Comparative Tarot

Description: A fence divides this card. Behind the fence is a wooded area (golf course, maybe?) with pampas grass. Just behind the fence is a dalmation, his ears sticking straight up. Atop the fence are two cats, each in an attitude of startlement.

In front of the fence, a frog (toad?) sits on top of a toadstool. He has an ice bag on his head, and a thermometer in his hand.

My takes:
Something is keeping all of these critters apart. I've heard the expression "good fences make good neighbors." Well, this must not be a good fence <G>.

The impression that I get overall is of a grumpy, perhaps hypochondriac, single frog, who isn't happy with his partying young neighbors. Perhaps they've kept him up late at night once too often; perhaps he's called the police to their parties once or twice.

But if I didn't know this was a five of wands, and wasn't trying to mold it into that, I might think that it was some friends who just found out that their friend was ill, and are quite upset about it... a totally different concept. Sudden bad or unexpected news; more an 8 of wands (perhaps reversed).

Altogether, this isn't one of the more effective cards in this deck, to me. It takes some digging to get to the conflict/tension aspect of this card. The "medical" aspects of the frog bother me. Why does he need to be ill?

And this is dumb, but why aren't there 5 figures in this card? I'm not a stickler for "matching" the things in the card to the card number, but if there are 4 figures, why not 5? Or maybe the fence is the 5th figure...

My 2 pents
Janet