by Sasha Graham
Remember pentacles’ attribution by recalling a pentacle looks like a molecule and molecules make up all earthy matter.
Swords/Air
Your thoughts, ideas, and stories. The way you think about things. The decision you made last week. It is words, language, and articulation. How you speak to people and how other’s words affect you. It is your mind. How you speak to yourself. It is the yogic breath, your inhales and exhales. Control your breath and you can control emotion. You constantly engage in the energetic exchange of air and the suit of swords when you breathe. It is life and death. This is why the suit of swords appears frightening.
Represented by the quality of wind, oxygen filling the lungs, humidity, icy cold and thermal hot temperatures—air.
Remember swords’ attribution by recalling a sword moves through the air quickly. Like weapons, words can wound, heal, or protect.
Wands/Fire
Your passion, everything that gets you out of bed in the morning, your desire to travel, your romantic attractions, your deepest desires, intentions, and beliefs. Wands are the heat, the internal fire, the passion informing your life and directing your actions. Wands are where the individual emulates the sun itself. Through the element of fire, we germinate and grow all things.
Represented by the quality of fire, crackling, consuming, cooking, burning embers, hot coals, a match in the darkness, candles, incense, forest fires, volcanic lava—fire.
Remember wands’ attribution by recalling a magic wand with electrical fire passing through it or the heat of the sun.
Cups/Water
Your feelings, imagination, and dreams. The appreciation of art, love, beauty. Every single emotion from raging anger to all-encompassing love. The highs and lows, darkness and light are all expressed by the element of water. It is the place of compassion.
Represented by the ever-changing nature of water, from quiet ponds to raging seas, rivers, clouds, mist, ice, snow, rain…it is all the quality of fluid water/fluid emotion—water.
Remember cups’ attribution by recalling a cup is a container for holding slippery, elusive water.
Important RWS Kabbalistic Note on Suits
The RWS minor arcana is designed in accordance to the Kabbalistic Four Parts to the Soul associated with the tetragrammaton. These make up the four Kabbalistic Worlds. Each world springs from the ace. The ace is the root of that world. All the minor arcana cards spring from the ace like flowers from a seed.
Pentacles
Earth
Assiah, the Material World
Swords
Air
Yetizrah, the Formative World
Wands
Fire
Atziluth, the Archetypal World
Cups
Water
Briah, the Creative World
Note: The accompanying poetry comes from Waite’s Shadows of Light and Thought (1906)—four years before the tarot deck, when he was enmeshed in the Golden Dawn.
Ace of Wands
Kether of Atziluth—Root of the Power of Fire
If thou hast the gift of soul to bear,
A glimpse of the secrets of earth and air.
As an outward sign of the heart’s desire,
Thy little parcel of sacred fire.
Arthur Waite, Collected Poems
The Ace of Wands reflects the initial spark of desire—the rush of fire ignited by romantic attraction. It is the energy of passionate obsession, the instant of beguilement and amazement, and your heart moving from zero to sixty miles an hour in the space of a second. The Ace of Wands gets you out of bed in the morning. It fills you with excitement as your eyes flutter open. It is the famous movie closeup where the character realizes what they want. The story is set in motion. Luke Skywalker gazes longingly across the desert in Star Wars. Jack spies Rose in Titanic. Baby sees Johnny grinding on the dance floor in Dirty Dancing. The Ace of Wands is a blossoming desire with the power to change the course of your life.
In a deeper sense, the Ace of Wands is the seed, the sprout, and the beginning of the element of fire. It reflects toe-curling longing. Fire marks our blood, passions, hungers. It is the suit of careers, desires, and spirituality. It is pure energy. The energy of fire’s flames will nurture and warm us when used safely. Fire contains the power to singe or burn when used carelessly or allowed to rage out of control. It carries the potential to engulf, devour, and incinerate everything if not contained. The Ace of Wands is the internal fire yogis stoke during their physical practice. It is the spirit felt by pulpit preachers spouting fire and brimstone to their spiritually starved congregations. Fire is the combustible, unavoidable element making life worth living. It often gets us all into trouble. It ultimately defines who we are.
Waite states the obvious when he tells us, “A hand issuing from a cloud grasps a stout wand or club.” Pamela takes her direction from the Book T: “A WHITE Radiating Angelic Hand…” The stark whiteness of the hand is apparent. The whiteness, as pale as a blank sheet of paper, marks a stark contrast to the skin color of every other character Pamela draws in the deck. A spiky electrical field with thirty-six spikes glows around the fist and wrist, depicting additional radiance. All of the deck’s ace hands match up in color and display radiant qualities with differing numbers of spikes.
The palm’s grip is tight. It forcefully holds the masculine element of fire (wands) and air (swords). This is oppositional to the feminine element of earth (pentacles) and water (cups), where the pentacle rests gently in the palm. Pamela crafts an especially phallic wand for her deck. The phallus is an ideal symbol for the masculine suit of fire. It reflects the outward nature of masculine energy as opposed to the feminine receptivity.
The Book T says the Ace of Wands is “issuing from clouds, and grasping a heavy club, which has three branches.” Pamela has followed these instructions precisely. The Book T describes three leaves sprouting from the left and right branch, although the text calls them “flames.” It also describes four leaves on the top branch. These leaves or “flames” counted together equal ten and represent the ten Sephiroth on the Tree of Life. The symbol of the wand is the token of the suit of wands. The wand is also placed on the Magician’s table alongside the three other suits.
The posture of the Ace of Wands matches the Ace of Cups. Each hand extends from clouds on the right side of the card. Additionally, the Ace of Wands and Cups both depict water in the environment surrounding and supporting the card. In opposition, the Ace of Pentacles and Swords extend from the left side of the card and no water is seen within their landscape. The Ace of Wands is the only ace to reflect a home. The house or castle reflects humankind, domesticity, family life, and security. Waite tells us the Ace of Wands is the virility behind family, origin, and birth. The river’s moving waters reflect a journey away from home. It is forward flow, the journey we embark on when heeding the work and call of our passions.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: A natural force, strength, vigor, energy, beginning, source, family, origin, creation, invention, enterprise, power of virility.
Reversed: Decadence, ruin, perdition, clouded joy.
Two of Wands
Lord of Dominion—Mars in Aries
Within the charmed walls is a place of delight,
And a world from its windows shines strange to the sight.
Arthur Waite, Collected Poems
Energy is realized and recognized in the Two of Wands. The energy of the Ace has doubled. “It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us,” says Marianne Williamson. “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerfu
l beyond measure.”55 Personal intention permeates the suit of wands. The Two of Wands reflects electricity stirring the soul to action and contemplation. The Two of Wands reflects the duality of basking in permeating light. The internal fire is stoked and plans are laid.
Interpret the image of the Two of Wands literally. The world is in your hands. Now is the time to plot and plan. The energy of passion doubles and swings in your favor. Make alliances, list goals, create a vision board and write out your plan for action. Outline the novel you’ve always wanted to write. Make the business plan for your company. This is the card of weighing options carefully. Dual opportunities come your way. Choose between romantic entanglements. Find a partner whose passion equals yours. This is the card of cleverness and daring, not of folly. A well-executed plan combines passion, knowledge, and timing. Hold these elements firmly in your grip as you move forth.
Pamela is faithful to the card’s esoteric title, “The Lord of Dominion.” The figure emulates the Emperor card who surveys his kingdom. The Two of Wands surveys the landscape while holding a globe in one hand (the Emperor holds a globe). The character holds a wand in the other (just as the Emperor holds his ankh). Both the Emperor and the Two of Wands are adorned in fiery red and orange clothing. The figure is placed between two wands, like the High Priestess and Justice cards. Graphically, the figure becomes the middle pillar standing inside the two outer pillars of the Tree of Life, represented by dual wands.
Waite makes a special note: “The Rose and Cross and Lily should be noticed on the left side.” The rose and lily are alchemical symbols for the sun and the moon. The three colors of
black, white, and red are classic alchemical colors. Black reflects the base material level, red is the energy of transformation, and white is the color of purification. Roses and lilies are the same flower blooming around the edges of the Magician card, whose energy flows and ignites each card. Illustrated in this manner, the flowers on the Two of Wands become a “Rosy Cross.” Waite created his own organization, the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, in 1915. White lilies are found beneath the Ace of Pentacles. White lilies are also embroidered upon the luminous cloaks of the Hierophant’s monks.
The figure strikes a powerful posture by holding a globe in hand. It reflects having the world at your fingertips, the power of intention-setting and careful planning. The globe is a subtle reminder of the World card and ultimate attainment. The landscape of the card evokes the mountainous island of Jamaica, where Pamela spent her childhood years. The distant beach marks the threshold of known meeting unknown and a boundary line. The mountainscape reflects the duality of spiritual heights, while the ocean reflects emotional depths. It reminds the reader to keep a foot in each world. A plowed field, rich with ripe, freshly tilled soil, reflects fecundity and generative growth toward the issue at hand. The figure stands upon a battlement offering a wide-ranging view. Examine all aspects of the situation at hand and from as many vantage points as possible.
Pamela adorns her character in costuming similar to the Lyceum Theater’s production of The Merchant of Venice. Her figure emulates Ellen Terry in the role of Portia and Henry Irving as Shylock. The play is set in Venice. Cool blue Aegean waters may be pictured on the card. Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice contains an actual reference to wands. Shylock tells Antonio, “The skillful shepard peeled me certain wands. And in the doing of the deed of kind, he stuck them up before the fulsome ewes.” Shylock’s story is a reference to the story “Thistorie of Jacob” found in the book of Genesis. It was a popular visual tale seen on multiple Renaissance engravings, woodcuts, and tapestries. Jacob uses his “wands” to divide and bring order to his flocks of sheep. A wand, in this sense, is used as an object of power and discernment, much like a sword. It is also a story of thrifty business bearing weight on the forthcoming Three of Wands card, where we discover a new merchant sending his ships out into the world in an act of trade and commerce.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Between the alternative readings there is no marriage possible; on the one hand, riches, fortune, magnificence; on the other, physical suffering, disease, chagrin, sadness, mortification. The design gives one suggestion; here is a lord overlooking his dominion and alternately contemplating a globe; it looks like the malady, the mortification, the sadness of Alexander amidst the grandeur of this world’s wealth.
Reversed: Surprise, wonder, enchantment, emotion, trouble, fear.
Three of Wands
Lord of Established Strength—Sun in Aries
So therefore days and nights dissolve
By this low-breathing sea,
While here I pause and still revolve
Voyage and venture free!
Arthur Waite, Collected Poems
The Three of Wands reflects the triplicity of fire. Leaping, glowing flames of desire are coaxed into the hypnotic dance of fire. The sorceress casts her spell. Offerings are made. A prayer is whispered. Incantations abound. The send button is hit. Messages and communications fly toward their target, invoking the power of three. Energy is sent flying into the world. Like-minded people gather to aid you in your goal. If the Two of Wands suggested careful planning, the Three of Wands reflects the first stages of the plan’s execution. Plans are in motion. Ripples of cause and effect are visible.
The Tree of Life’s three pillars are graphically reflected by the wands and character standing between them. The figure grips a wand with his right hand, the active hand. This reflects an understanding and active usage of deep esoteric knowledge. It deepens your experience of the world. Your deeds and actions grow richer and more effective. Expansion and creation dance before your eyes. You are now the active participant, no longer willing to sit passively and watch. You stand at the fore, taking responsibility for what has been generated. It reflects a maturity of the self.
T. S. Eliot references the Three of Wands in his epic 1922 poem The Waste Land. The Three of Wands are found inside the poem’s first section, “The Burial of the Dead,” where Eliot says, “Here is the man with three staves.”56 He soon makes a prophecy of the poem by telling the reader to “fear death by water.” Out of water we crawled. Into water we shall one day return. Eliot suggests we face our own mortality when we face the water. He raises the timeless existential question: How does knowledge of death inform our life? The Three of Wands is a card of action. The number three suggests creativity, and the merchant faces the water while sending out his ships. Eliot’s usage of the card provides a deep context in which we can examine our own accountability in life. Are we doing what we were put here for? What do today’s actions, seemingly insignificant, add up to in the end?
Eliot tells us in his notes to The Waste Land, “The Man with Three Staves (an authentic member of the Tarot pack) I associate, quite arbitrarily, with the Fisher King himself.”57 The Fisher King is a character from Arthurian legend. The Fisher King is a wounded king who is healed not by medicine but by insight. This association reminds us of the healing power of insight and contemplation. It reminds us of the true power of the tarot. It is a reminder of the healing power of questioning well and the introspective life.
Waite gives us the keys to unlock the mystery of the three ships. He allows us a peek right inside them when he says that “those are his ships, bearing his merchandise, which are sailing over the sea.” The ships are a clear metaphor for desires, intentions, and material goods being set forth. Waite suggests the figure is “looking from his side toward yours with a view to help you.” In this way, the card suggests you will receive help in achieving your goal. Help often arrives in surprising and unanticipated ways; an old friend reappears, a patron appears to fund your creative project, a family member steps in to offer you a loan, or synchronicity appears from out of the blue to help you along. The title “Lord of Established Strength” suggests protection and power are assured. It is a strong, stable card. As surely as the figure’s wand offers support, you can stick to your guns. Your ac
tions reflect strength. The posture of the Three of Wands reflects stamina and fortitude at your disposal.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: He symbolizes established strength, enterprise, effort, trade, commerce, discovery; those are his ships, bearing his merchandise, which are sailing over the sea. The card also signifies able co-operation in business, as if the successful merchant prince were looking from his side toward yours with a view to help you.
Reversed: The end of troubles, suspension or cessation of adversity, toil and disappointment.
Four of Wands
The Lord of Perfected Work—Venus in Aries—Stage Card
And the world to the walls the high carnival came,
Bright eyes full of rapture,
bright faces aflame.
Arthur Waite, Collected Poems
The Four of Wands reflects a happy home, marriage, and celebration. Shower sparks of midsummer fertility magic, fire festivals, and passion’s fourfold stability radiate through the card. The card’s appearance marks a return to the natural world, being in touch with the earth when at the height of its radiant power. The passionate stability of fire does not consume but kindles. Fire cultivates pleasure for all who seek its warmth. It signifies a revelrous time, summer festivals, parties and weddings. At the very long last, you have something to celebrate. The hard work is done; you’ve worked well. Now it is time to rejoice.
Humanity has participated in fire rituals since fire was cultivated. The Vestal Virgins cared for Rome’s sacred flames, runners pass the Olympic flame, and the simple lighting of a candle with an intention evokes a fire ritual. Fire’s cinnamon and jasmine incense smoke carry messages to the gods. Ceremonial fires are stoked with herbs and plants to conjure and release their magical properties. Fires purify and release what is burned, be it sacred wood, yule logs, or sacrificial elements. Crackling fireplaces and wood stoves were a common source of heat in 1909, when the RWS deck was created. The average citizen stoked fires for cooking and warmth. Flickering torchlight filled dark city streets; candles and oil lamps lit homes. The general public had a direct and immediate connection to the element of fire.