Sometimes You Lose

Make room for failure in your Craft.

I knew that the day was going to go south from the moment that I did my daily devotional, which includes doing card divination, usually with tarot.

I drew a Five of Swords.

The standard image from the Waite Coleman Smith deck shows what seems to be an arena where combat may have taken place. There is a person in the foreground, gathering swords up, and he looks rather pleased with himself. There are other figures, turned away, who appear to be in a state of grief. The basic translation of the image on the card is failure and defeat. When it shows up in a reading, you know you're in for a loss of some kind.

Sure enough, the plans that my coven had for that day went awry pretty quickly. One of our number turned out to be too ill to do the magical work we'd planned for the day, and so our plans had to change. It was a huge disappointment, because the work we'd wanted to do was something we'd been planning for weeks. It was something that was designed to be done as a group, and we had all been excited to see it come to life. It would be weeks before we would have the chance again.

We spent the day instead reading and talking and bonding over the things we had been working on individually. I won't say it was better than if we'd been able to do the magical work we'd planned. That would be untrue.

When you look at the Five of Swords closer, however, you start to notice some things. First, the battle may have involved swords, but not bloodshed. There are no corpses on the ground, no wounded people. There are dejected individuals who are clearly defeated, but they are very much alive and on their feet and uninjured. It's clear that the whole event is either happening in an arena or in a protected courtyard, perhaps by the sea. This is sport, not war. It's clear the stakes are not permanent. The Five of Wands does in fact represent feelings of loss and defeat, but it doesn't represent true destruction. Everyone is going to live to fight another day, once they get over being a loser.

We live in a culture that worships winning, and shames "losers." We fear losing, sometimes to the point where we won't venture into competition for fear that we might not come out on top. Feelings of loss can be devastating to self esteem. When the loss is something that matters deeply to us, we can take a long time to recover.

But here's the thing -- loss is part of life. If one never experiences loss, then one per force retains everything. And they continue to accumulate. And while the idea that one's life and sphere of influence could just keep growing and growing might seem desirable, at some point on a physical level that accumulation becomes too much weight to bear. Our lives collapse under the weight of trying to carry too much, even when those things are all good things, "wins." No matter what DJ Khalid says, if you extrapolate to its ultimate conclusion what it would be like being in a situation where "all I do is win," you find that eventually your winnings become more trouble than they are worth. Even if you win it all, you can't possibly keep it all. At some point, you exceed your carrying capacity, and something will have to be given up.

And then there's the fact that narratives where the same person always wins all the time in every conflict very quickly become stale. The person who always wins every conflict or competition they put their hand to is not superhuman. They are choosing battles that are too easy, and are not engaging their full potential. If you're only trying things where your success is always a foregone conclusion, you are not challenging yourself. And frankly, aren't you a little bored with that? The person who never has to try that hard, who never has to expand their skills, their understanding, their courage to meet a challenge, is not terribly interesting. As tempting as the idea is to be so powerful that you essentially dunk on everyone, that isn't realistic. There is always someone cooler than you. Always winning actually isn't  a very inspiring way to live, for you or anyone who encounters you.

Loss and failure, are in fact critical components of genuine success. If you look at major scientific breakthroughs, they are the product of relentless trial and error, of testing and hypothesizing, most of which is wrong until it isn't. Major athletic accomplishments are often preceded by years of failed attempts, of losing to others, until finally the athlete breaks through and wins. Most people who created great works of art -- whether on canvas or with a pen or on a stage -- spent a long time creating works that were anything but great.

One of the reasons that human beings find magic so fascinating is that we're always looking for an easy way to get what we want. That's why so many idiots invest in cryptocurrency scams and why everyone would rather "manifest" their dreams than work for them. To the untrained eye, magic looks like a really great way to shortcut your way to success, to guarantee you will not fail. Those people engage in magical practice purely for the transactional benefits, and judge their experience with the Craft based on whether their spells to get money, sell a house, or find a job actually work as they hoped, as if being a witch is only worth the trouble if it means all your wishes can be made to come true.

But there is a difference between practicing magic and engaging in magical thinking, and the understanding that failure is not only an option, but a necessity, lies at the core of that difference. Magical practice does include spells that often help you get what you want. But what makes magical practice worthwhile isn't the changes that you make in your world through application of magic, but rather how the practice of magic changes you as an individual. Good magical practice is going to require you to learn and study and obtain expertise. It will require you to exercise self-discipline. It will challenge you to examine yourself and be honest about your flaws and weaknesses. In exchange, it supplies you with more confidence in your own abilities and a greater sense of self-awareness. Real magic can help you win at life, but it is almost never the easy way to success.

Like a budding scientist or artist or athlete, you're going to do some less than successful magic before you start doing the stuff that really works. And even when you develop a certain amount of skill, you are still going to find that your best intentions will sometimes fall short. Sometimes it's because you lack the skill. Sometimes it's going to be because something happens to you -- an illness, an accident, a setback that effectively sidelines you from even trying to do magic at all.

Loss doesn't feel good. Let's be honest about that. It sucks. And not all losses are benign. Some losses are hard to recover from, and represent genuine setbacks. In our current times, most ordinary people are experiencing a lot of setbacks, many of which might have been avoided if we lived in a more just society. I believe that is one of the many reasons why so many people lately are turning to the Craft. The Craft has always been a tool that is accessible and attractive to those who have been denied access to more conventional means of influence in the world.

The question is never whether you will receive a loss or a setback. You will. Rather, the question becomes what do you look to to supply the courage to pick yourself up and get back in the arena. What comes next? Do you try the same thing again, or do you do something different? The Five of Swords is that moment right after you've discovered you don't have what it takes. And the question it poses is, what're you gonna do now?

Fearing failure, avoiding it, denying it, will just keep you where you are. Until you confront your failure, and engage with it -- why did it happen? How can you avoid it happening again? -- you're going to stay in that Five of Wands space, moping about the arena, feeling like a loser. As if losing is something to be ashamed of. It's not. It's a necessary part of making progress in life and in your Craft.

Blessed be, witches.