This discovery of course set me off on a voyage of exploration in the rest of the decks I have in the flat (fewer at the moment than there have been at times in the past), both to see how the Fool is depicted and also to discover further non-Wands suit cards which depict wands.
Since the Tarot del Fuego is biased towards fire there are of course a lot of flames and wandy stuff going on, as I was fully expecting in that deck. The Morgan-Greer tarot in which I first noticed the Fool's wand was the one with the most. I was disappointed to discover that the Aquarian tarot didn't have many Wands outside of the suit at all, perhaps because of the particular perspective the artist has used. I was disappointed because for me the Wands of the Aquarian tarot are the most suggestive of those of any deck, and not to beat about the bush, what I see in them is the head of an erect penis emerging from a foreskin. Have a look at the deck and I defy you not to see that now. Of course it represents potency, virility, strength, ambition, fertility, and so on. While the Hound in no way shies away from grown up subjects, you will no doubt be relieved to hear that I will not be following through and showing my own erect penis here. If you particularly want to see one I've heard a rumour the internet is full of pictures of them.
Anyway, despite the differences between decks the one I have chosen for this post is the Rider-Waite-Smith, since it is the original of a whole raft of tarot decks. If you really want to see wands in a tarot card it can be very tempting to see them potentially wherever there is a tree in the card. The artistic style can make things look more like wands (as they do in the Morgan-Greer) so I have restricted myself to the RWS cards which prominently feature things which look like the wands of the suit of Wands.
I have made an exception for two cards only, since the wands are described in the deck as wands and there are two cards where the characters are holding actualy magic wands, even though they don't look like the wands of the suit symbol. These cards are the Magician and the World, interestingly at the beginning and end of the Major Arcana. I wouldn't go to the stake (ha! another wand) for this connection, but this is what one of my favourite tarot authors has to say about wands generally:
'Wands represent power or authority. They can indicate a high or special level of training, or special skills and abilities, as in a magic wand. In fairy tales wands - magic objects which can transform or redeem people - are symbols of the Self. In ancient Celtic mythology, wands were the symbols of the Druids' power over the elements and other material things. Mythologically related to straight lines and sticks (one of humankind's simplest and oldest instruments), wands embody the symbology of power and intensity. Sticks appearing in fairy tales often symbolically extend a character's will power and purposeiveness "beyond mere momentary impulses."' (Sandra A Thomson: Pictures from the Heart, St Martin's Griffin, New York, 2003, p. 377)
The wands held by the characters who open the Major Arcana and 'close' it to allow another cycle, therefore both hold the magical instrument of transformation. The wands they hold are a more 'magical' version of the rough sticks held by the other major arcana cards who have wands, and no doubt if Waite was alive and had a blogger account he could make some comment on that. I have also selected the wands held by the three other Major card figures, the Fool, the Hanged Man and the Hermit, because they look like the wands of the suit cards, although obviously they have a different purpose in these cards, and have struck me as being as it were wands that are hidden in the cards. This is what Thomson says about the suit of Wands:
'Also called clubs, staves, rods, or batons, Wands cards depict experiences related to creative ideas, inner vision, and the necessary passion for the development of enterprise. They are associated with Jung's intuitive function and usually with the element of fire, the most energetic and transforming of the four "energies" and a symbol of the human will or willpower.
'The ancients believed the fire element or principle to be present in persons who possessed sharp, active actions or reactions. Fire energy definitely is not passive, but exists in reactions that propel or push something, or someone, forward. Wands cards often emphasize the future, although fire energy is usually what we need more of to help us get out of bed on Monday mornings. Fire reactions or activities take on a dynamic leadership role, never waiting for the "mood to strike" before getting down to creative work. They have the qualities of dramatic intensity and inspiration, which can also be unstable in situations or relationships. Wands cards speak of getting things going, or energizing and transforming, not because of logic or thinking but because our inner being tells us to.' (Ibid, p. 378)
In the case of the Fool, the Wand energy is brought into service to suspend his possessions; Thomson says that the most common of interpretations of the pack's contents is that it contains unused or unavailable knowledge, since it is behind him and he is not looking towards it. The fact that it is suspended from a wand suggests that an effort of willpower is the key to opening up that unused knowledge.
The Hermit leans on his 'wand' as he walks along. There is a strange connection between the light in his lamp and the connection with the fire energy of his wand, and yet a lot of the commentary on this card focuses on the light rather than the staff/wand. The Hermit's wand appears at another turning point in the Major Arcana; as Thomson puts it: 'Coming ninth in the Major Arcana, The Hermit likely does not signal the end of a journey, but rather indicates that there are times when we/he reach some pinnacle of enlightenment or insight that is complete within itself or, perhaps, inspires further introspective exploration (ibid, p. 187). That is exactly the kind of exploration that the Fool needs to do by means of his Will to access the unavailable knowledge stored in his pack.
The connection between the Hermit's hand and the earth via the wand is brought to its fulness by the fact that the Hanged Man is connected to the earth and completely supported by 'wands'. The continued inner transformational work is indicated by the way his body is in the shape of the alchemical symbol for sulphur. Thomson tells us that there is a connection between this card and the wand-bearing figure in The World, whose body makes the same shape, only the other way up, and that for members of the Golden Dawn this card would have evoked the Adeptus Minor Ritual in which the candidate was bound to a cross. The themes of transformation by means of introspection (which may seem to be far from the fiery significance of the wands cards indicated above) continue through these Major Arcana cards showing 'wands'.
I referred above to the connection I made between the Fool in the Morgan-Greer tarot and the 2 of Wands with its suggestion of dominion; the RWS tarot could be seen to make a similar connection to the 2 of Wands with the 5 of Pentacles, not usually a card which is seen to refer to dominion. One of the two figures is fully supported by Wands, and I am very interested to see that that is a possible alternative reading for this card, or an undercurrent to its Golden Dawn meaning of 'material trouble'. Perhaps the card is subtly suggesting that the people could do with seeing their material trouble as an opportunity for transformation, since the means of transformation, the will, is what is actually supporting one of the characters.
The final card I have identified with a 'wand' in it is very interesting since it is a sword card, which in the RWS deck refers to the element of air and of course that element would interact with the element of fire by heightening it! The boat is additionally passing through waters (a pool of emotions?) towards the earth on the opposite bank so this card actually indicates all four elements. Of course we can easily draw on the symbolism of the other cards discussed here to suggest that the water represents exactly the sort of introspection necessary by will (the punt is actually in the pool. Perfect!) required to access the unusable knowledge of the Fool.
I have found this exercise of looking for one suit symbol in cards not belonging to the suit, an interesting way of making unexpected connections between cards and coming to some alternative readings. This technique is probably used more often to make connections because of a particular symbol (a pillar, for example) recurring in different cards. In this case it is about the Will as accessing the unseen knowledge in the Fool's pack as a way to introspection and transformation. In the case of my particular daily draw and the theme of reversing the confusions which have gone before, which I am interpreting as referring to life as well as to a tarot reading, this deeper insight creates a milieu of initiation and transformation, confirming that I am in a turning point of my life and the gunk of the past has passed.
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