TAROTAce of Wands
Upright
The potential for new beginnings based on ambition, passion and drive.
A new energy in your life that allows you to create or nurture new things.
A new career or passion project, travel, positive transformation, challenge or child.
In all cases the card represents the passion and ambition required to start. Work is still required to make it happen!
Intuition
The card shows the wand used to create the most basic and fundamental spell of all; fire.
The man is Prometheus, who stole a spark of fire from the Gods to give to mankind.
The Gods did not want mankind to have fire because it would give them too much power. Fire brings mankind closer to the level of Gods because with fire we can create, transform and destroy.
Reversed
A lack of energy in your life; boredom, lack of motivation and apathy.
Resistance to change or lack of belief in yourself.
Failure in a creative endeavor or passion project through lack of dive to make it happen
A feeling of having the same year of experience over and over again, especially in career.
Astrologia
Will and Ingenuity. Passion for life and full of energy. Charismatic. Prone to being impulsive or reckless
Ace of Wands
The Ace of Wands represents the archetype of the Visionary or Creator.
He defines the passion, creativity and energy of life that fuels emotion and ambition. He has a clear sense of purpose and direction in life and is capable of taking risks to achieve his goals. He accepts the challenge, placing himself fully at the center of change and new beginnings.
Without this force our vision of the new, untried and novel remains an abstract concept. We need the visionary within us to make it happen.
The Ace of Wands is controlled by the element fire. Fire transforms, changes, and symbolizes the passion to never accept the ordinary, instead forcing us to be creative, try new ideas and pursue our ambitions.
The reverse card does not represent the opposite so much as the lack: lack of ambition, lack of passion and lack of drive. The reverse card suggests that if the flame in our heart is extinguished then our life may become cold, repetitive and boring.
There is nobody better to represent the new beginnings in our lives driven by our ambition and passion than the God who gave us fire in the first place.
Prometheus
The wand is seen as a thing of magic and the oldest spell of all is the creation of fire. The Gods, and in particular Zeus (or in this deck, the Emperor) forbade humans from having this knowledge. Fire gives us the ability to create, change and transform the world around us. In short, we would become closer to the Gods themselves.
Fire gives us the ability to create, change and transform the world around us.
One God went against this edict. Prometheus stole embers from the furnace of the God of Fire (Hephaestus, as seen in the Eight of Pentacles) thus giving us fire.
For that he was severely punished but this was not a concern for him. His love for us and his passionate belief that we should live better was enough.
He also took full responsibility for his actions. Prometheus is after all not the God of Fire. He is the God is forethought, and knew very well how his actions would turn out. Humanity would gain the power and ambition to tread where Gods walked, but he would be severely punished.
Description and Symbology
As with all of the Ace cards in this deck, the card has a white background and contains a single archetype. We see Prometheus himself brandishing a firebrand as he presents the secret of fire to humanity.
The card could also show one of our distant ancestors with the newfound ability to create fire. In this case, we see a man’s blue body start to glow orange from the heat of the flame. This change of color is greatest around the head and heart. Fire allows us to create with the ingenuity of our mind and passion of our hearts.
Also, as with standard Tarot depictions, the firebrand has green leaves on it, suggesting living wood that would not normally burn. Thus, we are not just looking at fire but also fire as symbolic of passion and ambition. This fire does not burn in dry wood, but living flesh.
The Ace symbol
The Ace symbol incorporates several Celtic motifs, amongst them the Trinity Knot and the Dara Knot. The Trinity knot represents the eternal flame of the spirit (it also has other more orthodox meanings as the Holy Trinity) and the Dara knot represents the intertwined roots of the Oak, symbol of wisdom. You need both to wield this wand!
The Firebrand
The wand in this image shows one of the most ancient spells; the creation of fire. The leaves on the wood suggest this is not a normal flame because the wood is still living, which suggests this is the flame of passion and ambition within the living soul.
The leaves also represent the green shoots and new life that the flame within us pulls us towards.
The Figure
The figure could be either Prometheus himself or a mortal using fire. We see that in either case the fire begins to warm the head and heart, suggesting fire as a driving element of both the heart and head via passion and ambition.
Tips for Readings
The following table shows the upright and reverse meanings for general questions. The last row ('Yes/No') is useful when you are picking a single card to decide a yes or no decision.
Upright
Reversed
A new romance is in the air. This may suggest a new relationship or a change for the better in an existing relationship.
Expect passion, sexuality and excitement, and perhaps a new journey together.
This may also be the best time to rekindle an old flame.
For those looking to increase their family now is a good time to try.
There is a sense of disappointment within relationships. This is coming from a lack of passion, disconnection, lack of life-goals, or cooling with your significant other.
You will need to address this root cause and bring feelings back into the equation and/or reprioritize your time if you want the relationship to grow or return to better times.
New opportunities for career growth caused by a new, more engaged and passionate you.
You have the passion but still need to put in the work to make this happen. This may involve taking a few risks and having confidence in your vision and ideas.
You will probably have the feeling that your career consists of the 'same one year of experience over and over’ and you may even be working purely for the money.
The power to change this has to come from you. Regain ambition or find something that has meaning to you.
Looking for a new career or identifying the inertia in your current career are good starting points, but finding a connection and passion with what you do is the root problem.
Your mind and its new-found energy and will to succeed will help with health. Any new health regime or competitive activity has more chance of success.
If your drive is aimed at career or personal passion-project, just make sure personal health stays high in the mix. No burning your body out!
You will find yourself trapped in the rat-race, are overworked, pulled into problems that you have no real interest in, or have not done anything truly new and for a long time and this may be affecting your health.
It is time to take a break and put yourself first by looking at what you really want, and what you need to do to kick-start a fire in your life.
Now is a great time to follow your passions. If this new direction means giving up the old-you or a boring current life then now is the time to shed your old skin!
Remember - ‘spirituality’ does not mean ‘church’; it can mean anything that opens up the window to a new ‘you’ so a change of look, new lifestyle, or moving to a social circle that suits you more are all valid options here. Follow your heart!
There is a disconnection with what you want out of life and what you are actually doing. You lack feelings for your current lot and may have got to where you are simply by ‘letting the wind blow you here’ or allowing others to make major decisions in the past.
The core problem now is to find purpose in your life again. That is the real missing component. Without it you will not be passionate about anything.
New business opportunities or a new impetus in an existing opportunity that transforms it.
The driver in all this will be you. You have the drive to make it fly but you will also need to put in the work.
Poor planning (or even no planning) have created problems that will start to appear, perhaps because financial planning does not interest you.
Consider it another way - look at the things that do make you passionate and work forward from there. What do you need financially to make these things happen? What do you need to save or invest and grow to give you the runway to work on your real passion project?
Yes through new energy and passion for success.
No through lack of belief in yourself or lack of passion.
Reading the Card
The Ace of Wands suggests we are nothing without our passions. We were given fire through the passionate beliefs of a God and what he thought was the right thing to do.
The fire in us drives us to great things through purpose of our own. When that fire is lacking we become bored and directionless and nothing more than bodies formed of clay and animated by the breath of an uncaring God, with no real purpose.
The upright card
The upright Ace of Wands is a signal to pursue your passions. This may occur via a new venture or career, a passion project or travel taking you to somewhere totally new.
It may also be a new relationship or a deepening of an existing one. For those hoping to extend their family with a new child the Ace of Wands signals now is a good time to try.
The card suggests you will soon get the chance to do any of these things but the card does not of itself mean you will. That is up to you to do. It is also up to you to recognize the chance for what it is when you see it.
Nevertheless, the Ace of Wands tells you that choosing to take up the challenge will be positive so long as you grasp it with a passion.
The reversal
The reversed card is not the opposite of ambition and passion. It is a lack of them. You could be more ambitious or passionate about what will soon happen, but something stands in the way and the card is a chance for you to fix this situation.
If you don’t take up this challenge then things will not necessarily go bad, but the chance will be missed.
Worse, you may be left in a weak position. You may end up bored with career, unfulfilled in a relationship, or spiritually stunted with questions of ‘Why didn’t I…?’ and ‘What stopped me from… ?’.
Card Design Process
Although the Ace cards look like some of the simpler designs (as they have less going on), they were actually some of the hardest. Choosing the right archetypes for Swords, Cups and Pentacles was easy, but Fire was an odd one as the actual God of Fire (Hephaestus) was a bad fit. Prometheus just didn’t seem to fit until the creation of fire was seen as one of the first true magic spells.
It no longer feels like magic because we can all create fire but it would have been true transformative magic to the first people who saw it being created by another human!
Final Words
The Ace of Wands represents the inner forces of passion, creativity and ambition and their ability to create great things or make major transformative changes in our lives when we listen to them.
The card tells us that a chance to do this will soon occur, but whether or not we choose to grasp this firebrand and use it to light up our life is up to us.
