The Tarot Year: December 12-21

the decan

the X of wands represents the final Sagittarius decan, roughly December 12-21.

what does the 10 of wands mean in tarot?

this is Oppression, and as ever, the RWS Tarot speaks to our time through its ancient figures. here we have someone with too many responsibilities, worries, cares and tasks. there’s no-one in the card driving them on, so this oppression can be interpreted as a self-inflicted, chosen even.

but how do we get here? we might alternatively look into the card, as if we are the person driving this figure onward. we're invited to look not just at our own relationship to work in particular, but how we are contributing to the systems which make our lives a misery.

what does the 4 of wands mean in tarot?

the Tarot I drew to read this decan is IV of wands – named Completion, astrologically speaking, Venus in Aries – and the third and last of the Aries decans. fire speaks to fire here, the IV reminding the X that work is meaningless if we do not allow ourselves to enjoy its fruits.

together, these cards suggest a narrative of difficult work completed, and to set aside to make time for what we love in life.

labour for labour’s sake is a zero-sum, and we must join our hard work to what it creates in our lives – time for love, family, friends, the security of abundance, home, community – or resign ourselves to a life of chasing our tails like crazy dogs.

as a friend of mine once said, jobs don’t give back; people do.

the advice

make time for the things you love or risk losing them for ever

never work at capacity; if you don’t hold something in reserve, where will you find the energy to just enjoy being alive?

there’s work in play, and there’s play in work; that’s an alchemy, too

set limits on work, or work will set limits on your pleasures

protect yourself from overwork as you would protect a five-year-old from a coal mine

act alone, and be exhausted: act together, and have energy for life

jobs don’t give back, people do

all our labours are worthless if we do not enjoy their fruits

when the work is finished, turn your face towards the dance

keep going

the symbols

in the X we have too much of a good thing, on the surface at least. these ten wands are dreams, ideas, projects, inspirations, commitments – each one an individual pleasure, but they are too many to be enjoyed as a collective.

nothing can be enjoyed when one is constantly working at full capacity; learning to hold something in reserve is a skill we sometimes need to acquire.

Rachel Pollack says “We see here the great Wands problem.” this I think is particularly true in the Starspinner image, and its desolate fairy who has done everything right, but ended up with everything feeling wrong.

fire needs fuel to burn, but uses that fuel up, and needs more. the hunger of fire energy, its enthusiasm, its lust for life, leads to over-commitment, and excess burdens.

this is a card of exhaustion, burnout, or feeling like you want to pack your bags and walk away from everything you worked so hard to achieve.

a log fire dies when it runs out of fuel – but it also dies when it is suffocated by too many logs.

kindling, and air, must be managed. there’s a reason we call it ‘tending’ to the fire – tenderness is involved.

the staff may be symbols of power, authority, or masculinity, but if fire is to be sustained, it needs to be given careful, prolonged, and even gentle attention, or it can consume us, as in the Sensual Wiccan Tarot.

the astrology of the X is Saturn in Sagittarius, which Cooper reminds us is “The Archer, Centaur, Arrow. The whole man with his animal and spiritual nature.… Influences the thighs… Divine favour, faithfulness, strength”.

in many ways, Sagittarius is the most workaholic Sun sign, next to Capricorn.

Mathers’s interpretation of the X doesn’t match the RWS image, but if we compare the astrological aspects of Sagittarius outlined above with his interpretation, we can see where he’s coming from – “Confidence, Security, Honour, Good Faith; R. Treachery, Subterfuge, Duplicity, Bar.”

and here we have Saturn, the ruler of Capricorn, meeting Sagittarius, ruled by Jupiter. the Muse Tarot captures this, I think.

there's tension between the two energies. needing to expand, to learn, to move – Jupiter – and the need to work within limits – Saturn.

but the X is also a ‘stage card’, as we have that hard border at the bottom fifth.

this card can be someone virtue signalling – ‘look at how hard I’m working!’ – ‘look at what I can do!’ – ‘Look Mum, one hand!’

there’s no doubt it’s impressive – if you translate those staffs into a single log you will understand the weight being carried here. but the card invites us to think not just about work, but who or what we are working for.

the IV comes to remind us – and let’s face it, this is such a delightful partner card to receive in the run-up to the winter holidays – we are working not for the sake of work but working to live, or that’s how it should be, at least.

Mathers’s reading of the IV gives us “Society, Union, Association, Concord, Harmony; R. Prosperity, Success, Happiness, Advantage.” even reversed, the card is positive. but if we focus on the qualities of mutual support and balance for a moment, we can see they are lacking in the RWS X.

if our achievements have no space of reflection in which to balance ourselves, and no space for communal celebration between them, we resign ourselves to being hamsters on wheels, working ever harder for no reason, other than to stay in the same place. in other words, trapped, like in the 78 Doors X.

the IV, therefore, comes in this reading to ask us to create space for the things we love in life or lose them forever…

to make time for love…

to stop work and see friends…

to stay up late and turn the alarm clock off…

to indulge in pleasure as the antidote to excessive responsibility…

to use work properly, as a means to an end, not as the be all and end all of life…

there is talk of the Great Resignation, due to the pandemic highlighting peoples' disillusionment with work. for me, it would be better to frame it positively, not as something people are not doing, but rather what they are doing – wanting something better for themselves, making better life choices, based on healthy self esteem. it might not seem like much, just a growing awareness of how alienating many jobs have become is enough to make the system tremble. if there's movement en masse toward a different philosophy of life, the centre will not hold.

turning to the astrology, Sagittarius is the first Zodiac sign in the mutable sequence of the Tarot Year, running from Sagittarius to Pisces.

what interests me here is that in the old order of astrology, before the outer planets were discovered and Neptune was assigned rulership of Pisces, the sign of Pisces was ruled by Jupiter, like Sagittarius.

it might seem like a jump but bear with me – look at those feet in the RWS X – one foot dynamically flexed, the other in the air, taking one step at a time. this person, some might say, can’t see the horizon, or the light at the end of the tunnel.

but maybe they don’t need to – their burden is like a wall before them, but they are looking at the floor, and at their feet.

it’s important to note that Pisces governs the feet in medical astrology and one key thing about this card is that the person is on the move. it may not be easy walk, but that’s not the point.

the point is to – as my creative writing tutor, himself a Sagittarius, used to say – 'Keep Going'. it is the movement of life itself which Sagittarius craves, and we should remember this card is not Ruin, but Oppression.

what may be oppressive for most may simply be a sticky patch for ever-confident Sagittarius, who may need and even benefit from being stretched to their limits before they can happily set aside work for pleasure.

to most, this situation would be oppressive – but Sagittarius has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, a profound need for new excitement, and the deepest belief that any challenge can be surmounted – and to some Sagittarius natives this may be just another day at the office.

that’s not to say this energy doesn’t bite off more than it can chew – or has such enthusiasm it leads to setting unrealistic goals – or that it indulges in taking unnecessary risks or simply in showing off. because it can have those shadows, for sure.

the Crow Tarot gives us an image which illustrates both gift and the challenge of the X very nicely.

Lee Irwin asks the key question about this card; “This burden will pass, but will the pattern remain?” resolving this tendency towards over-commitment “begins, not with others, but with yourself, with a careful investigation into the motives and reasons underlying your overextension. Why are there are no limits imposed in order to achieve what can actually be done in a timely fashion?”

beneath the surface

the key to understanding these cards together lies in the numerology. the IV of wands is named Completion, and the number 10 is a number of completion and of perfection. it’s worth quoting Cooper at length here. the number 10, she says,

“contains all numbers and therefore all things and possibilities… the tetraktys 1+2+3+4 = 10 symbolises divinity [because] one represents a point; two, length; three, a plane surface (as the triangle); four, solidity or space. 10 is the perfect number, the return to unity.” 10 as a numerical principle therefore contains all the building blocks of physical reality.

the number cycle of the Minor Arcana passes through 10 a total of four times, and in two of those we are presented with what seem quite negative images of individuals – 10 swords in the back – 10 staffs being a crushing burden – and, in the cups and pentacles suits, seemingly positive images of domestic, family scenes where the material and the divine have become a unity.

overall, then, the RWS tens show us both the gift and the challenge of the number, and also the key to resolving its mystery. it’s a small truth, but when we learn we are stronger in acting together than acting alone, we are not only able to accomplish the same things, or more, with much less difficulty, but we are also able to enjoy the things that we do.

and the IV comes as a reminder that real stability is not produced by acting alone, but by acting with purpose, and in concert with others. the telling aspect here is that the X has not grounded any of their wands – while the IV has them squarely planted in the ground.

the fruits of the IV remind us of another aspect of the number 10 which is missing from the X – the garland is laden with fruits of all kinds. it is time to celebrate what has ripened from our work – literally, the fruits of our labours – an interesting expression in its own right. the fruit is the perfect image of an ending containing its own new beginning – the ripened flesh, and the seed within. in the Ceccoli Tarot we have an image of the end and the beginning, simultaneously.

something else to consider is the pathways on the Tree of Life from sephira number four, Chesed, to which Jupiter and IV is assigned, through VII, Netzach, home of Venus, down to the home of X – Malkuth, and Earth.

if we recall the older connection of Pisces with Jupiter, we can think of this as Jupiter acting through Jupiter on Venus, and Venus acting through Pisces/Jupiter/Neptune on Earth – almost a pathway of Jupiterian energy down the pillar of Mercy, into the sphere of manifestation. we can play our way to results; we can work our way to play. there's more than one way to win a war.

the Capobianco gives us an important reminder of the path itself, not only as a symbol of progression, but also the value of movement in and for itself. sometimes we simply have to move.

and, as Cooper reminds us, 10 is "the number of completion of journeys and the return to origins.”

these ruminations have led me to do something I haven’t done so far in these two-card, decan readings, which is to calculate the quintessence.

here, with 10+4, we are left with XIV, which is of course Temperance – which represents Sagittarius in the Major Arcana.

we might see the ‘alchemy’ of the XIV in this regard as representing the balance of work and play, labour, and pleasure, and the IV and X almost as the two cups of the XIV. the key point, though, is the synthesis of elements we might otherwise think of as binary, into a unity.

anyone who’s ever made a Christmas dinner will know that pleasure is hard work. and while for far too many people labour is alienated, depressing, and even destructive, good work can both be hard and pleasurable – and we know we have found work that is good for us when we enjoy it.

there is a narrative in these cards – work, rest, and play – but there’s work in play, and there’s play in work. finding the energy of that interaction is an ‘alchemy’ of sorts and if we are able to work with balancing these energies, they can sustain us through the worst and the best of times.

Cooper gives us a great image for the number 10, which, she writes, is “symbolised by the maypole, the one of the axis, with the circle danced round it.” in the RWS X we have Oppression, but the number contains the hope of perfection, as it is the ‘nine of the circumference with the one of the centre.’

the Cascadia Tarot (above) leaves us with an image of a X who remains centred in the face of work demands – who labours in the forest and yet is ready for pleasure, who experiences the joy of nature even as she carries a heavy load – a X who knows when the work is finished, and turns her face towards the dance.

with thanks to the decks and designers – the RWS of Pamela Colman Smith with Mary Hanson-Roberts, Chris-Anne's Muse and Lightseer Tarot, RuPaul’s Drag Race Tarot, Manara, Kim Krans's Tarot, Siri Rose’s Cascadia Tarot, Elisa Poggese’s Sensual Wicca Tarot, Nicoletta Ceccoli’s Tarot, Antonella Platano’s Tarot of the 78 Doors, Jack Sephiroth’s Heaven and Earth Tarot, Marco Proietto’s Capobianco Nero Tarot, MJ Cullinane’s Crow Tarot, and Star Spinner Tarot by Trungles.