Ace of Wands

dream mage

Greetings

In my personal study of the Ace of Wands, I can't help but notice that the Ace has leaves.... not only leaves but the fact that the leaves are in a pattern: the top twig has four leaves - three opposite one. and the other twigs all have three leaves. beside the wand in the air, we have three floating leaves opposite one, with the wand itself creating the line between them.

Now my question is, to all of you, what do you see for reason of having three leaves, separated by the wand, opposite one?
 

Penelope

Thank you, dream mage, for these excellent observations.
Notice also the hand: 3 fingers fully around, and 1 upon,
but a little back from going all the way around the Wand.
Then below, see the trees? Two stand away from the One.

Except for the fact that we see Salamanders on the Courts,
I sometimes wonder if Pamela intended Wands to be Fire. ;)

The Ace of Wands
http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/pkt/img/waac.jpg
by Pamela Colman Smith
1909
 

dream mage

setting yourself apart

Nice going, I didn't notice that at first.

With the whole idea of " 1 vs others" symbolism in the card... do you think maybe Smith was telling us to "set yourself/ideas apart from others"?...

Like the whole creative energy in the card. If you notice this pattern in a reading, does that signify a creativity that sets a person apart from their peers?

Or am I just thinking too much?

And do you think that this optical pattern has anything to do with making wands fire? If you do, please explain how?
 

dream mage

Really !

Wow, that's a different way of seeing things.

However, I still can't seem to shake the idea that there's something I'm missing.... some thought connection that I'm missing regarding the pattern of the leaves.

.... but like I said... maybe it's just for appearances?
 

tmgrl2

I love the RWS Aces!!

The Aces of Wands, Swords and Cups...all have these "yods" dropping forth...
buds in the Wands, water in the Cups and light in the Swords...

...none in the Pentacles....a suit of physical reality...

One might assign the "droplets" in the other three as signs of grace falling toward us...divine points of energy....gifts we recieve from above, as grace...not as a reward for anything we have done...but as support for the experiences to come.

"Yod," I believe can also mean "hand" or "arm" and when I see these little droppings, the tiniest of marks, I think of "as it is above, so it is below."

As we are offered the divine grace to initiate, so, too, do we reach up to the heavens with our own arms in supplication for support.

I like to think of them as the grace that will always be there for us when we begin something new...the grace to carry us through the difficult times to come.

White hands...alchemical purity? We start as innocents and must cherish that we can always "begin again" with the heart and passion of a child.

Just some thoughts...
terri
 

luminous spirit

Your observation is very interesting. I noticed that the leaves at the top are four in number and evrywhere else 3. The numbers 1, 2, 3 are sacred numbers in many numerological and mythical studies all over the world. 1 is the unity, the One god force the circle, 2 is the duality which is the male-female opposites yin-yang which also is part of 1. 3 is the trinity, the triangle which is a sacred geometry figure like the mandalas. These three are divine numbers(spiritual). The number four is the first material number, human perfection, man made.

So from the above things that I have read about numbers and the tarot symbolism that the wands stand for wisdom, spiritual work and creativity, I think that the Ace of Wands which is the hand from the Universe holding the wand of wisdom and divine creativity symbolizes through the leaves that the sprout or the first divine spark can be manifested in the material world as a creative venture or clarity through wisdom, but all things material are illusions and the only permanent thing is the One, cosmic divine force. The four is made up of the 3 leaves and the seperate one leaf at the top. Also since they exist at the top of the wand, I would think that indicates evolution towards Oneness.

Hope that made sense !
 

Parzival

Interesting reflections. I notice 3 leaves clustered lower right, 3 upper left, 4 together at the top. In the SephirothTree, there are 3 right-pillar sephira, 3 left-pillar sephira, 4 up or down the center pillar, to a total of the 10 sephiroth. So, the whole universe greening out of the Ultimate Divine Will. At least a possible meaning for the configurations.

The 8 free-falling leaves?-- 4 to each side? 1 above and 3 below, left ; 3 above and 1 below right ? The 4 elements split off either side (why doubled?), as subject to fleeting time, while the Tree with its 10 sacred centers is eternal, untouched by time ?

Just a little meditation on the number side of the leaves.
 

wizzle

I'm with Frank on his ToL interpretation. Book T, that handy dandy instruction manual for do-it-yourself tarot cards, mentions the groupings exactly as shown in the Ace and says " thus yielding Ten: the Number of the Sephiroth."

Going with the ToL theme, I think the falling leaves on the left are the 4 worlds and the ones on the right the 4 elements. I say this because it is natural to separate Atziluth by itself at the top and put poor Earth by itself down at the bottom.

Waite seems to have eliminated the 22 yods and the sigils mentioned by BooK T. And as a visual representation, the RWS Ace is far more pleasing than the very ugly Ace in Wang's GD Tarot Deck which just goes to show that sometimes too much symbolism is, indeed, too much.
 

dream mage

poetic aces

You know, I've just started studying the Ace of Cups, and the average number in that ace is 8 and 10... now I don't know much about the number of the Sephiroth and the YOD theories, but they're great food for thought.
And to quote from tmgrl2:


tmgrl2 said:
One might assign the "droplets" in the other three as signs of grace falling toward us...divine points of energy....gifts we recieve from above, as grace...not as a reward for anything we have done...but as support for the experiences to come.
That whole speach reminds me of a poem by Longfellow, the Sound of the Sea:
And so comes to us at times from the unknown and
inaccessible solitudes of the being
the rushings of the Sea tides of the Soul
and thoughts that we deem our own
are some shadowing and foreseeing
of things beyond our reason or control.~~

Sorry to do a poetic ramble, but your thoughts about how the leaves could signify that we get our creativity from divinity, reminded me of Longfellow.