← Encyclopedia of Tarot · lesson 79/121
Wands
Wands are the suit of Fire. Their cards are about energy and intention: the spark of an idea, the urge to start something, ambition, courage, competition and the work of carrying a plan forward. Where Cups ask how something feels and Swords how it is thought through, Wands ask what a person wants and whether they have the fire to go after it.
Element and character
Fire is hot, quick and outward-going, and the Wands share its virtues and its faults. At their best they show enthusiasm, confidence, creative heat and leadership; at their worst, impatience, restlessness, quarrels and plans that burn out before they are finished. On the Rider–Waite–Smith cards the wands are living staves, often sprouting leaves — growth that is still under way.
Areas of life
Wands tend to speak about work as vocation rather than as wages, about projects, travel and ventures, about reputation and the wish to be seen, and about the energy a person brings to everything else. In matters of love they describe desire and attraction more than settled feeling.
In playing cards
The Wands correspond to the suit of clubs. Older Italian and French packs call them batons or staves, and some English decks call them Rods or Staves.
The Golden Dawn signs
The Golden Dawn gave the numbered cards Two to Ten to the decans of the three Fire signs, in order: the Twos to Fours to Aries, the Fives to Sevens to Leo, and the Eights to Tens to Sagittarius. So the Two of Wands is Mars in the first decan of Aries, and the Ten of Wands is Saturn in the last decan of Sagittarius. These are the Golden Dawn's attributions, which most English-language decks follow.
The Ace as root
The Ace of Wands is the root of the suit: Fire before it has taken any particular shape, a new beginning or a burst of will. The other cards of the suit are often read as what becomes of that first spark — how it is directed, tested, celebrated and finally carried. The courts, from the Page to the King, show people or attitudes that carry the suit's fire.
When Wands dominate a spread
When many Wands appear together, the reading usually has a lot of energy in it: things are moving, decisions are being made, and there may be rivalry or friction along the way. The Golden Dawn's rule for a majority of Wands was "energy, quarrelling, opposition". A reader may ask what the querent is driving towards, and whether the pace is one they can keep up.
In astrology
The Golden Dawn's correspondences, which most English-language decks follow (French, Marseille-based tradition differs for some Major Arcana).
Element: Fire — the element of Aries, Leo and Sagittarius
Numbered cards, sign by sign:
- Aries (cardinal): Two of Wands, Three of Wands, Four of Wands
- Leo (fixed): Five of Wands, Six of Wands, Seven of Wands
- Sagittarius (mutable): Eight of Wands, Nine of Wands, Ten of Wands
Twos to Fours hold the cardinal signs, Fives to Sevens the fixed, Eights to Tens the mutable.