Welcome back to Tarot Tuesday after our August hiatus! We had a very Four of Wands experience in August as a family. For the first time we were able to take the children on an international vacation. You’ll remember that the Rider Waite Smith version of the Four of Wands shows a happy pair, flowers raised in celebration; castle turrets appear in the background. The card can be interpreted as opening to a joyful respite after a period of work. We were so grateful to take the children abroad and to expose them to other lands where we encountered castles and Towers such as Glastonbury Tor in England, pictured here.
The sun was out that day as we passed through the Avalon Orchard. Sheep grazed in the fields below the Tor, and a strong breeze at our backs propelled us up the path. I felt a deep sense of inner peace setting physical foot for the first time on ground I had only traveled in my mind and felt attracted to writing about in the Guinevere section of my poetry book, November Butterfly. Internally I was celebrating as my two boys somersaulted and slid off the hillside in their own action-based reverie greening their jeans with grass stains and causing no harm to themselves or the land. My daughter, bless her, stopped long enough to oblige me by snapping a few photos so I could remember always the deep heart peace I felt on our shared adventure.
Tarot Tuesday: A Five of Wands Writing Prompt
The Rider Waite Smith Five of Wands shows us five players (equals too) sparring. Are they sparring in earnest? Out of joy? Out of jockeying to win? Remember that wands stand for fire or our will, the drive to step into action and direct our course or path. Is the conflict motivated by anger, anxiety, joy of movement or simply pent-up energy needing expression? One way to approach this card is to consider external battles of the will among equals at work or on the home front. Or you could consider internal battles. Is there a desired goal that is being met with internal resistance or fears? How might you be feeling like a “Woman Caught in a Windstorm” (after the title of Robyn’s sculpture, pictured here, by that title)?
List one of your core goals you feel some confusion around realizing. List five fears or five people standing in the way. Write in the five views as each person coming to you with your best interest in mind to explain their oppositional stance. Then write back as you, addressing their concerns with moxy and creative solutions.
Or consider your own need for physical expression. How do you ground your excess energy? Do you dance? Cycle? Walk? Consider ways you can engage in the release of pent-up energies in a joyful and playful way. There are natural resistances and forces to consider, like the force of the wind uplifiting a kite. What force either have you in the past, or can you presently, press against in order to fly?
Feel free to respond in comments here or to join the conversation at Tarot Tuesday’s Facebook page to share your word or image response.
The photos in this post were taken by my poetry movie collaborator Robyn Beattie.
Related Link:
Join me for the first of my Tarot Deck Maker’s Series of courses–all level of Tarot student and artist welcome; you choose your medium or mediums of expression. No prior art experience necessary. Do you collage? watercolor? sketch? Do you love to take photographs and would you like to seek out images to create your own Tarot-inspired Vision Deck? We will still journal to Tarot writing prompts as we have in prior Wheel of Archetypal Selves Courses, meet via video call and continue to form our Tarot conversation community in a private online room. For more information and to sign up to join us check out the full course description at the link below. We start September 12, 2016.
Calling All Lovers of Tarot: Are You Ready to Make Your Own Deck?
Photo at top of this post is by Kalli James; the other two photos are by Robyn Beattie.
