Meditating on the Eight of Wands: Swift, Confident Action.

This card is often associated with air travel, for obvious reasons. One of the most beautiful things about the tarot is how its archetypes transcend time, allowing their application across centuries.

Highlighted in my journal is — ‘what are you rushing into, and why?’ as the eight of wands is associated with quick, decisive action and is obviously a card of high energy. Its placement in the context of the suit of wands is directly after strife and victory, so the preternatural swiftness comes from the unshackling of the self from the burdens of all that strife. The word ‘unfettered’ comes to mind.

It’s interesting to note that there is no one in the card. We don’t know where the wands got their motion. The sole observer of this magical moment of everything moving forward as if guided is us, we are the witnesses to this event.

This is, of course, different in other decks, and in the Deviant Moon Tarot, the card has a peasant ridding her land of seven wands with swift decisive action from a scythe (made from, you guessed it, a wand).

The artwork on this card emphasizes the idea of a message being brought by a crow. This is a great demonstration of how the artwork of a card can radically change the feeling that the card would give in a reading. In the Deviant Moon I see less of the decisive movement of wands and the decisive movement from an actor. This takes a way a bit of the mystique of where the wands are coming from / what gave them their action that was inherent in the artwork of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck.

Because of the swift forward motion showed in the eight of wands, it is often associated with confidence and authoritative decision making. It is a card of ‘everything magically falling into place.’

A question this card brings to mind is this — If you were confident everything would go your way, what would you do?