queen wands reversed

this card has turned up twice in recent days as the "shadow" to a three card spread.

the first set was three swords rx flanked by six pentacles rx and ten cups rx. sometimes when i get all cards reversed i imagine the cards are to be read by someone else, sitting across the table.

the six, earth, undermining the three, air. the ten, water, neutral.

the second set, this morning, was seven swords flanked by three swords and six cups. the three supporting the seven, the six neutral.

i accept "sorrow" as a basic meaning for three swords, which turned up in both spreads, though "melancholy" might be closer. a sort of permanent mindset. six pentacles has to do with "material success," yes, but also something about issues of equity and inequity. to have and have not. ten cups not so much "satiety" as the illusion of satiety.

the queen wands often turns up as my ex-wife, i regret to say. ten years out, i should be able to get past some of this.

but i should maybe mention that just before this reading the six of spades came up twice in my solitaire, suggesting that i might examine something from a different perspective.

and then this morning the three swords again, but here opposite six cups, nostalgia, flanking seven swords, verbal manipulation.

these latter meanings are personal to me, incidentally, and do not all that closely resemble the standard issue. crowley, mathers, et al. would call the six cups "pleasure" while acknowledging a suggestion of rotting, and they would call the seven swords "futility," arising from a lack of commitment to the effort.

pips here totaling sixteen, suggesting (16) tower, the catastrophe.

and here i will acknowledge that a large part of "what went wrong" in the marriage was my lack of commitment to the idea of material success on her terms and also the fact that i was a liar.

but there were two players.