Barbara Walker Tarot - Five of Swords: Defeat

[EmpyreanKnight]

 

 

Five of Swords: Defeat

 

Hanging on his sacrificial tree, the god gives blood from the wound in his side to the Fatal Women, who spin it into the red thread of life. The three Marys at the foot of Jesus’s cross were paralleled in Norse myth by the three Norns at the foot of the World Tree where Odin hung, wounded in his side, waiting to attain his godhood. The three were also the Greeks’ Moerae or Fates: Spinner, Measurer, and Cutter of life’s thread. They ruled even gods, who won divinity by submitting to defeat and death. Odin takes the part of the card’s traditional Lord of Defeat, representing self-abasement, passive endurance, swallowing of pride, submission to fate.

 

[Tromdle]

I wanted to reply here because I drew a five of swords as a daily card online today. I typically travel with my marseille deck but forgot it on my trip. I did a random Web pick and got a rider Waite deck pop up. I saw something very different then the typical betrayal and defeat. I saw people giving up and leaving a battle. They even left their swords behind. The man in the front of the card is picking up the swords ready to use them and keep on fighting. He’s gained strength as others have given up.

[Thoughtful]

In the legacy of the Divine tarot it seems to correspond with your view Tromdle.  l see it as he has gone through a baptism of fire and come out the other side stronger and more determined.

 

In the Roots of Asia tarot a different take shows itself.  In that the major image shows the bird in a more protective and worried situation,  she/he is guarding and sheltering the young family from possible attack.

 

 

[Grizabella]

Since this is the study group for the Barbara Walker Tarot, the images and meanings on these cards are different than for other decks based on other traditions. Mine is Barbara Walker and shows a man hanging in a tree by his arms looped over branches of the tree and there are 5 Swords sticking in the side of the tree. It makes me wonder if he climbed those swords to get up where he is. There are three women at the foot of the tree. The meaning is that of "a defeat or degradation voluntarily assumed for the sake of subsequent glory", quoting from the book Barbara Walker: Secrets of the Tarot.  Quoting the book again: "Self-abasement, passive endurance, forcible swallowing of pride were among the meanings of the five of swords, suggesting the mandatory self-sacrifices of early god-kings in their efforts to gain or retain such feminine powers as insight, wisdom, verbal facility, or life-giving magic."  She gives as an example Odin, who was crucified on the World Ash Tree with the trinity of the Norns sat at the base of the tree spinning the thread of his fate.