February 7, 2011 - The Ace of Wands

Any time an Ace comes up in a ready, it signals a time of beginnings, of potential, of seeds planted.  There are no guarantees with Aces, just possibilities.  They require you to be active, to do your part if you ever hope to see the potential come to fruition.  For anyone who gardens, you know there's a lot between planting seeds and harvesting crops.


Wands as a suit are about action and energy, creativity and courage.  When the Ace of Wands shows up in a reading, it urges you to tap into and utilize your creative force.  Expand your potential, create a better way, come up with a solution, express yourself, open, unfold, do.  Make the staff of you bud and branch.  The life force runs strong in you.  


This card also encourages enthusiasm.  You feel eager and fired up.  There's an aura of excitement around you that is inspiring to those around you.  You are ready to tackle the world and those around you just might do the same when exposed to your infectious enthusiasm.  


When the Ace comes in a reading, you are confident and courageous, or you should be.  You believe in yourself and therefore are willing to tackle challenges and tasks that seem beyond your limit.  Want to write a book?  With the Ace in your court, you could make it happen.  Of course it does require you to take the initiative, to actually write, to apply yourself, get the skills you need to make it happen.  It's not offered on a silver platter.  If you get it, you know you deserved it.  


Here's what Joan Bunning writes about the Ace of Wands on learntarot.com: "When you see this Ace, examine your life to see how its potent, confident energy could work for you. Be daring and brave. Sometimes you have to risk to get what you want. Look for the path that will excite you and push you beyond your limits. Seize the initiative, and let your enthusiasm take you to new heights. Wands are the suit of individual power and fulfillment. This Ace tells you that a time of passion is beginning. You will be able to assert your best for all to see.


The Ace of Wands is also the card of creativity. Under its influence, you can become a conduit for inspiration and invention. Forget tired, worn-out solutions. You have the chance to be original. Trust your own creative potential, and there will be no end to what you can achieve."


Sounds pretty auspicious.  Now it's up to me to make it so.

February 5, 2011 - The King of Wands

When Kings arrive in a reading it is often a call to act as he would.  Coming on the heels of The High Priestess, a card of waiting, patience, and letting things unfold, it's an interesting draw.  Wands are a fire sign, so the King of Wands is all about active expression of the traits of Wands.

The King of Wands is creative.  He possesses natural artistic abilities which he uses for useful purposes.  He is original and inventive.  This King is also inspiring.  A natural leader, he instills confidence and sets an example for others to follow.  He is also forceful, charismatic and bold.  It's easier to imagine myself The High Priestess then this outgoing King.

So what does the King mean for me?  Is there a person in my life that expresses him- or herself like this king?  Are there actions this King takes, that I should?  Maybe.  Hard to know.  Last night I received the following fortune: You are often unaware of the effect you have on others.  Maybe I am the King, sometimes at least, and just don't know it.

In the Jane Austen Tarot, the King of Wands is depicted by Frederick Wentworth, the dark haired hero of Persuasion.  By the time Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth meet after a long absence, Anne is a spinster and Wentworth is a successful Naval officer.  Captain Wentworth has not forgiven Anne for rejecting his offer of marriage years before, when he was a young seaman with unsure prospects.  And although he still loves Anne, he finds it difficult to let go of his anger and forgive her.  This King's journey then is one of impulsiveness tempered by time, an older but wiser man who is not so stubborn to give up a chance at true love simply for the sake of his pride.

This King of Candlesticks (Wands) makes sense to me.  I too am older and wiser and lately have been given the opportunity to forgive if not forget, to love instead of hate, to stay open when instinct tells me to retreat, to close.  This card then is the reminder of what's at stake and how one sometimes must let go of anger and hurt in order to love truly and well, and live truly and well.  At this age, I find that living and loving well are noble pursuits, ones I don't mind pursuing.  I'm not so interested in anger and grudges, in the kind of fairness that is strictly measured as this much and this only.

Frederick Wentworth is also a creative man.  Not an artist per se, he does understand the art of living and he has made himself what he is.  He is a motivated and enthusiastic man, getting things done.  In the midst of writing a novel and exploring and expanding my collage, not to mention being a mom and working full time, I need this King's energy and enthusiasm to get things done.

The King of Wands then is a good card, an important reminder of a different way to look at myself, a different way to be, active in the world, striking forth when it is warranted, waiting patiently when that better serves.

February 1, 2011 - The High Priestess

Just back from the Santa Barbara Film Festival, this was the card I drew.  It was an interesting weekend, to say the least.  I spent a day with my past, and there weren't tears, and there wasn't passion, at least not the young passion there had been years ago.  I was present but detached, there and yet observing.  I guess you could say I was the High Priestess, not making things happen but glorying in each unfolding moment.  


When the High Priestess arrives in a reading she heralds a time of inaction.  We live in a culture which values action, doing, expression.  The cycle of movement is contraction and extension; the cycle of respiration is inspiration and expiration, but in each of these active cycles, comes moments of pause, of rest.  She counsels patience, the High Priestess.  She tells you good things come to those who wait and that sometimes "desires can be realized through the stillness that gives desire a chance to flower within the fullness of time" (Joan Bunning, learntarot.com).  Waiting and patience are not my strong suit.  Life, though, has shown me 'grandmotherly kindness' these past few years, rapping me often with a hard stick the way Zen masters do to make a point, to move us out of complacency.  I'm learning a glorious patience and a a marvelous stillness.


The High Priestess suggests it is time to use our intuition, to trust your inner voice, to open to dreams and the imagination.  I've been quieting these past couple of years, trying to hear the small, still voice inside.  It struck me this last weekend that I hear that still voice loud and clear these days.  I have come to the High Priestess place, backed into it you could say.  So now what?


I'm thinking she's here to tell me to open to what could be, to wait, to watch, to look deeper, to settle into the unknown and to let it unfold.  No pushing.  No making something happen, or trying to.  That's all illusion anyway.  As I wrote to a friend recently, he in the thick of his 'interesting times,' at best we collaborate with life or it with us, at worst we are swept away like Odysseus with only our faith and Ina's scarf between us and the sea.  


So I will be the High Priestess and whatever other card comes as I take this journey.  I'll sit, steeped in mystery, and let whatever is there flower.