Wands

Origin

The Wand suit descends from the polo sticks of the Mamluk decks that entered Europe in the late fourteenth century. In Italian and Spanish hands the polo stick became a club, baton, or staff, and the Italian name bastoni stuck. In French it became batons, in English Wands, Staves, Rods or Clubs. The suit is also the ancestor of the modern Clubs in standard playing-card decks. In the Tarot of Marseille, Wands appear as crossed wooden staves arranged in symmetrical patterns, occasionally sprouting leaves to suggest growing wood.

In 1909 Pamela Colman Smith reimagined the Wands as living branches, freshly cut and still budding green leaves at their tips. Her Ace shows a hand emerging from cloud holding a flowering club; her Two through Ten depict figures in fields, on parapets, in towers and on the road, surrounded by the budding staves. This convention is preserved in the modern Rider-Waite deck and across the great majority of contemporary decks. The Thoth Tarot renders Wands as abstract magical instruments, often blazing, in keeping with its more occult orientation.

Meaning and function

Wands speak the language of vital force. They are the suit of the entrepreneur, the artist at the moment of inspiration, the traveller setting out, the lover in pursuit. The Ace is the first spark of an idea or attraction; the Two is the choice between two roads; the Three the first far view of what you have set in motion. The Four marks a stable celebration, the Five a competitive friction, the Six a public victory, the Seven a defence of position. The Eight is swift movement, the Nine a vigilant final stand, and the Ten the burdened arrival.

When Wands dominate a reading, you are being told that the situation is alive and demanding action. They warn you against passivity. Their shadow side is over-extension, scattered effort, conflict for its own sake, and the burnout of carrying too many fires. Wands paired with Swords often signal arguments and strategy; with Cups, passion in love; with Pentacles, business or the building of an enterprise. They are the suit of becoming.

In practice

When you draw a Wand, ask: where is my energy actually going? In love readings Wands describe the heat of attraction and pursuit, the chemistry of new contact, and the season when desire is strong but not yet stable. In professional readings they describe new ventures, freelance work, creative projects, and competitive situations. In a Celtic Cross a cluster of Wands in the present and near-future positions tells you that the next phase will be active, possibly hectic.

Pay attention to the colour of the Wand cards in Rider-Waite readings: yellows, oranges and reds dominate, signalling solar fire. The figures are usually outdoors, in motion, dressed lightly. When Wands appear with many Major Arcana, you have entered a season of vocation: not just busy days but a calling. A daily Card of the Day in Wands recommends that you act early, exercise the body, and refuse to over-deliberate.

Symbolic depth

In the Hermetic system the Wand suit is associated with the world of Atziluth, the archetypal world, and with the Yod of the divine name. Its astrological signs are the fire trigon: Aries, Leo and Sagittarius. In the Golden Dawn's decanate scheme each numbered Wand card is assigned to a ten-degree segment of one of these signs and to one of the seven classical planets, giving the Two of Wands, for example, to Mars in Aries (Dominion in the Thoth deck) and the Eight of Wands to Mercury in Sagittarius (Swiftness).

Mythologically the Wand is the magician's staff, the prophet's rod, the torch of Prometheus, the thyrsus of Dionysus, the fiery branch of the burning bush. It is the masculine, active, projective principle of the four elements, but as Pamela Smith insisted with her budding leaves, it is also a living thing, vegetal as well as igneous. To work with the Wand suit is to honour the kind of growth that needs sun and friction. Visit the glossary to compare Wands with the suit of Cups for a fuller picture of the elemental polarity.

Also known as

• Batons
• Staves
• Rods
• Clubs
• Bastoni