Six of Wands

The Six of Wands is an identity centered on the moment, on how things stand right now. This has its potential for transformation, but is not now looking either forward or back. The moment being savored is a summation of everything that brought us here. Recall that the light that now burns in the brain was sunlight not long ago, captured by our food and prey. We are right in between where it has been and where it is going. Contrary to what most want to believe, consciousness is conditioned, a dependent arising from earlier versions of fuel, a continuum of different forms of expression that has learned to become self-aware. The Yijing counterpart is Gua 30, Arising or the Clinging, the flame reflecting on itself, between the fuel it has been and the light it is re-becoming. The Gua, a doubling of the Bagua Li, combines the meanings of both convergence and emergence. Li being symbolized by an eye, our vision is important here. If we look more closely at the word re-spect, we can see it means ‘look again.’ Understanding the progression beyond the Five of Wands is essential to grasping the development of the Six. The Five upset the stability of the Four. The Six is the response to the lessons learned from this disequilibrium. Things move back into balance with a new and stronger sense of identity, continuity, and stability. This is a more resilient organization. It has been tested. A crisis or a struggle has now been overcome. Time has shown us things, informed us about ourselves. This is the basis for a number of the card’s associations, such as victory after strife, gain after uncertainty, resolution of difficulties, conquest over troubles, and the triumph or triumphal parade portrayed in the Smith deck. We emerge both victorious and better informed. It is like a graduation or commencement, a valediction. We are distinguished by our recent past and by the special role we played there. We dress ourselves up in our finest true colors. This is a culmination of the past, before resuming our journey. The moment carries the momentum forward into a different context or present. It imports the past into the future. Everything leads up to what we know now. It’s a good time for review and assessment, to sum or wrap things up. We know ourselves better after these trials and tests, with a better sense of which senses of self to keep and which to let go. Competence has been tested and credit where due is now given. Externally, we are what we’ve accomplished or done. There is no hypocrisy in this form of self-definition. Human is as human does. There are lessons in care and respect for what brought us here, the ingredients of our current moment. It is said that, on top of all that’s past, we “stand on the shoulders of giants.” This applies to the current status of human culture and civilization as well. We may have earned our triumphal parade here, the momentousness of it all, and the enhanced reputation that may help us to move things along. But where we abandon, disregard, or disrespect our sources, we lose our momentum as well. The moment now becomes self-aware, unburdened now by an incomplete past with its doubts about the future. These questions are answered now. Now it’s understanding how we got here that informs us of where to go next. The past is prologue, mere preparation, and food for the flames. It’s a moment where much can be changed. We are able to use lessons from the past and apply them to a future. We are so good at this that it all seems part of a great and mysterious plan. One of the most vapid and meretricious platitudes out says that “everything happens for a reason.” Nietzsche counters this with “a loss rarely remains a loss for an hour.” Life is opportunistic and will find ways to turn the past to its advantage, making random events and accidents seem purposed. Decisions made now can be based on current predictions of what has already happened, on what has been tried and found true. Goals are resolved and reset with new and better data. Sometimes the books will suggest that unwanted things have also been learned, and this is more central to the meaning of the card than it’s given credit for. We know ourselves better after a trial or test. We may have learned about parts of ourselves not worth keeping. The recognition here is deserved, but not all of it is good. It may be that we have proven ourselves to be useless, inferior, inadequate, or incompetent. We may have achieved only failure. We may be in need of correction. It’s the downside of honest acknowledgement, but it’s what has been proven here, what we’ve learned of how we got here, that can tell us how best to move on. If at first you don't succeed, try doing it right next time.