5/1/15 Ten of Wands and The Magician

Beltane Blessings!!  My favorite time of the Wheel, filled with fertility and possibility and pleasure.  I chose to go back to the Llewellyn Welsh Tarot today, and I threw the Ten of Wands (again!!) and The Magician.  I see a progression here!

The Ten of Wands (Saturn, discipline, responsibility, limitations and resistance, in Sagittarius, “I seek,” philosophic, fun-loving, blundering) tells of being taxed to some perceived limit, or of feeling as if we are out of gas at the bottom of a hill that must be climbed.  This card can also tell of a passion or idea that has taken a life of its own and then gotten out of control or taken over everything else, and this to me is an interesting interpretation of this card.  Sometimes success can be oppressive; if we get lucky and we are not prepared to take on what we’ve been given, the burden can seem crushing.  Too much of a good thing is never good!

The Llewellyn Welsh Ten of Wands shows a more traditional image: a man walking up stairs, carrying what appears to be a huge and heavy bundle of wands on his back, moving toward a building or the edge of a town.  What is interesting about this version of the Ten of Wands is that those wands the person is carrying each have small branches and leaves at the top.  This card has more of a “carrying my weight and more” and “not flinching in the face of hard work” kind of feel to it.  A huge burden that is difficult to carry?  Yes.  An impossible task?  No.  I also get the feeling that, because these Wands appear still viable, they will have some effect on the house or town to which they are being carried.  Now that is an optimistic version of this card!

The Magician corresponds with Air (hot/separates and wet/adapts, and quick and animated energy which usually presents problems or challenges), Mercury (reason, intelligence, orderliness, communication), Beth (house; builder) and the Path between Binah (female, receptive energy and the origin of form and structure) and Kether (the source, limitless possibility).  The Magician works hard to perfect his abilities, to make use of those abilities in unexpected ways, and to focus and carry through to the end of a task (which is pretty important to him).  He also understands the eternal nature of his efforts, mainly because of the polarized nature of the elements he works with.  This card is personally significant to me; the skills of The Magician were gifted to me after a particularly harrowing experience, so having this card appear here with that Ten of Wands (for the second day in a row, which in itself is significant) is empowering.  Because this card represents represents the deliberate and conscious manifestation of tangible knowledge (and the ability to control that manifestation), he is reminding me of the skills I have worked so very hard to perfect, and he is encouraging me to use them by thinking out of the box, and by not fearing the effects of the world around me.

Ever since I was gifted with the energies of this card during Hurricane Sandy, it usually appears when I need to step up to the plate and use my own skills to make things better.  The Llewellyn Welsh Magician contains all the traditional symbolism of the card: elemental representations, a body stance that hints at control of the Below and access to the influence of the Above, the stone altar accessed by climbing steps (more personal significance to me), and the infinity sign that hints at the interactions of Above and Below, and the eternal turning of the Wheel.  The Magician is important to me, but the Llewellyn Welsh Magician is quite significant.

My message of yesterday is most certainly being refined today.  Yes, the burdens are still there, but my methods for dealing with them have matured.  Yesterday I was told to look at my burdens without the prejudicial effects of memories of past experiences.  Today I am being told that I’ve don the work of yesterday and now I need to make things happen.  I do need to remember that the end result does not justify the means to achieve it.  Lots of Fire and Air in my cards today, not much compassion or grounding.  That in itself can create an imbalance, but The Magician can use even this to his benefit!

I read a quote today that really resonated for me: “An Awakening Woman is . . . in a glowing, and embodied, nothing-held-back love affair with the great mystery. She moves in this world with fierce compassion, grace and freedom, and is passionate about truth, rest and real love.” ~ Karol Bak.  This Sabbat, Beltane, is in a sense the celebration of Male and Female, and a celebration of the luxurious effects that occur when Male and Female unite as equals.  We need the Catalyst of Male just as much as we need the Fertility of Female!  Today, we have both.

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