Struggle and strife, parry and thrust, attack and retreat. This card has a very aggressive feel to it. However I find it interesting that there is also an element of mental battle portrayed. I see this card as a struggle over ideas and concepts. It’s not necessarily a physical battle but and ideological one. What are being defended are our ideals, our beliefs, our viewpoints. Not tangible things that can be packed up and taken away but things that help us form the guidelines for our lives. I think right now what we are seeing in the US is the battle between divergent and opposing viewpoints in a number of areas. Conservative viewpoints are struggling for dominance over liberal ones. People who believe in change versus people who desire stability. People tend to battle just as fiercely over ideological issues and they do over physically threatening situations.

In my current existence I have noticed that I tend to be a fierce “defender of the faith”. I see things are very morally black and white. I do not tend to be a fan of situational ethics (although I can see the point its adherents make). I can be quite narrow-minded in some of my closest held beliefs. One would think that after years of experience dealing with learning that my closest held beliefs can be wrong or inaccurate that I would be more open-minded. Unfortunately I am also a bit dense and stubborn. I can be taught new things eventually but only once I’m convinced that the old ways just don’t work anymore.

On a personal note I think remembering that this parry & thrust approach to life can prove to be more exhausting and wounding than I anticipated. I had a meeting today about professional staff development and training. I firmly believe that all training initiatives should be under the auspices of the training and quality assurance coordinator. Other muckety-mucks in my agency feel differently and won’t give up certain training initiatives. When it came up in the meeting today I realized two things: 1) I cannot make the argument for al training to be under my supervision, that has to come from my supervisor, and 2) even if I made a valid argument, the person opposing this viewpoint would win because he outranks me. So I’ll be a member of that committee and try to be diplomatic and persuasive rather than blunt and forceful when presenting my agenda. I’ll try to channel my inner Queen of Swords and give my Knight of Wands a bit of a rest.