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A Midsummer Night’s Dream – 1935
I love celebrating festivals of nature: I have a deep adoration for the world we live in and it was a longing for a deeper connection to nature’s rhythms that first attracted me to Wicca, Witchcraft and Paganism when I was about nine years old (yes, really! My mum always vowed that my sister and I could make our own choices regarding our beliefs, and she had some amazing books that I – ahem- ‘liberated’ from her bookshelves and relocated on to mine).
My beliefs have evolved a lot since then, but the thrill I feel when connecting to the seasons remains. It’s because of this that I get so excited by solstices: any religion can ascribe any beliefs to any old day of the year, but no one can deny that at the solstices day and night are perfectly balanced, and that the sun rises precisely in the East and sets exactly in the West. Isn’t the world gorgeous? It’s enough to give a girl shivers!
The blazing suit of Wands is the perfect representative of this time of year, when we’re ankle deep in Summer and wild flowers.
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Six of Wands – Art Nouveau Tarot
Wands at Litha
Wands are the fiery suit of the Tarot that are associated with creativity and the bright spark of inspiration that ignites ideas. They represent change, enterprise and the summer months when the sky is hotly blue and leaves are thick upon the trees. It’s so easy to see the environmental symbolism of this suit echoed in the world around us. Have a peek…
Looking at the cards
Becoming familiar with the imagery used in a suit is integral to developing your Tarot skills: after all, cards are a visual form of divination/accessing your intuition, so developing a system of prompts is a great way to deepen your understanding of the cards during a reading.
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Knight of Wands – Mythic Tarot
This is true both of individual cards and of the deck as a whole. However, in the following exercise we’re going to focus on wands and explore how the cards relate to each other within the suit:
- Separate the wands from your favourite deck (preferably a well illustrated one);
- Lay them out in front of you and answer the following questions:
- What are the dominant colours? What could their meaning be?
- Do any animals, plants or backgrounds recur?
- How do you react to these symbols?
- Do you like this suit?
- Why do you think the artist chose the imagery they used?
- Be sure to write it all down in your Tarot journal!
Keep your eyes peeled for…
- Flames
- Salamanders
- Blue skies
- Phoenixes
- Leaves
- Orange, yellow, red and gold
Tarot Spread for Wands
Complete the following spread using only the suit of Wands.
Image may be NSFW.
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- You now.
- What this suit can teach you.
- What Wands can help you release.
- What you can aspire to.
Did you know…
Tarot is the predecessor of playing cards. In a deck of playing cards, wands are represented by clubs.
Image may be NSFW.
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Going the Extra Mile
According to folklore, it is at this time of year that faeries are feeling especially spritely (bah-dum-bum-chss) and are wont to cause all sorts of mischief – do consider leaving a small offering of cakes and honey outside for them! One year, when I was a teenager living in the country, I created delicate one-strand mobiles out of embroidery thread, origami butterflies and crystal beads which I hung on the front door of the homes of children I babysat for, with a tiny letter from the Queen of the Faeries. I’d like to see Father Christmas match that kind of personal service!
If that piece of inspiration is a little too high maintenance, watching “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” or reading “Puck of Pook’s Hill” by Rudyard Kipling would be more than sufficient.
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The Meeting of Oberon and Titania by Arthur Rackham
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream…
~Puck
You liked that, huh?
I have a feeling you’ll like these, too!
Suit of the Season: Cups at Beltane
Telling Tales with Tarot: Here Comes The Sun
Image may be NSFW.
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