Can’t we all just get along? What a messy looking card! Five young men are all caught in a mutual conflict. The staffs they hold look as though they want to form a pentagram, but at this rate we’re just not going to see it. It’s a clash. It’s a dance gone awry, a playful skirmish becoming more personal. Clearly, not a whole lot is going to get done here until someone calms down a little.

Wands brings us the energy of fire, passions, obsessions, those things that feed us. Fire can just feed and feed and feed on something until it uses it all up. There is not calm, cool reason at work.

If you are planning to wrap up that meeting today with a quick consensus, you may be disappointed. Unvoiced concerns and objections are likely to bubble up suddenly and turn what seemed to be a done deal into a round of conflicted discussion. People in your world, including you, may be a little tightly wound today. Anyone who has been itching for a fight may take their shot.

For myself, this card is a warning to not take anyone or anything personally today. It is likely that some people will need to blow off some steam and I may be in the blast radius. I need to carry some of that water energy from yesterday’s queen and be ready to use it to control the flames. I need to be especially cautious about my own inner-sarcasm and cynicism that can come up in the face of conflict. I don’t always deal with confrontation gracefully.

I will consciously look for the humor in everything today and recognize that if someone strikes out that it is a momentary release for them that they’ve likely been keeping under pressure for a while. Even if they direct it to me it’s probably not really about me. Today is not a day to try to win arguments, but more to air thoughts and even grievances and then table discussion when cooler heads can prevail.

However, I need to pay attention. Anything someone shows me will have some level of truth in it. If I receive feedback about my own actions or attitudes, I need to be receptive, but understand that the real message will be clearer when not delivered in big flaming letters. Criticism may be delivered with a lot of hyperbole today and the real information may need to be unwrapped a little. But, I may get some things that someone wouldn’t normally be as open about. That can be difficult, but a gift nonetheless.

Pay attention. Be forgiving. Try not to rise to provocation. Be compassionate. Be water.