The Fives are aligned with the Major Arcana Card the Hierophant (or Priest); they each capture a situation where one is forced to confront one’s own inner truths and knowing.The Fives can represent difficulties, challenges or unusual demands within their specific element. The Fives are considered challenge cards and they challenge you to look into yourself for your own answers.
Since ancient times the number five has been revered as the number of vitality and life. The five takes the equality and equalness in the 4 and expands it to a more collective factor rather than a singular one.
The Kabalistic Link to the Minor Arcana Number 5 is Geburah, Strength, Severity. Just as Chesed, the father of his people in times of peace, may win our love, it is Geburah, the King in his chariot going forth to war, who commands our respect. Here is the fear of the Lord (Law), which is the beginning of the achievement of wisdom. Geburah is representative of the breaking-down force that is necessary for the equilibrium of the Tree of Life to be maintained. Like Vishnu and Shiva, the preservers and terminators of life, Geburah and Chesed are indispensable to each other. One builds and the other breaks down in an endless cyclic relationship, in order to maintain balance. Here we find the warlike qualities of Mars, which is Saturn on a lower arc.
That which we call evil is actually just simply misplaced force. These forces can be either misplaced in time or space, or both. Much like the forces of the elements themselves; the forces of earth, air, fire and water are necessary to life. If they are chaotic, life cannot be sustained. If earth isn’t solid and stable we can not live upon it; air can be a gentle breeze or the terrifying uncertainty of a tornado. Water is consistently listed as one of the greatest dangers for natural disasters. And fire – it can either gently illuminate the darkness, provide comforting warmth or it can become a ferocious beast, destroying anything that is in its way, reducing it to ash.
In our modern culture we have been taught that building and construction – modern improvements, were good; conversely, destructive forces are evil. Of course, destructive forces normally come with the loss of human life and that has much to do with the association. However, the table can’t be built without the sacrifice of the tree. In order to harvest the pearl, one kills the oyster. When tending the garden so that the fruits of the earth can be harvested the weeds are ripped out ruthlessly. Love, like children, can either fill your heart to the highest of the Universe, or, leave you empty and bereft, a shadowed husk. In all these examples the all-important concept of balance in called into play in every phase of life.
