7 of Wands - standing tall amidst the troubles

Camoin-Jodorowsky Tarot 

I'm totally being stalked lately! Now 7 of Wands is back.

Troubled actions. Headaches and heartaches with work, callings and plans.

Yoav Ben-Dov calls the card 'Struggle'. Other key words are challenge, opposition, competition, rivalry. Some readers take this a step further and start to interpret this as advice for overcoming trouble: taking a stand, standing up for what you believe in, putting up a fight, standing your ground, perseverance, gritty determination. Those are all well and good, but the card just shows 'struggle'. All the rest of it comes by association.

This is why it's useful (necessary) to draw more than one card for a meaningful reading. Even one major can't give you more than a perfunctory answer. But as a daily draw is really just a 'tone of the day' or 'what energies are present' sort of thing, it will do. (Of course, I also think if you don't have a question, there's no reading, either. My daily draws are for observation or to kickstart some introspection or just do some rambling about the card itself...not really 'readings'.)

To be honest, there's struggle everywhere I look lately. I'm not surprised this card turns up. It doesn't even have to be something specifically to do with me, just the feeling of 'struggle' present all around me. I see it on the news, I see it in my workplace, it's everywhere. But when you come right down to it, life is just a struggle, isn't it? It can't be 9 of Cups every day. 7 of Wands or 10 of Swords, a day will come to an end and we'll have survived it. That's the important thing. We can observe struggles going on all around us without engaging. We can even observe our own inner struggles with some measure of detachment, though that is a conscious choice and not easy to sustain without practice.

Let the others become enmeshed in troubles if they want. We will stand tall amongst them, not apart from them obviously, but not truly involved. That's not overcoming it or fighting it. That's being present in it. It's often the best (and only) option.

I've got mail - Temperance Stalker Letter

A letter from my recent stalker, Temperance. Two cards from yesterday's draw returned: Queen of Wands and Strength!

LoScarabeo TdM mini

Dear Carla, 

When I show up in your readings, I'm giving you a message about regulation. You need to regulate yourself, but not in the way you seem to believe. You need to get your thoughts and actions in order. You're being controlled by them. 

I'm showing you that you are wearing thin under the strain. What I want you to do is to dream. And by that I don't mean listing goals you'd like to achieve, or creating a life 'mission statement', I mean literally dream. The kind you do when you're asleep. How long has it been since you paid attention to your dreams? Since you recorded them in your dream journal? How long has it been since you truly valued the landscape of your dreams? You worry about sleep, but do you value what happens there? 

When I appear, I am asking you to release 'taking control' of yourself. You don't need more discipline. You need the opposite. I want you to embrace pure flow from source. You're an Aquarius, the Water Bearer, and Aquarius is ruled by the Star. Why does the Star never turn up in your readings? I want you to embrace the Star. She's my sister, people say we look alike. She's a bit more laid back than me... Maybe I'm as close as you can get to her for now, but she's the real you. Camelia Elias says of her:  'No measuring is necessary here. Just sheer flow. She needs no rules or constraints dictating her actions. She prefers to navigate through life trusting nature and the universe. Such faith she must have!' I want you to release your attempts to seize control in overt ways. I want you to embrace the dreamscape and trust the flow. 

When you see me, it's time to drink from the cup of your rich, inner world, of which you are Queen Carla, the First of Her Name.

Now go get a literal drink of water and take an actual nap. I mean it! When you wake up, how about a little meditation? See below. 

Sincerely

Temperance 

7 of Batons (and at last a Queen of Wands I can relate to)

TdM Camoin-Jodorowsky 

This colourful version of 7 of Wands is from the Camoin-Jodorowsky Tarot de Marseille. I don't actually own it; I found this image online. It differs from the Dodal (which I drew the card from in real life) in the darker blue segments of the rods and the vines. Dodal has all pale blue in the centre, except for the four red diamond shapes, and instead of dark blue leaves, red stems and gold outer leaves, there are gold stems with pale blue tulip shapes having large red stamens or protrusions. Personally, I don't think it makes any difference at all to the reading of this card.

Seven of Batons signifies a struggle. Troubled plans. Hmm.

I drew a few more cards to get some idea where my struggles lie, and came up with Force + Queen of Wands + Temperance. That's three draws in a row for Temperance, by the way.

Dodal Tarot, Flornoy 2009 

Where am I struggling? Wow. That Queen of Wands really stands out. She looks knackered! I've been tracking my sleep for the last month. I made a chart and for each day I will colour in a square if I manage to sleep 7 hours in a night. In the month of June, I slept 7 hours five nights. The rest of the nights were around 5 hours, sometimes less. Last night I slept 5.5 hours. I really do not know what to do to solve this problem. But let's back up.

I wanted clarity on the 7 of Wands, so I drew Force. That suggested taking control of a situation, but I wondered what situation, and as Force is facing right, I drew to see what she's facing. I got the most exhausted looking woman in the tarot world, Dodal Queen of Wands. I wanted to know where the two of them are headed, since they both face the same way, and I drew Temperance. Maybe I'm dehydrated. There's a stream of pale blue running down the front of the lion, and Temperance pours water and stands beside water. Temperance's wings are made of pale blue, maybe water is the answer to some of my troubles. It looks like it might be time to get Temperance to write me a stalker letter. 

In the meantime, though, that Queen of Wands needs looking after. She don't look too good. That wand she carries must be a really heavy burden, it's a doozy. Not to mention that axe wound to the chest she's got there. Good lord -- I know what those are! The Big Baton is my recent projects of home buying and worry about work (a hobby of mine), and the chest wound is the Big Bad that happened to me nearly two years ago. Those are the reasons she's so worn out. Trying to be 'strong' has led to this deteriorated state. She needs Temperance -- and I'm seeing that today very strongly as liquid, liquid and more liquid. Keep pouring the water. On a higher level, this could be fluidity. What did Camelia Elias say about Temperance? 'She knows how far to stretch her elastic.' Well, some of my elastic is stretched too thin and some of it has perished from lack of use. The thing to do today is drink plenty of liquids and ---

Wait! I see a rhyming element! The hands in Force stretch the jaws apart. The hands in Temperance stretch the water between jugs. How far can they stretch? 

Temperance is looking straight at the axe wound in the Queen of Wands' chest. 'Temperance can annoint,' says Camelia Elias. 'She can make things smooth.' How can Temperance help heal that weary Queen of Wands? Strength appears to be looking straight at it as well. How can Strength help? 

Strength and Temperance both wish to heal the Queen of Wands of her burden. They stand on either side of her, facing her. And yet she stares directly out of the card at us, rather like one of those characters from 'The Office', or Oliver Hardy when Stan does something stupid. 'I'm sick of all this,' she seems to be saying. 'Too much crap. Too much.' Will she ever take the healing that's on offer? Strength and Temperance both appear to be trying to show her how far to stretch, when to stretch and when to release. She ought to listen. Of course, they both eye the strange wounded spot on her chest. Maybe they're hinting about knowing how open or closed to keep her heart.

Is there some way in which you are weary today? Is there some struggle for you? How are you stretched too thin? How are you not stretched enough? How can Temperance heal you today? What Strength do you have to see you through?

Right, I'm off to get a big glass of water...

Ace of Batons - What will you make of it?

Jean Noblet Tarot, Flornoy 2009 

When you see a tarot Wand (or Baton), do you think Fire in the South? Why do you do that? What if you didn't? What would the Wands suit mean to you without all that baggage?

I took a look at the Ace of Cups the other day, not using esoteric correspondences, but common sense. Let's try that with the Ace of Batons today.

The pip suits are sometimes divided into 'soft suits' and 'hard suits'. The soft suits are Cups and Coins. They correspond to the Hearts and Diamonds in playing cards, the red cards. ('The firstmost rule is easily had: red cards are good and black cards are bad.') The hard suits are Batons and Swords. They correspond to Clubs and Spades in playing cards, the black cards.

Cups and Coins are 'good' for obvious reasons. We have a happy reaction to a golden cup of red wine or a pile of shiny coins. We can nourish ourselves and buy things we need. Good feelings. Good results (mostly -- but let's keep it simple for the moment.) Batons and Swords are 'bad', also for obvious reasons. What's the first thing anyone thinks to do with a stick? Hit something, of course. Sticks were probably our first weapons -- and our first tools. In that way, Batons are not all bad. You can use them to hit, hurt, exert power over and do violence, but you can also turn them into more refined tools, or use them as building material to make things, even turn them into musical instruments or toys. Swords, though, are not as multi-function. They are made for stabbing and slicing other human beings. Nobody hunts for food with a sword or uses it as a tool. It's for hurting, for power, and for dominance. That's why the Swords suit is considered the worst.

The Batons in tarot are the Clubs in playing cards, and as the mnemonic says, 'Clubs mean work, callings and plans.'  When we think with common sense, we can see that's true. Rods, clubs, wands and batons are items made of wood, and wood is a versatile material that has played a very important role in man's work, callings and plans. Yes, you can burn it, so there's the association with Fire, and it's hot in the south, I suppose, but that doesn't have anything to do with the plain old common sense use of the baton and its raw material, and in order to read TdM pips effectively, I believe it's best to keep things as straightforward as possible.

Ace of Batons is traditionally seen as 'an opportunity'. Can you see why? It's a bit more of a leap than seeing Ace of Cups as a house (because it looks like a house). Ace of Batons may be an opportunity because a big stick is really nothing but potential. It's just a stick until we pick it up and decide what its use will be. We could use it to beat the rest of the village into submission and become the ruler. We could use it to drive the money changers out of the temple. We could use it to make a hammer, or the leg of a table, or a flute or a magic wand. Maybe all the colours falling around could be suggesting the different uses, and the hand shows that unless it's wielded for some use, it's just a stick.

Today is a Baton -- a big hunk of raw material for you to make into something. It's an opportunity. What will you make of it?

Thoughts on Temperance

Noblet Tarot, Flornoy 2009

'Her water resembles the rope that holds the Hanged Man's foot. Is she the one who releases him? Who washes his body? Temperance can anoint. She can make things smooth. She knows how far to stretch her elastic. She is the true gambler. The real thing.' -- Camelia Elias, Marseille Tarot: Towards the Art of Reading

'...the angle at which the angel or woman pours the water. Quite simply, you can't do that. Water won't pour at any angle but straight down. Thus, the card shows us a figure who calmly and gracefully does the impossible.' -- Rachel Pollack, Tarot Wisdom

'In Justice, the cerebral order of the top part [of the card] wields a sword, and forcefully subdues the natural life flow of the bottom part. In the Force card, the higher element is still master over the lower one, but this is done in a soft way. In Temperance too we can see a high part and a low part, each with its own vessel. But in this card the two parts are united by the liquid flow.' -- Yoav Ben-Dov, The Open Reading

'An important aspect of this card's meaning of alchemical transformation can be summed up beautifully in the Nichiren Buddhist term hendoku-iyaku -- "changing poison into medicine". This is the process by which we transform our problems -- anything from our base desires to our troubles and afflictions --into strength, joy and enlightenment.' -- James Ricklef, The Soul's Journey: Finding Spiritual Messages in the Tarot

'Many of us think serenity means we have to close ourselves down, not let life get to us. We assume we must avoid passion in order to stay serene, untouched. But imagine a state in which you could allow the strongest emotions to move through you, take firm action whenever necessary, love, cry, dance and never lose your ground, your knowledge of who you are and what really matters. Imagine that you know, not as an idea but as knowledge in every part of your body, and every action and every emotion, that the divine moves through you like a river. Or like a bright stream of water that passes from one cup to another.' -- Rachel Pollack, The Forest of Souls: A Walk through the Tarot

Mantra for Majors, Rowan Tarot 
(Temperance by Emily Carding)