So, I’ve been writing about the cards in my journal, but I’m behind in that a few days, and further behind in typing them up and posting them. I’ll try to catch up. You wouldn’t read five of them if I posted them today though, I don’t think.
Day Eighteen. November 1st. Four of Wands.
Definition: Sasha Graham says fours represent “stability”. But she says eights are “equilibrium,” so what’s the distinction? Waite says country life, repose, concord, harmony, prosperity, peace.
Detail: What is the Elsewhere Tarot presenting?
It’s two figures out in the sea watching the sunset (or sunrise) and a great…sand castle in the foreground that they must have made. It has shells and stones and sticks used in its construction. What does this represent? Creativity for its own sake. And the fact they’re looking at the sun, acknowledging how it enlivens them, and how it did during their beach day, it’s almost anti- of Pamela’s The Sun, which always feels to me like taking for granted its intentional gift to you that enlivens you. These two figures on the Elsewhere Four of Wands, one with a dark head and white body and one with a white head and dark body, had a great day, and have a relationship with the sun, and are connected despite their differences, capable of free making together. It’s ultimately frivolous. A sand castle. It’s play. But it’s still great. I have long felt the Sun as my significator, representing my capacity to be enlivening to others, and recognizing that my doings are consumed without awareness or gratitude. The figures on this card recognize and have an appreciation and relationship with the sun. I kind of love it.
Day: Hmm. A day of free creativity. I don’t really ever get a full day of that, but I get hours of it at times. Gratitude and a relationship with the enlivening forces in my life? I do my best to have that too. Mostly my creativity is pretty culturally purposeful, in contrast to the card, but not entirely so. It’s a great card. And maybe it’s a reminder that creativity is the basis of an affinity we need with others who might seem different otherwise.
Discovery: So…Pamela’s Four of Wands. A living garland strung between wands. Two women holding raised bouquets of flowers.There’s a moat with a bridge to an archway into a lovely medieval city with conical rooftops in the background. It’s a lovely, cloudless, sunny day. I’m not getting “stability” from it in a significant way. So if Pamela was following numerological themes with her cards, what could fours mean? The Four of Pentacles was a dude hoarding his coins, separated from others. Is the Four of Wands also a kind of separation? A joyful one? Celebration that others can’t partake in? I don’t feel that. The city in the background is pretty great too.I think this is just a card about what wands do to your emotional state. The women are alive with…desire? Why are the early wands so meh for Pamela and this one so free? How can it be the same essential energy? It’s pretty much the most joyful card so far across all the pentacles and the early wands. And there’s definitely a vibe affinity with the Elsewhere Four of Wands. But what’s the energy of the wands? Is desire the wrong word? The dude on Pamela’s Two of Wands wants to submit to the world and be made, but it’s not a particularly alive and embodied act. The dude on her Three of Wands wants to be made by mastering the world.
So…
Threes are about control. Fours are about being affected by the essential energy of the suit. Twos are about not having the energy — being able to see and want it, but not being in a position to have it.