5 of wands vs. 7 of wands...any difference?

[MareSaturni]

Hi all!

Well, i've just got my Housewives Tarot and wow! I'm TOTALLY in love with it! So..amazing! I was looking at the cards to understand better their symbolism. Then, suddenly, i came across two cards that i thought i had figured out already: 5 & 7 of wands.

I was more used to the Mythic Tarot, my 'all-time' deck. In the Mythic Tarot, the 5 of Wands show Jason facing a Dragon...the Dragon is seen as a challenge. It's not a competition with other people, but more like feeling challenged. And the 7 of wands, THEN, shows Jason and the Argonauts (is that how it's written?) fighting against the enemies in order to keep the Golden Fleece. To keep what they won after defeating the Dragon, after winning the challenge.

In the Housewives Tarot, as in RWS, it's the opposite (at least for me). In the 5 of wands, the housewife seems to be in a kind of competition with the other housewives to see who has the most spotless house. And, in the 7 of wands, she's facing the challenge...to clean the entire toilet with a toothbrush.

I'm very confused...depending on the deck, these cards seem to switch meanings. Or am i just no getting it at all?

Thanks in advance!

Yuko

 

[Thirteen]

Traditional meanings in un-traditional cards....

The Housewives' tarot is certainly less clear in distinguishing 5/wand vs. 7/wand. So let's work backwards from the traditional meaning:

5/Wand is an equal competition; you walk in for a job interview and everyone has pretty much the same resume. So you have to make that extra little effort to win. I suppose we could say that our housewife there is making that extra little effort to dust better than every other housewife.

7/Wands is a person taking a stand. I like to think of the play Twelve Angry Men. 11 are voting guilty, but one guy is voting "not-guilty" and he's going to stand his ground. No budging.

Now there was a long discussion about the toothbrush and the toilet--a lot of folk go back to the army punishment of scrubbing a toilet with a toothbrush, but we have to remember this is the housewives' tarot. That means cleaning is what you *want* to do, not something you're forced to do. That is the definition of a happy housewife (50's style, yes?). What she wants, more than anything, is to have her house sparkle! And she'll go to any obsessive lengths to achieve that. In other words, I see this kind of housewife as voluntarily taking up the toothbrush--not being condemned to use it as the army guy is.

So I think the 7 toothbrushes here could be emblematic of the housewife saying, "You think it's clean enough? Well I don't!" and she defiantly takes up the toothbrushes to get at those little places where stains remain. She isn't going to budge--that toilet is going to be as sparkling clean as the rest of the house.

That, at least, is the best I can do at finding more traditional meanings in these very un-traditional cards.

 

[MareSaturni]

Thanks a lot Thirteen...your view certainly makes sense to me and definitely helped me to see the difference. I was very confused because the meanings seemes to have switched...that's the importance of studying well the symbols of those more un-treaditional decks.

Thanks, again.

Yuko

 

[Thirteen]

Thanks a lot Thirteen...your view certainly makes sense to me and definitely helped me to see the difference. I was very confused because the meanings seemes to have switched

Oh! I see what you mean. Yes. It does look like they confused the two, doesn't it?

Just had another thought...maybe in the 5/wands the lady with the dusters is trying to *win* those appliances by doing the best job? And about the 7/wands there...maybe the toilet is standing up defiantly to those 7 brushes? Challenging them?

 

[MareSaturni]

Just had another thought...maybe in the 5/wands the lady with the dusters is trying to *win* those appliances by doing the best job? And about the 7/wands there...maybe the toilet is standing up defiantly to those 7 brushes? Challenging them?

Ah, great one . A defiant toilet...thankfully mine isn't one like that
Another...could the lady be trying to *win* the best-housewife prize in 5/wands AND, in the 7, she's now having to fight to KEEP the position she won. "Oh, i'm the best the housewife here...better work harder in order to not lose this position!". And there goes she, to scrub the toilet with toothbrushes...

Lots of things you can get from these cards...

Yuko

 

[MercyMe]

Well, the way I've seen the traditional meanings is that the 5 of wands is, like Thirteen said, a competition among equals. There may be several ideas all warring for predominance and they're all good ones, several voices all clamoring to be heard, so they fight it out until one wins or they all agree on something. This card has often represented someone's own internal conflict because of the nature of competing voices or ideas battling for predominance. In the Housewives deck I see it as both the peer competition among housewives and the individual housewife's internal sense of competition which drives her to "be the best" among her peers. The seven, on the other hand, often shows one lone warrior against six others. He's outnumbered but not bested. He's usually got an advantage of some sort, height as he stands upon a hill or, like in the Gilded deck, an open door behind him. He's got the better vantage point. His idea will likely win, but it's going to take a lot of effort. A LOT of effort. I think that's what the toothbrushes in the Housewives 7 of wands represent. That feeling of overwhelmedness when you see the job ahead of you. You're determined to win, yes, and you WILL. That toilet WILL be cleaned with those toothbrushes, but it's going to be quite the effort.

~Mercy