.