Five of Wands Explained - Upright & Reversed Meanings (2024)

As a personality archetype, the Five of Wands represents someone that is easily overwhelmed, stressed, aggressive, and exhausted. This will be someone that easily lashes out, always makes a mountain out of a molehill, and just seems to want to fight the world at any given chance – even if it’s over nothing!

This will be someone that’s at war with themselves and this outwardly reflects in their negative behaviour.

The Five of Wands is here to remind you that facing up to the conflict is sometimes the only way. You can’t bury your heart, you need to buckle down in your own corner, and be prepared to fight and defend it. Sometimes wars are needed in order to bring about a resolution to things at hand.

If your query, however, is surrounding some major competitiveness where you don’t know how to be seen or heard, this Five is requesting that you look for ways of incorporating balance and cooperation into the order of things, everyone fighting to be on the pedestal isn’t going to work. Flaunting pridefully won’t get you anywhere, so be smart and you’ll limit the licks you take to the ego

The Five of Wands is overall a negative card, so it typically reads as a ‘no’ when it comes to ‘yes or no’ questions. There’s just too much chaos, uncooperativeness, tension, and heated tempers in order for anything to work out in a positive manner right now.

This is a challenging time, so right now it’s best to just work through the struggle and then reassess once things have started to calm down. Being told ‘no’ now doesn’t mean it’ll always remain that way – the negativity just needs to move away from the situation first.

Below are some of my interpretations, as an experienced tarot practitioner, based on different types of questions:

Querent question: “Will I get the job?”

Card interpretation: There seems to be a lot of competition right now surrounding the job(s) you’re after, whether this is because of the role or company, or simply because of the way the economy is, to land a job you’re going to need to stand out from the crowd – you’ll need to fight for this. It could also mean that the type of job you’ll be going into has a high-stress environment – think sales or retail!

Querent question: “Is this new person in my life good for me?”

Card interpretation: This will be an individual that isn’t quite sure about who they are or what they’re doing, it may be clear that they have an internal battle occurring, but this does mean that they may be prone to lashing out every now and again – even if they don’t want to. This may be someone you need to have a lot of patience and understanding with whilst they navigate this unsure time, especially whilst they work themselves out, but you may be able to assist them with that. Sometimes it’s we who can be good to others initially and in return that provides us with important life lessons – so in a sense, yes…this person could be good for you in the long run. Valuable lessons may be taught and learnt from one another, but you initially may need to offer an understanding hand and shoulder to lean on when they need it. But this doesn’t mean you should make yourself completely available for someone who may be focused on lashing out and being a very negative person about things currently, you don’t need to put up with it and bring yourself down all the time, make a judgement on when you can and can’t be present for them.

Querent question: “Will I achieve my current goals?”

Card interpretation: Whilst you’re on this path, you’ll be facing some competition and obstacles that are going to impact your reaching the finishing line – or the next milestone, at least. It looks like you’ll be fighting with others around you, instead of being able to work with them, and these conflicts and tensions are going to cause you issues in being able to move forward.

Querent question: “Should I start my own business?”

Card interpretation: If you go ahead with this, it’s going to be a challenge, and one hell of a challenge at that! I’m talking healthy competition to stressful legal situations. You’ll need to work extremely hard with what you want to do and have to prove yourself, and ensure to set yourself apart from everyone else! This is a time when you’ll really need to stand out from the crowd, as the market you want to go into is going to see you find a lot of competition.

If you’re in a relationship, then the presence of the Five of Wands typically means one of two things. On one hand, you and your partner may just be coming out of a time of being at each other’s throats, and constant conflict, but have managed to find the compromise you both needed to work past these issues.

But on the other hand, it could represent you being with a less-than-savoury partner. Are you with someone that’s physically, mentally, emotionally, and/or spiritually abusive towards you? Does this person show you a lot of aggression and actively choose to scare and/or hurt you? This is someone you need to get away from, turn to the help of others (whether that be family, authority, or otherwise) and get away – the help does exist, and you can’t fix this situation for them as it’s not a challenge for you to take on.

If you’re single, then the presence of the Five of Wands typically suggests that your dating life is currently a bit lacklustre! You once were enjoying exciting times, but right now not much is really happening, and this has perhaps knocked your confidence with it and you may be avoiding putting yourself out there again.

But you need to take that leap of faith in order to meet someone, the dating scene can be big and scary, but you aren’t facing it alone – remember that! Everyone’s pretty much in the same boat. Reach out to your friends, see if they can take you out for a break from dating and enjoy the quality of life you do have outside of romantic endeavours.

Either you’re looking to come away from a highly stressful job that’s way too competitive for you, or you and your colleagues have finally learnt how to work together! What were once times of you all being in competition against each other, with tempers and tensions running high, it’s now a time of great cooperation and being able to work well with one another for the sake of the progression and success of work projects and tasks.

You’ve all come to realise what it takes to get the job done and teamwork is fundamental here

In conclusion, the 5 of Wands tarot card is a powerful symbol of conflict, arguments, temper, lack of cooperation, people clashing, competition, and frustration. When this card appears in your reading, it is often a sign that you are facing some kind of strife or disagreement. This card can also indicate that you are dealing with a lot of stress and feeling overwhelmed. The key to moving past this is to remain focused on your goals, take action, and stay true to yourself even in the face of adversity.

Despite its association with mysticism and occultism, the tarot has grown to become much more than a simple “fortune-telling” tool. For many tarot practitioners, it is a complex system made of symbolic imagery and psychological considerations (Jungian archetypes for example) that can be used for self-exploration, meditation, and personal transformation.

The 56 lesser arcana cards relate to the day-to-day events of our lives, the more mundane aspects of our existence. Even though that part of the tarot is about the “smaller picture”, it symbolizes theconstant choices we make that shape our lives, our characters, and ultimately our destinies.

Have you ever had a reading where the Five Of Wands appeared? What was the outcome? What does that card mean to you personally? How do you interpret this card in your own tarot practice?

Share your thoughts and experiences with me in the comments below. Additionally, If you want to know more about the different tarot cards, feel free to check out my completelist of all 78 tarot cards and their meanings.