78 Weeks of Tarot: 4 of Wands

[Trogon]

For information on what these threads refer to, see this thread;

 

78 Weeks of Tarot - Informational Thread

 

The above linked thread gives suggested dates for the cards as well as links to the individual topics.

 

Some of us may be working through the study in a different order and using different decks. If you have general questions or comments regarding the 78 Weeks of Tarot study group, please post in the topic in the above link.

 

Have fun.

[Bookworm]

Deck: Fairytale Tarot

 

Card name: Four of Wands

 

First impressions:

 

I know I knew this story at one time, but I don’t remember it now. On the card are pictured four animals: a donkey and on his back a rooster, and near them on the ground are a gray striped cat and a small black dog who’s wagging his tail. It’s either dusk or dawn. The animals are standing on a green hill. Below them is a path leading to a house with lights on, which is what the animals are looking at. The donkey, in particular, looks somewhat startled. I can’t be sure, but I think the dog is barking. There are trees around the house. The sky is clear.

 

After reading the story:

 

The story is kind of shocking in that the four animals, when the story opens, are on the verge of being killed by their masters because they are past their prime. That probably wasn’t so shocking when the story was first told. In any case, that is not the point of the story, which seems to be, for the purposes of the meaning of the 4 of Wands, that of finding a real home, together with one’s family and friends.

 

From the book:

 

Keywords: Taking a risk with the way you live; kicking free from the mundane; taking a holiday or a day out; fancy-free; striking out for a better life.

 

Four of Wands indicates a moment when you decide to leave a boring situation to try out something more exciting. Here, the animals are forced to this situation. The fact that the animals travel together and support one another reminds us of another facet of the card – that of a new life undertaken with friends or companions. Therefore, it has the added element of celebration.

 

The original story

The Musicians of Bremen, from Household Tales by the Brothers Grimm

 

Traditional meanings (from TarotElements.com):

 

Initial success; first stage of completion; continuation of the project; wholeness; progression; equilibrium; balanced harmony; green light to continue; moving house; setting up a new home. In its negative aspect: delays to completion; disruptions; obstacles causing delays; problems at home.

 

From 78 Degrees of Wisdom, by Rachel Pollack

 

The card represents a domestic environment filled with Fire optimism, eagerness and celebration. Optimism and love of freedom carry the people together.

 

My impressions of the card/story combination:

 

I like the card where I like the image and the story, but Karen’s commentary, while it goes with the story, doesn’t match what I think of with the Four. It’s hard for me to associate a Four with being fancy free, for example. It seems much more to me to be about setting up a new home.

 

My take (what I make of it/what I might see in a reading where I drew it)

 

I think I’d see that idea of setting up a new home, the joy of finding security with other like-minded people (or animals!), and the celebration that would accompany that.

[Guest]

Week 4

FOUR OF WANDS

The Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot

 

 

Description

 

On the foreground, four tall staffs stand on the ground in a line, with a pair positioned on the left and another on the right. The two inner wands are a tad shorter than the outer ones flanking them. These are living wands with branches and leaves growing out of them, but this miracle is overshadowed by the lush arbor of fruits, leaves, and vines that are held up on both ends by merry red ribbons tied to the outer wands. This thick, fecund garland is blessed by fruits and flowers of all colors, most noticeable of which are plump grapes hanging out of the profuse greenery. 

 

Framed by these wands though a bit distant from them, two lady revellers exhort the viewer to join them in their merrymaking. Both wear white robes and floral chaplets, but the one on the left dons a blue cloth Roman-style while holding nosegays of blue and pink blooms in both hands. The one on the right wears a maroon overgarment while waving a yellow bouquet with her right hand. To their left and further behind them are a trio of more carousers, wearing a vibrant array of colored raiment. 

 

Much further behind them to their right, a massive white bridge spans a moat. It has two visible arches beneath it, while surrounding it in overpowering profusion are verdant bushes with red and pink blossoms.

 

On the background, one can see the walls of the great white castle that the bridge leads to. On the middle is a gigantic tower with a conical red roof. Beyond the parapet to the left, one can see three identical but smaller turrets sloping into the distance. Behind the straight line of battlements to the right of the tower, one can espy further off a high residence with sloping red roofs. 

 

The sky is the warm, golden yellow of an ideal summer afternoon. This light permeates even the earth on the foreground, turning it a rich, honey color.

 

 

Symbols

 

Garland - celebration and welcome. 
Abundant fruits - prosperity and health.
Blooming flowers - manifestation of desire.
Vines and grapes - revelry and prurience. 
Copious greenery - fertility and the natural world.
Blue cloth - truth and peace. 
Maroon overgarment - material world. 
Bridge - passage between dual realities. 
Castle - stability and home. 
Yellow sky - joy and life-giving solar energy.

 

 

Esoterica

 

This last decanate of Aries affirms another aspect of the card as a harbinger of either wedded bliss or sexual primacy, with lovely Venus gracing his house. The potent combination of Venus as The Empress and Mars as The Emperor in the suit of passion and heat is combustible indeed. Of course this all plays in the minor arcana, so the archetypal timelessness of the power couple of the trumps assumes a more material, baser reality here. 

 

This is loving, generous Chesed disarming the regimented, stolid stability of the Fours. This is all-consuming Fire finally contained on all quarters - by the pacific sensuousness of Venus, the kindness of Chesed, and the authority of the Fours - to be harnessed as a beneficial gift that can provide great service and happiness to many. This is a vigorous flame refined and controlled, as symbolized by the gentle yellow light that suffuses the whole card. 

 

After the boundless enthusiasm of the Ace, the strategic planning of the Two, and the successful implementation of the Three, we now come to the celebration of our labor's fruits, perfectly captured by the card's Golden Dawn title as the Lord of Perfected Work. The Four maintains its hold, finally giving shape and definition to our life energy.

 

 

From Waite's Pictorial Key

 

Divinatory Meanings: They are for once almost on the surface--country life, haven of refuge, a species of domestic harvest-home, repose, concord, harmony, prosperity, peace, and the perfected work of these.
 
Reversed: The meaning remains unaltered; it is prosperity, increase, felicity, beauty, embellishment.
 
Additional Meanings: Unexpected good fortune. Reversed: A married woman will have beautiful children.

 

 

Personal Keywords

 

Upright: Celebration/reward; Freedom; Shared joy/excitement; Belonging/communal influence; House projects; Familial bliss; Marriage; Successful reveller.
 
Reversed: Disruption/unravelled plans; Impermanence; Weakness/vice; Unappreciated blessings; Alienation/ennuy; Domestic neglect; Overbearing passion. 

 

 

Ideas

 

In a way, this card in the Suit of Wands is the most renegade among the Fours in the minors. This is the suit of fire though, so I guess it should be expected. Here, for the celebration to reach its natural fever pitch, the revellers had to venture outside the protective, stern embrace of the paternal castle to conduct their festivities right where they can be expressed more fully - in the bosom of nature. The proliferation of fresh and luscious grapes suggests that this might very well end in a bacchanal, and where can one be held better than in the great outdoors? 

 

This is defiantly outside the manorial domicile of The Emperor that supposedly rules the Fours, beyond the reach of his authority and the reign of his unimpeachable rationality. Even the arrangement of the four wands suggests a stepback from the stability that is the Emperor's hallmark. Instead of being structured in a secure square, they are all simply lined up, where a particularly strong gust of wind might topple them. And yet, in a way, he does understand this, the primal need for passionate carousing and vigorous frolics; the rash, swashbuckling derring do that jeers in the face of logic. He answers to the element of fire after all, fitting this suit perfectly well. He is not above flaunting his virility and potency, and with Venus swimming into the rulership of Mars, he may decide that the time is ripe for him to express his clandestine sensuality.  It is not called the honeymoon card for nothing. 

 

There may be a price to pay for this though. For the toll that total freedom exacts is vulnerability, as when the carousers slipped beyond the castle walls, or when the Emperor strips his defenses in the throes of lubricity. He should be mindful of the adequacy of the protective protocols he instituted before wading into his revels, if he does not wish to unwittingly, irremediably lose himself later on. 

 

On the other hand, the great thing about freedom is how it can defuse repressed negativities. The couple of ladies slipped from the castle tower behind them with a light heart and of their own accord. Pollack contrasts these with the ill-fated duo in The Tower, the utter destruction of which mirrored the buried misery and pent-up recriminations of the two inevitably exploding to the fore.

Edited December 28, 2022 by Akhilleus