5's: Gain a head, lose your balance
firemaiden said:
The fives are all about loss? That comes as a surprise to me.
I imagine I wasn't specific enough. What you lose was the balance, foundation, surety you had in the 4's--and I don't think the loss is a permanent loss, come to that. What you lose is necessary in order for you to rediscover a new balance. You might say that the body suddenly realizes it has a head and that it isn't just arms and legs. That weighty, thinking object on top is rather alarming; it makes the body lose its equilibrium at first; but then, then the body begins to understand what the head can do for it, and it learns how to use it. It finds, to it's amazement that the temporary loss of equlibrium was necessary for it to gain wholeness.
Look at the 5's:
5/Swords: Loss of battles, loss of control. In 4/Swords, there is rest and peace; but in 5/Swords you lose that peace, you realize that there are "no win" situations and this can be quite an unbalancing blow. Hard to get that head, that 5th point, to rise above its shame and demoralizatin and accept that there may be more to battles than just winning or losing.
5/Cups: Loss of self-respect and of perspective as well. The person keeps focusing on what they've lost and regretting it. And that head, the fifth point, bows and weeps. It's hard to get it to turn and see that there are still cups standing, that not
all is lost. To, in short, not only regain perspective and a sense of self-worth, but regain it at a new and better level.
5/wands: Loss of uniqueness. You thought you were special, the only one; able to stand out in a crowd. Now you find yourself lost in a crowd. How will you make that head of yours rise above the others? The person has to learn what really makes them a unique individual.
5/Pents: Usually material loss, but in this case, loss also of something that gave your life richness. The hands were making things, the feet had direction. Now you're stuck in the snow with nothing in your hands. The person has to learn that having an occupation for those hands and feet isn't all there is to life. There is a spirit to feed, clothe and nuture as well.
Certainly, that 5th dimension is introduced, and the man is made whole--but I don't know that the man realizes what he has when it happens. Rather like taking training wheels off a bike, the 5th dimension doesn't, I think, just snap into place and you think, "Ah, now I'm complete!" It appears and rocks your world, scares you, makes you think something's gone horribly wrong, you've *lost* whatever was holding you steady and you're about to fall over. It's only when you get the feel of it, like riding a two-wheeled bike all on your own, that your realize that what was taken away gave you something extra, something as unseen as the knowledge of how to balance your body and direct that bike. And now, without those training wheels, you can ride just about anywhere. What you lost, in the end, was something that was holding you down, and back. What you gained from that loss is a whole new dimension.
