The Six of Wands in the Rider Waite tarot can be tricky to relate to. Our victories, no matter how hard won, don’t often come with a homecoming on horseback, banners and cheering crowds. The tarot, as we are used to seeing it, has a number of images like this which can be hard to pin down in our modern, workaday lives. Looking at and working with other decks then, with the re-imagining of ideas and imagery to express the same universal truths, can help us unlock cards which seem closed or worse, irrelevant.

It is interesting personally though because I have a rather long-term phobia of butterflies. It is quite specific, as I fear them most when they are inside, out of their proper environment. I have been at a loss at to what this means or where it comes from, but perhaps this card suggests that a fear of failure coupled with the fear of success might keep one trapped in the pupae stage. Whatever it is, the Six of Wands shows that development, growth and moving out of the fear and conflict that we find in the Five of Wands is not only possible, but indeed essential and inevitable.