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 process, set in motion, is encountering a blockage. It is time to let go and hand things over to the power of the larger cycles that govern life.
Wands, wands, wands. If you have been following the tarot columns over the past few months, you might have noticed that we are no stranger to both the Eight and the Seven of Wands… most recently the Seven, which we covered as recently as last week.
Wands deal with creative energy — but don’t limit creative energy to the idea of works of art, or making things. This energy is life force itself: libido, or prana, or chi. Wands are the expression of the least tangible element described by the suits; they are the originating suit, followed by Cups (emotions), then Swords (thoughts), and then Pentacles (the tangible world). They are the energetic drive towards something — so hard to describe because they are a precursor to words. You can sometimes feel them as a fire in the belly. And the Eight of Wands is no exception.
The Eight of Wands can be summed up in one word: activation. It describes something that has been set in motion. There is a real force to this card. Something significant has happened to enable the Wands to take flight, although they are now angled downwards, which means that force has given way to a downward momentum. Moreover, it isn’t clear precisely where they are going to land: the immediate ground is not in sight — only the land in the distance — and it is implied that their touchdown is not within the scope of the card; it will happen once they have crossed the right margin of the picture.