Five of Wands: tarot meaning, upright and reversed

Five figures raise staffs in a tangled contest.

Upright

competition · friction

Different aims contend; useful energy needs a common task.

Reversed

avoided conflict · lingering rivalry

An apparent truce may conceal unresolved competition.

In a reading

The position gives this card a particular task: a description of the situation, a challenge, or guidance. Read its image and meaning alongside the other cards and the question that brought them together.

Golden Dawn correspondence

Saturn in Leo, 0–10 degrees. This is the attribution in Book T.

Sources

A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot. These notes are original interpretations of the Waite–Smith imagery, informed by that text.