Editor’s Note: If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article tells you how to use the spread. You can visit Sarah’s website here. –efc
By Sarah Taylor
A red-cloaked man rides into town on his elaborately mantled horse, his chest pushed out in a gesture of pride and authority. He holds a wand firmly in his right hand, which is joined by five other wands being held by people in a crowd behind him. His wand is garlanded with a red-ribboned laurel wreath, and he wears a second laurel wreath on his head.
The colours in the picture are vibrant: red, yellow, green, brown, with a cobalt-blue sky in the background. This brightness is extended to the feel of the card, and its obvious reference to celebration and harmony.
The preponderance of reds and greens in the Six of Wands draws my eye to the wreaths and the red ribbon, one of its tails caught in an air current as the horse moves through the crowd. In ancient Greece, both laurel wreaths and red ribbons were given to athletic victors — and yet the main figure is certainly not dressed as an athlete. There is a lot of finery, from the spectators’ headgear to the horse’s green caparison with ruffled collar. There is no armour to indicate a battle, either. Perhaps the parade comes some time after the event it celebrates.
Nevertheless, this card is not exclusively focused on the physical. There might be references to real procession, but the Six of Wands is also about graduation in a less concrete sense.
We graduate when move through one phase and reach the boundary to the next one. We graduate when we achieve something that we have worked towards, and that achievement enables us to shift up a level in whatever we are doing. (We hope that by graduating from university, for example, we gain access to better job prospects.) We also graduate when we assume the mantle of responsibility. We become initiates.
Something else strikes me when I look at the card: the horse has no mane. In fact, it is the only horse ridden by a figure in the Rider-Waite deck that doesn’t have one. Its grey head is illustrated with the barest minimum of lines. Given the detail in the rest of the picture — the flourishes, creases and cross-hatchings — it feels slightly like a caricature.
What doesn’t feel like a caricature, though, is the horse’s green caparison. It dominates the lower half of the picture, from edge to edge, and takes up well over a quarter of the space of the card. This is what the horse is about – not its existence as an independent entity, but the support it is providing for its rider, who looks like he is sitting on a green hill. The Six of Wands is not concerned directly with battle, competition or conquest, but with the recognition that issues from these. The man is sustained and carried aloft by his mount, by the mood of the crowd, by the energy of the Wands themselves.
When the Six of Wands comes up, it represents a moment in the sun. There is peer recognition and a sense of being buoyed up by what you have created. The potential sticking point is in assuming that this state is permanent. All processions come to an end, and graduation implies doing something with what you have earned. (It’s not a time to rest on your two laurels, so to speak.)
Soon enough, in the Seven of Wands, a sixth wand will be added to the five in the crowd, and they will provide counterpoint rather than consonance. For now, though, victory is yours. How you apply it will determine how you experience what you create through the rest of the suit.
Thank you Charles, that’s very helpful.
Sparky – what do you make of your own reading? Feel free to pop me a private note if you want: sarah (at) integratedtarot.com
Charles – yes, this horse feels decidedly different, doesn’t it?
A caparison, btw, was designed to cover the horse’s entire body, including the saddle sometimes. It is actually a form of armour: it had the ability to ward off weapon attacks, especially missiles such as arrows.
I don’t see the rider as being alongside. That may just be an optical effect from the colors (let’s not get into that, I am a painter and I’ll bore you to death about “color pressure”). Clearly she intended the rider to be on top, and his robes would conceal the saddle. I think the horse is more covered here to reduce its emphasis and keep the focus on the rider. This is the only card she drew with a horse that wasn’t a knight. And this guy is clearly not a knight. The personalities of the horses in the knights is almost as important as the human figures. Here in the six, not so much.
I am still mystified by the horse and cover. As you say Charles, the left-front leg is high-stepping – the horse’s tail follows suit. But what keeps glaring at me is that the rider does not seem to be actually on the horse; it is as though the horse is alongside the men-on-foot, but their leader is floating alongside on a side-car – he just doesn’t seem to be on the horse’s back (and stirrups but no visible saddle.) – like the horse is parading or on display with the victorious men, but the leader is lofted aside/above – included in the group and parade by way of the green cloth, but otherwise distant.
I enjoyed the link you posted. Thanks.
Oh there are way more than two versions of the RWS deck. I’m not talking about decks derived from RWS, I’m talking about variations in color and minor details. And of course the first publication of the deck was in black & white.
Check out this web page:
http://home.comcast.net/~vilex/ShipofFools.html
Now that is a fanatical tarot collector! Want to know the true sign of an obsessive? Her specialty is the *back sides* of the RWS tarot cards.
Anyway, the impression I get of the scene is that he is being honored by the men he fought with. They share in the victory because he lead them to it. They line the street with their wands raised in salute. Even the horse is doing something special, you can see from the raised covering that his foreleg is doing a fancy high-stepping move that is just for show.. but covered, oddly enough.
Okay. I’m spooked. I went on to read Eric’s blog for the day, got a right feather in my cap! As I’m still churning over HOW to structure my grand plan, I chose to do a spread right here on my kitchen floor. I’ve no one else to share this with, believe me or not, but these are my cards. The Celtic cross.
Significator-The Devil (R) Obstacles-Ace of Wands Crowning-Queen of Wands
Strengths-Justice Behind me-4 of Swords To come-4 of wands
My attitude-Knight of Pentacles Environment-Queen of Pentacles
Hopes/fears-6 of wands Outcome-Wheel of Fortune
Thankyou Sarah!
Isn’t it an interesting example of how different colours create a different energies? To imagine this same horse with a green caparison (is it a deep emerald/forest green?) & grey head as opposed to a sunflower yellow caparison upon a white horse, it does envoke a feeling of completion. Where as the card I see is bright & gay, & holds that feeling of anticipation. I would love to see images from the other deck!
With relation to my life, perhaps this is why I felt dissapointed! I’m not yet ready to hold my ‘graduation’, moving onto the next phase (although an urgent priority!) would be impossible without that ‘diploma’. If I managed to fufill both prophecies this week?? Have such long held desires finally manifest?? Wow.
The problem with the Rider-Waite Smith deck is that there are two versions, as far as I know – and one of them has far more saturated colours. Hence the fact that the horse on my card is most definitely grey, while the one on this one (which I took from another source) is white.
Your boldness is most welcome, Sparky! I’m holding to my original analysis, with the caveat that your interpretation is no less valid. Would the interpretation you give the card have any bearing on your life at the moment?
Yes, Charles, it’s the first time that I’ve noticed the positions of the wands in the crowd and then the ones in the Seven, and their correlation.
aword, the idea of the horse being a statue resonates with me. Interesting!
The horse’s eye is even directed toward the rider as is the tilt of it’s head – a head which seems cast in marble – a premonition of remembrance to come (statuary) of this moment? That is, hold, cherish and remember your lesson or success and the ‘degree’ you have just earned will serve you well?
Good eye for detail, I had never considered the windblown ribbon. It literally means having the wind at your back. I thought that was a nice metaphor for Victory.
I also note the rider is elevated over the 5 men on the ground, foreshadowing the elevation of the man in the 7 of Wands.
How odd. This is the first of the weekly drawn cards that has not given me that “AHA!! Yes!” Eureka kind of moment. Instead it’s almost a disapointment. “Oh, I’m here. What next then?”
In saying that, with one more review of this card, does not the rider appear to be searching, scanning the crowd? Also, the stead appears pure white & not grey, suggesting his quest is pure. Forgive my boldness Sarah, but I don’t think we’ve graduated just yet, but gathered together awaiting ceremony.