The Tarot Year: Nov 22 – Dec 1

the decan

the VIII of wands represents the first Sagittarius decan, roughly November 22 – December 1.

what does the 8 of wands mean in tarot?

this is Swiftness, a very energetic card indeed. here we have Mercury in Sagittarius – the speed of the divine messenger amplified by the expansive energy of the planet ruling Sagittarius, Jupiter.

it’s such a simple image. it’s the arrival of news, it’s the breakthrough in your project, it’s the energy you need to get things done. a lot of making things happen is about preparation, but this card gives us action, change, results – the tumult that comes from having prepared fully.

what does The Devil mean in tarot?

the Tarot I drew to read this decan is XV The Devil, representing Capricorn/Saturn in the Major Arcana. it would be easy to set these up as polar opposites – of stuckness and mobility, solidity and fluidity, freedom, and entrapment – reflecting on and illuminating each other. but the Tarot always asks us to complicate our binary thinking – to see the devil in the details of the VIII, and the possibility of swiftness in ‘hell.’

together, these cards ask us to think about our energy, and where we send it. are we exhausting ourselves by giving endlessly, but aimlessly? are our expectations of life so high we have stopped living? have we fallen into the trap of linear thinking, namely, that we think life moves in straight lines?

these cards ask us to remember The Devil is usually ourselves, and we are just as likely to become trapped by our virtues and successes as we are our flaws and failures.

the advice

if you have finished learning who you are, you probably need to start again

remember virtue and victory can trap you just as much as flaw and failure

turn what binds you into the thing that frees you

develop your curiosity; we never own more than half the story

remember that having things and living your own life are not the same thing

honour life and remember the order you impose on it is but your own illusion

that we die is certain, so if you would live, embrace possibility

don’t shut yourself in a box – life doesn’t follow straight lines so why should you?

to grow, we must accept the discomfort of becoming ourselves, until we cease to be

the symbols

this card is almost completely wands. none of them are completely in the frame – they are all cut off on the left-hand side. only one reaches across to the right-hand side, and then, barely. only one ‘touches’ earth, and even then, it’s touching the water.

the repetition gives us the feeling that here we have eight wands – but we don’t – what we have is half the story. as ever, it’s the ambiguity of the RWS, and consequently its availability for interpretation, which is its greatest strength.

we can’t really say for sure if these wands are on the way out of the frame or coming into land.

we can’t really say for sure what the other half of the story is. that’s why receiving XV The Devil to read this card is so interesting.

The Devil closes down the optimism, opportunity, and hope of the VIII’s open sky and landscape, compressing it into a blackened interior – stereotypically, ‘hell’ – with almost every line of energy heading towards the ground. there are a lot of downward pointing triangles here.

I interpret this as The Devil reminding us of what is on the other side of the equation offered by the VIII. the XV – Capricorn ruled by Saturn – is contraction, restriction, bondage – whereas the VIII is expansion, liberation, expression.

the key to how these cards interact is in the number eight itself. look again at the VIII, and you will see the wands are organised in a 2-2-4 pattern. Swiftness doesn’t just ask us to think about the fast, expansive energy of Mercury in Sagittarius – it ask us to think about the number eight itself.

eight is the number of materiality, but not in a basic way – it reflects the important lesson of spirit-in-matter, and matter-in-spirit. everything we do, practically, in this physical reality, reflects or creates our spiritual reality. it’s a two-way street of course. while our spiritual practices don’t necessarily change our physical reality, they change us internally, and by seeing the world in a more enlightened way we do affect it.

this is reflected in the RWS by the group of four wands, and the other group of four below them, but divided in two. one group represents the material stability of four – the other group represents the higher purpose of material existence – and brought together, the eight represents the integration of matter and spirit.

why is one of the groups of four divided in two? this is to remind us that the pattern of doubling which produces the eight – 2 to 4 to 8 – is built from binary combinations.

the RWS II’s teach the lesson of integrating duality, of balance:

the pairs of two wands within the VIII of wands Tarot card reflect a double duality which seems seductively complex, but which might only produces material stability. and that stability can produce the illusion that we have reached the finishing post and have all that we need, potentially producing complacency.

the RWS IVs teach us about the risks and rewards of material stability:

the same problem presents itself in the eights:

in the RWS Tarot of the VIII of wands we have the image of double duality – 2+2 – but also double, double duality – 4+4.

like the square geometry of the four, the numerology of the eight can seem to offer a final, finished condition, a balance of spiritual and material – an understanding of the world which is sufficiently complex to perpetuate the illusion that we have finished learning who we are.

because of this numerology, each of these VIII Tarot cards has its own potential 'devil' – whether it be scattered energy, disillusionment, blindness, or obsession. it's telling that the suit symbols fill up the foreground of the cards, acting to imprison. only the VIII of swords changes tack, but this of course is an image of being trapped in and of itself, and simply moves the barrier behind the figure.

this is why the XV The Devil can be seen as an ally, when next to the VIII – it reminds us not to get stuck, particularly in those situations where our levels of understanding and happiness serve to convince us we now have everything we need.

the trap of the VIII is best described by the ironies of religious dogma. throughout history, people have held up their beliefs as a solution to the mysteries of life, and proclaimed we need look no further. their ignorance of the nature of life is usually illustrated by their willingness to use violence to uphold their beliefs – which typically are opposed to violence.

to go beyond the energies of the VIII is to go beyond The Devil in the details of this particular card – we must recognise the rules of life itself – ever-changing, chaotic, organic, flowing – and never believe the order we impose on life – static, linear, artificial, hierarchic – is anything more than our own projected illusion.

beyond the VIII is the IX – a painful, but higher wisdom, reflecting a simple truth.

a life bound rigidly by rules may be less painful, but only because it is more predictable.

but certainty is ultimately an illusion, and to really and truly be alive is to embrace possibility, not to shut it in a box.

if we are to living this way, and truly develop as beings, we must be prepared to let certainty go when the time is right – and embrace possibility, accepting the pain and discomfort that comes with becoming ourselves, right up until the moment we cease to be.

beneath the surface

in the ancient world, one decisive aspect of reality was the tension between the energies of Cronos and Zeus, or Saturn and Jupiter.

the clearest way to explain this is the tension between parent and child – the parent has no choice but to enforce the existing rules of reality, and does so to keep the child safe, and the child who is building their own reality, has no choice but to test just where the boundaries are.

and so we have the tension between restriction and expansion.

we tend to believe we should have unlimited freedom, like a child, and often forget to temper that with responsibility.

sometimes we think life should be all responsibility, and often forget to temper that with play, and a youthful attitude to life.

of the two, Saturn return makes short Saturn gets the bad rep, and not Jupiter, but only till we see Saturn's essential role in our existence. however we play it, we can’t get away from either aspect of our lives.

we can help ourselves by recognising we are surfing the push and pull of expansion and contraction – the energetic in breath and out breath of the universe, of which we are part. riding the wave, rather than resisting it, improves life no end, I have found.

no-one’s life ever ran in a straight line of continuous expansion, or contraction. accepting the ebb and flow of existence is something, perhaps, older worldviews were better at.

one answer to this is to bury ourselves in rules and regulations – another is to try and be free.

each of these answers reflects what Lee Irwin describes as the “search for completion in an incomplete world”.

this is why people look at each other as if they are opposite, when in reality they are the other half of the same equation.

again, it’s the number eight that gives us the clue. as Irwin says, “The Gnostic symbol for the eight is the Ouroboros, the snake that grasps its own tail, forming a recursive, self-looping pattern.

it is the alchemical sign of attaining mastery in a given sphere, but simultaneously living in an enclosed universe”

we can interpret the VIII of wands as sending energy out, or receiving energy, and leave it there if we wish.

but the higher reality is that what we send out returns to us in a different form, and all of our efforts, material and spiritual, work in a loop of energy.

and then – when we think we have mastered that, we can feel invincible, but what we have potentially created is XV The Devil – in essence, the same image as VI Lovers – but with complete deception about the reality of the situation.

we become our own prisons – we don’t need supernatural beings to entrap us, we do the job just fine for ourselves.

but how to break free? this is another reason why receiving the XV The Devil for this reading is so significant.

the eights sit on the sephiroth HOD, Splendour, with Mercury.

pathway 26 on the Tree of Life, between HOD and sephiroth six, TIPHARETH, Beauty, with the Sun, is assigned to XV The Devil.

this pairing describes the Sun acting through Capricorn (and its ruler, Saturn) on Mercury.

this action describes how we might release ourselves from the ‘hell’ of XV Devil – the Sun represents the integrated self, and The Devil in this regard therefore represents restriction on self-development.

the Swiftness, or energy of the VIII, arrives like a flash – not for nothing is the Sagittarius King of Wands named Lord of Flame and Lightning – to liberate the self, and set us back on the path.

but why is The Devil assigned an aspect of the godhead described as The Renewing Intelligence?

because we cannot experience the renewal of the self if we never fall into the decay of the self – described by the bondage of the card. whether we like it or not, the physical world is a gymnasium for the soul, and our best choice is to use the equipment as best we can, not ignore it.

which means the likelihood is, even if everything feels fine and dandy, we are probably hard at work building another trap for ourselves. it won't be that at the beginning, or even in the middle, or at the end – it will only be that when it has served its purpose and we are failing to move on to the next challenge.

and that’s why our spiritual work must be tireless – and keep pace with the nature of material existence. the material aspect of reality will always be hard at work finding ways to contain us, and so our efforts at self-liberation can never cease.

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.