Dreamer Five - Tarot of the Sidhe

I don't know about you, but every time I draw a downbeat card as my Card of the Day, I feel my heart sink into my shoes. 'Oh no!' is my first thought. Or even, 'What? I thought today was going pretty well! I don't feel bad, or I didn't until now...'  Anybody else get that?

So here we have Dreamer Five, or 5 of Swords. Now here's a kick in the head. If you're familiar with Mary K Greer's Tarot for Yourself, you may have heard of the Destiny Card. It is the minor arcana card that corresponds with your actual birth date. She provides a list of dates, and mine is 5 of Swords. 'From this card you can find indications of your fundamental impulses, desires, and reactions as an individual.' That's kind of amazing, considering the dates associated with this card cover a nine day period. So the implication is that everyone born on one of those nine days is going to have the same 'impulses, desires, and reactions' as me. That's not very individual, is it? So I take all this with a grain of salt. But it's still kind of depressing to be told that your nature is 5 of Swords. It's not like someone with that sort of outlook needs more confirmation of how crap everything is! Ha ha.

Anyway, when I drew this card this morning, my first thought was, Oh. Poo.

I think, though, looking at this card, we see a lot of self-sabotage here. This is a sidhe who has not lost hope but who is throwing hope away. The fire has gone out of him (or her) and so he is turning a dark, sooty green. The flame has gone out of his hair. Worst of all, he appears to have used that sword he is tossing aside to chop off his own wings. He has bloody stumps on his back and is holding the wings in his hand. He's standing on a tremendously high plinth (one of five) that reaches above the clouds. What is his plan now? To throw himself off it, wingless? The sun is blood red, reflected on the icy mountaintops.

So, the card suggests certain questions:

How am I self-sabotaging?
How am I cutting off my own wings?
What fire has gone out of me?
In what ways do I feel I am disappearing into the background? (as the sidhe is doing in his lower half)
What weapons have I used against myself?
How have I isolated myself?
Why have I isolated myself?

And then, to take it deeper:

How have these actions served me?
What reward have I received by doing these things or making these choices?
Did these actions really serve me well, or were they dysfunctional coping mechanisms?
Do I choose to continue these actions, or am I ready to move on from them?


But that's an awful lot just for a daily draw. So for today, we could just take it as a warning to watch out for self-sabotaging behaviour, be careful to not to shoot ourselves in the foot.