IRONWING - 5 of Blades

[Milfoil]

This card is haunting me (along with 2 others!)

When I look at this card I see the ladder of something uncomfortable, something which seems almost insurmountable, how do you walk on blades or fire or broken glass? Do you have to fly?

Being at the bottom, starting from the base chakra and ascending.

A brief discription from the site reads:

Five of Blades: A feather-crowned shaman contemplates a ritual ladder of hawk-shaped sawblades. To pass the test and ascend to the sky, she must grow wings or climb without fear that the blades will injure her.

The woman at the bottom spreads her hands in fear or aprehension at the task ahead because the first hawk blade/rung appears to be SO big, almost insurmountable. Yet each blade becomes smaller and smaller and IF she climbs knowing that it cannot harm her or flies above, eventually she turns into the hawk spirit that she so feared.

This card to me is about changing our subconscious, changing the direction we normally take and facing our fears. In order to bring ourselves to a higher place or to move forward we come to a time where we have to make difficult decisions and get out of the comfortable ways we are used to.

What say you?

 

[SharonS]

Yes I agree about facing our fears. It appears that she must gain the confidence and believe in herself and overcome her fears, then as she does that each obstacle gets smaller and smaller as she overcomes her fears and is ultimately rewarded with a higher sense of self, to be able to move forward like you said.


~SharonS

 

[brujaja]

I say:

This (web-fingered?) figure is taking the brunt of some powerful, menacing, downward-thrusting energy. Those hawk-blades are terrible...jagged, clawed, speeding down, beady eyed impending doom... Feeling overwhelmed, perhaps victimized. She must find her power, and fast. Which power? And will she attack, or defend -- or run, or, as you say, climb? Find that upper...what are those things? They look animal vegetable and mineral all in one...

But something in the posture of those upper realms mirrors the posture of the fearful figure -- only open.

 

[Mi-Shell]

To me the 5 of blades is the dance upon the double edged blades. Sometinig I do every day. Walk along the hair-line thin grade upon the knife of- -
- time / space
- factual knowledge / swirrrrling Trance
- wisdom / madness
-everyday tonal reality / nagual shamanic state of consciousness
Hawk is discernment:
= to hold them all apart
= to know who is who - what is what
= example: Am I having trouble writing this right now because I just came out of a trance- drumming session with my student or because I am tiered and have had no dinner... jet....
Hawk Power of discernment will tell me!
The first blade is easy, it is wide and long and gives lots of room to manouver... then further and further up it gets trickyer and the ledge/ grade is even thinner, cutting away the very feet that thread upon it. So the only choice is to take up the Hawk's wings and take flight....
Now turn the card around and see, how easy and what a pleasure it is to come down! No spiky edges!