Who are you trying to impress? What are you trying to prove?

Today's draw from Touchstone Tarot is 6 of Wands. This card shows a triumphant return from battle. It is often interpreted to mean recognition for success. Coming as it does after the 5 of Wands, which depicts minor squabbles, it could also mean being victorious in a small way, as well. Or it could even mean being victorious over something so minor and petty that it doesn't even really matter. In that case, it would be an irony, that the figure in the card looking so lordly and puffing himself up is doing it over something that is of no importance or real benefit.

Every tarot card has its shadow meaning, its darker side. We sometimes forget them when reading. Some readers like to mix their decks up so that some cards turn up reversed, and will use that as a cue to read a shadow meaning of a tarot card. I personally believe that all cards are meant to be viewed right side up, and one should use one's intuition (or perhaps the designated positional meaning in a spread) to determine whether to read a card's shadow meaning. Whoever meant for a picture to be viewed upside down? No one. To me, reversals are a silly tradition--I can't stand to see an upside down image, it really annoys me!

This card is making me think of the rioting going on in the streets of England now. Mobs of youth have been burning and looting city centres in London, Birmingham, Nottingham, and elsewhere. They may feel like some sort of victors, but victors of what? Their actions are meaningless. Their efforts have earned them the loathing of a nation, and served only to reinforce negative stereotypes held about this country's youth. Are these perpetrators puffing themselves up with pride? Do they think they've got something over on someone? Over on who? What victory have they won? What point have they proved? Nothing. It's all empty. The guy in the back of this card is looking at Mr Pride in the foreground, and he looks embarrassed. A servant from outside the card is leading away a riderless grey horse. No point. No victory.

What will it take to end this episode? I drew Strength. I'm not seeing the usual message of the fair maiden overcoming the lion through her gentleness. This is old-fashioned strength. That lion is being completely subdued, his head twisted right round. He doesn't look submissive, or reconciled to what's happening to him. He is being forced into submission, by someone, judging by the look on her face, who can actually do it quite easily. She's had enough and quietly reaches over and twists the lion's head half off. She looks down into his mouth with an investigative air. Sure, she looks as if once she's got the lion on his back, she can be compassionate. She will take the trouble to find out why the lion was misbehaving. But for the moment, the objective is to get the lion down. It's going to take force, strength, confident authority to put an end to this thing, and eventually the compassion to look into the deeper sources of this episode. The point is knowing which comes first.

On the other hand, there are the legions of folk taking to the streets with their brooms to clean up the mess. Maybe they're the Strength that will take the lion down, the true strength of the majority, in their pure motives and essential goodness. 

May all this mess end today, whatever it takes.