Five of Cups, Five of Swords: Two Sides of Shame
a light skin black person with a curly afro covering their face in shame in front of a purple and white gradient background
Earlier this week, I thought about an unkind thing I'd said.
Naturally, I recalled it as I was getting ready for the day. What is it about a shower that unsticks every memory, sending it running back into view from its storage unit in the brain?
Shame was my response. Shame that I had said it, and shame about what followed.
It was a casual unkindness, to someone I barely knew but had negative interactions with. But being unkind to an unkind person is still not my aim.
In that moment, shame reminded me of my values, of who I want to be. It was a Five of Cups moment.
The Five of Cups is a card that asks us to focus where it hurts. It invites us to linger where we would rather run away. This can become unhelpful or toxic, but in small doses it's necessary.
It can be tempting to believe we owe each other nothing, not even simple kindness. We do though. We owe each other so much. Even the language of "owing" in an interpersonal sense feels like internalized capitalism.
Tarot's minor arcana highlights everyday events and emotional experiences. It's fives show us points of change, disintegration, and conflict.
Shame has been the celebrity emotion for the past four years.
I blame COVID for this. From the earliest days of the pandemic, experts and laypeople alike named shame a threat to public health. After all, it had been before.
These interested parties forcefully advised sick people like myself not to bring up masking with friends, less they feel shame for their choices. Never mind that four years of social isolation and medical neglect also make one feel ashamed. Never mind that feeling ashamed about who you are is very different than feeling shame about what you do.
Shame is a political emotion. As a Black feminist, the body of writing on shame and resistance to shame is canonical.
hooks is most prominent. In All About Love: New Visions she wrote:
"Shame about being hurt often has its origin in childhood. And it is then that many of us first learn that it is a virtue to be silent about pain... As more people have found the courage to break through shame and speak about woundedness in their lives, we are now subjected to a mean-spirited cultural response, where all talk of woundedness is mocked."
This is the shame of humanity denied, the shame of the victimized. She writes elsewhere about being ashamed of one's trauma, even of one's own face.
This shame is the kind of shame that the powerful use to control the vulnerable. It cannot work in the other direction.
A few months ago, a Instagram mutual asked an open question about whether shame had any use. I responded that I believe shame's role in social cohesion is a double-edged sword.
There seems a kind of person who believes they have the right to feel good, even as they do bad. Who despite their lack of concern for those around them, believe that they are beyond reproach.
This is one situation explored on the Five of Swords. We see someone stealing from their comrades. Those around them seem disgusted by them. This does not cause them to rethink their actions.
The Five of Swords can bring shamelessness. This is among the reasons it's associated with violence, cruelty, and abuse.
The parties on the Five of Swords want what they want. They don't care about the needs of others. Most of all, they believe they deserve to get away with it.
The most striking part of the card for me is the person in the foreground's cruel smile. They not only aren't ashamed of what they've done, they're proud of it.
Even as a someone cries in the background. Even as they seem to have lost friends in the process. They're standing strong on their misdeeds and don't give a fuck about the consequences.
Now, there are times when the Five of Swords is necessary and neutral.
If you need to tell off your old officemates while you haul your boxes out the door, good for you. Don't expect a letter of recommendation, but you may not be in the wrong.
If you've recently won alimony from your cheating ex-husband, some gloating feels appropriate.
But the Five of Swords generally doesn't show up in those situations. It shows up when we've been wrong and mean, as all humans have at some point.
How should we feel when we act poorly?
Is it right to take pride in hurting others? This is the question posed by the Five of Swords. Exceptions aside, the Five of Swords can be an emotional alarm system. It shows up when we've accepted to much shamelessness, from someone else or even ourselves.
It can find us victimized by someone who couldn't care less. They may even be enjoying themselves. It's a cruel card, difficult and cold.
The Five of Cups and the Five of Swords can perform as opposites. They look at the extremes of shame. At best, shame is a bell, alerting us to reality, but fleeting.
Shame that lingers can be toxic. Shame about our immutable characteristics (how we look, our race, how we love, etc.) is less healthy. Yet even that can invite us to something in us that needs our healing touch.
The Five of Cups and the Five of Swords show us that all emotions call us back to our values. For some of us, this is politics. For others, it's right action.
How do we reconcile the feelings that arise when we've hurt others with what we want for ourselves, for the world?
Further Thoughts
Five of Wands Reversed: Unlearning Pain Tolerance
Seven of Wands: Tarot for Conflict
hey, i'm cyree jarelle. I run Collective Cartomancy. I help queers, feminists, and leftists connect with their intuition using tarot and cartomancy. More on me.
