Comparative Tarot

The 10 of Wands shows two female gnomes going at it with clubs. Keyword says "The Fight". One gnome wears a blue hat, green dress and a brown-and-white striped apron. The other wears a white hat with flowers, a blue and white striped dress, and a tan apron. They definitely look angry.

LWB: It's better to stop words before needing to stop actions.

Yes, yes it is better to stop the arguing at words. The suit starts with the Ace being a tree he's chopping down; in the 2, a woman gnome is carving the trunk into something beautiful. In the three, a woman carries a bundle of wood; not so much beautiful, as functional. Though a fire in winter is a thing of beauty. The 4 shows a woman using the wood to heat her cauldron. The 5 shows a rat being knocked on the head with a club; it's titled growth. As in, sometimes we need a knock from the Universe in order to open our hearts and souls. We don't like it all the time, but in the end sometimes we see the benefit. The 6 is titled Good Fortune; a female gnome is bashing a water crock suspended like a pinata. Sometimes we see our Good fortune without being beaten up by the Universe. 7 is titled Disagreement; a male gnome tries to sneak in the house without waking his wife, but she's hiding behind the door waiting for him. In the 8, a gnome falls off his unicycle; it's titled the Accident. We wonder how many "accidents" truly are. Maybe his wife sabotaged his cycle to punish him for staying out all night... Punishment is the keyword on the 9. A male gnome bandages his head.

This suit seems to say, stick to your work... those are the happy cards here. The woodcutter is pleased with how his tree will fall, the carver hums while she cuts the wood, and even the three, titled Worry, doesn't really seem all that bad.

But when we try to control the husband's behavior, we drop into a different cycle. She's mad at him, and he is upset because he's having problems, but the wife can't let it go. Is the other gnome in the 10 maybe "the other woman"? When we studied the 7, I thought the husband was out all night with the boys, but maybe not. Maybe he has a girlfriend.

I wonder if these two gnome women can stop clubbing each other to talk about it. Maybe there really is no fight, just a misunderstanding. Maybe the girlfriend didn't realize the guy was married.

However it plays out, it definitely feels like a misunderstanding. We assume things. We think we know what's going on, when we truly don't. If we put our cards on the table, we may learn that the quarrel disappears. Which leads me to wonder if we wanted the quarrel, rather than the situation we were supposedly quarreling over. Fighting for the sake of fighting.

A good friend of mine is in a situation like this. Her boyfriend's ex is a person who can not stand for a day to be ordinary, so she must create drama. Even when it drives away her friends (especially when it does?), even when it's untrue. She must feel like she is having an exciting life. Never mind that everyday life is not that exciting unless you're a cop or firefighter or such. They might have regular exciting days, but for most of us excitement or a fight or the like are aberrant occurrences in an otherwise stable life.

So here I wonder about what these gnome women are truly fighting about - are they "competing" for the same man? Did one feel the other "stole" him from her? Maybe they're sisters - siblings can fight in ways that strangers never could.

Step back. Deep breath. Let's talk about it.

kerry