I am mindful that the flame consuming the top of the staff singes not matter what it touches. The fire tops a cloth soaked in ample accelerant and wavers at the behest of lingering winds. Know that this fire is not born of an intermittent spark that erupts in the darkness only to disappear in an even quicker flash. This fire is steady and unyielding. What it touches is not pained but purified. With that type of nurtured flame it is easy to conclude that the Ace of Wands, in whomever’s hands, is the embodiment of wisdom applied through preparation, anticipation, and dedication.
From here is a good lead into examining the forms of darkness cast by the light of the Ace of Wands. Reading the action in the card, to me the fiery wand arrives to the tarot querent in the dark of night. As is the nature of firelight, we see the countenance that faces the torch. The light that casts behind the individuals braces shadows and suggests movement in the distance as a result of a flickering flame. The torch calls us to recognition in the apparent darkness of our existence. The bearer is someone that motivates us to action and not let the opportunity to enlightenment pass back into the night. Shadow work of the white flame is a sign to call you into the light of awareness and activity. Where hopelessness once reigned, you can begin your work and follow your passion with the first step of awareness. Admit to taking up with shadows and that you seek a more integrated life. We cannot understand the purpose of shadows without knowing the casting flame. Eventually your eyes will focus on the lights in the distance. You will see that you are not alone. There will be no more groping in the dark and a gnashing of teeth to fill the confusing moments. No matter the blackness, remember that even in the dark of the new moon, the stars still shine in the expanse. With the reminder that there will always be light, know that darkness can never take over. Still, in your pride it may be strange enough that we may never know the light without the darkness about. Take your time in oppression to realize that even shadows carry a lesson. Remember that a shadow is only formed by casting light. Therefore shadow is fully dependent on the brilliance in the distance. What you learn from the flame at its face, reflection, and shield, is one of movement in the heat and the cold. In defense of the consuming dark, come to know when you work best and when exhaustion compels you to rest. Come to know the complaints and criticisms that motivate you. Come to know the jealousies that erupt in your belly from hunger for food and hunger for words. Shadow work is not just for observation and note. What you find is meant to be applied for daily use. Practice the tools that you find to better understand yourself and others. In isolation, shadows lessons may appear convoluted and aimless. While tried in the stead of the light, the truths will lay plain. There will be no more evisceration in profound pain to gain self-discovery. There will be no more berating because you simple cannot see the scope of the issue. Facing away from the fire can only lead to futility and frustration. Turn toward the light. Let an aura of humility shield you in your struggles as the suffering of sentience can be crippling.
Looking closer into the shadow of the white flame, subsequent lessons must remain inherent to readings no matter the orientation of the card. Know that the Ace of Wands conceals a call to sustain the fire of creation. First, remember that without the fire and surrounding blocks, there would be no shadows. So we posture to keep our hands around the golden bough and acorn laden oak aflame. This hand that grips the base designates a hand of power. It is a strong hand. It is a workman’s hand that knows cuts, bruises, and burns as well as caresses, food, and firm handshakes. It is a hand whose wisdom can carry in the darkness of worldly and spiritual powers. The one who bears the torch has knowledge of means that no other person in his/her tribe does. (S)he has our confidence and support for ventures into other realms. The fire carried is a flame whipped by the sounds of labor, calls to action, and wisdom of ancestors.
With the Ace of Wands appearance, know there are tools to be brought. One cannot commit to work with light or shadows without them. With the acquisition of tools know an investigation is about to occur. It will be one that must be remembered. Do not take up the quest without reason or guidance. Ace of Wands does not call for a time of dalliance and play. It is a call to work. So be prepared with great effort and bring back knowledge to the tribe. Ace is the start of an important journey.
Medicine
Resolve comes in starting an effort with a clean body, mind, and repose. For this, learn to hold fast to purification in the flame and the beginning hard steps become obvious. Remember that the inaugural state can only lead to a beginning with auspicious leanings. This preparation may seem to comprise mindless puttering that only avoids getting work done. Despite this encourage yourself to persevere. When the work area is cleaned, tools laid, plans codified, and the day chosen, you are one day closer to closure.
In high school I had a habit of waiting until the night before to write term papers and finals. My ritual of procrastination settled into my bones from the moment I arrived home from school. The whole process embodied deep cleaning my room. As a stickler for cleanliness, I knew anything out of place would disturb my writing process. After homework, dinner, cleaning, and a shower I settled into writing by eleven in the evening. To this day I have to clean before I begin any venture. As a result, there is no surprise for me to move into a state of confession to clear and purify my mind before working. Throwing out the collected detritus both physical and mental can only open up more room to use for any pursuit. Naming and claiming emotional and intellectual baggage is part of “doing the work”. If beginning personal work by confession clears the way for the Ace of Wands to be an effective tool for mediating living and creating between worlds, I am never straying.
Assessing the scope of transforming guilt and sin into repentance, reparation, and apology will frame the range of exploration in the remaining arcane both major and minor. Years ago in graduate school, I was inspired by haphazard research that led me to photocopy at length entries on sacrifice from a religious encyclopedia. From those readings I thought to make my first confession into a matter of illustration, writing, and performance as dictated in Mosaic Law written in Leviticus. The notion sparked a fascination and planning that has not stopped. One additional lead was told to me by my Dad. It is the 42 Negative Confessions from Ancient Egyptian literature. Dad encouraged me to take on the confessions both intellectually and by my spiritual heart in order to connect to the wisdom of my ancestors. He was positive that I would learn not just of them, but also of myself. I have no doubt that after writing out responses to the 42 Negative Confessions, understanding tarot cards, in daily life lessons, may be easier. Here my purification starts before a deeper understanding of the tarot begins.
Please know that my responses were written without the guidance of a priest of any order. I remember at the local parish when my teachers in the Rite of Christian Initiation as an Adult spoke about preparing for confession. We were given an article that helped us reflect on the Ten Commandments in conjunction with our experiences. The contemplation was to help us structure what we may need to talk to Father about during our first confession. Honestly? I took to making notes and remembered my journal entries on the 42 Negative Confessions. Separating the Ten Commandments from the Negative Confessions is difficult as the ten are said to stem from the forty-two. Emotionally working either set clears my mind and sets everything to resolve. The medicine is in the meditation and conscious journal work. When muse strikes, sometimes it is convenient to continue work into the wee hours of the morning. The harvest is bountiful when my both my inner and art work come across with great clarity and purpose. Nothing is muddied with the trappings of guilt or bleached out with the lingering wisps of unresolved arguments. Just like the fire of the wand burns hotter with pure gas soaked rags, so my passions manifest with greater definition when born of a clean mind. The whole process of confession seems an outgrowth out of the morning pages in the Artist’s Way by Julian Cameron. Clearing out the detritus and chatter in the mind makes way for the greater things to come about.
As another lesson of fire and fuels, the following are responses to the first ten of the 42 Negative Confessions:
I. I have not done iniquity.
I have contemplated iniquity against my fellow man only when common paths of reconciliation are refused. Then and only then have I committed wickedness in my heart and mind. Even then it has only been born of frustration due to refused resolve. I have raised no physical hand against my fellow man. Nor have I crafted any machination of mind or word against my enemies or allies. However, I have yielded to spirit in extinguishing selfish anger and allow myself to conceive the lengths of righteous anger’s reach. Lord, as I decrease, may thou increase. Any sin I have committed against God and the divine is summed in apostasy, apology, and return. I continue to atone for my wrongs as well as my ancestors in the stead that the sins of the father are visited upon the son even unto the fourth generation. I may not be the son, but I am the first born and feel the weight of my family’s ills on my shoulders equally as if I had committed them. I attempt to correct the lengths and burden of sin. I have not done iniquity.
II. I have not committed robbery with violence.
I have stolen from men that which I may never return. All in all, the theft was not out of reckless violence. On the contrary, I stole out of care and careful contemplation. None has sought repayment or filed with authorities for damages. In the end it seems a gift of kindness and care not to be torn from arms nor to be bruised and pilfered publically. No one has died or been taken to the hospital for my thieving desires. I have stolen for love, not for covetousness, envy, or hate. I have not committed robbery with violence.
III. I have not stolen.
Living in utter destitution despite the opulence around me, I have stolen. Much like Jean val Jean in Les Miserables, starvation is a mighty motivation when it comes to stealing. The bottom line was that I needed food to live and gasoline to get to work. Keeping all of this in mind, I stole mindful to make reparations by the next paycheck. Unfortunately, the days ran together and with every paycheck, the day of making amends never came. For those days of hunger and the freedoms that come with a car, I admit that I have committed theft with little remorse.
I have also stolen to avoid love in my grey haired age. Despite the safety in a quiet mind, moments before I dodged his intended gaze my chin rose against the breeze. His eyes were not the first I passed in defense of my innocence. I run from all of them. My senses cry in defense of being the target of an obvious common pickup artist. Passive aggression and the notion of being undeserving leads me blindly down two more aisles in the supermarket. I pass him each time before I reach for the rice and then for the coffee. Secretly I hope my crippling shyness that conceals desperation eventually robs him of his goal. I have stolen love in my grey haired age. I have stolen.
IV. I have not made any to suffer pain.
I have made another suffer pain by calling out in the most vicious of epithets. Despite my frustrations and misgivings, I sought negotiations to resolve the argument. My considerations had no effect. I stopped yielding and fermented anger erupted into bellows. The fueling air was sourced deep from my bowels. Seemingly muffled behind a closed bedroom door and a silent night, I call her out as the vilest thing in the dark. In counterpoint from her lip, the attacks slowed but did not stop. I said it because I wanted her to hurt by my words and not gun shots. She never spoke to me again. I made another suffer pain. I do not care the question of self-defense. I made another suffer pain.
V. I have not defrauded offering.
To the best of my knowledge I have not defrauded offerings. In tithing I offer by calculating from my bounty to give joyfully. My plate is small and the repast never reaches the edges of the round. In hindsight, I wish I could have offered more but it would have come at a greater cost than I could bear. However, ingenuity saved me from the perceptual implications of oppression as born in guilt and poverty. I cannot give as the others do. So, I found a way to relevant to the church and its works on a regular basis. I tithed the works of my hands and mind. Labor power has monetary value. Should I feel driven to give more to my beloved? Be assured it may not come by Caesar or Mammon. Offerings should be freely given of the heart. Tithing need not be just a monetary thing.
VI. I have done no murder nor bid anyone to slay on my behalf.
I have committed no murder nor called for one. Though once, in ignorance, I feared attempted murder of the soul may come from my hands and as a result every work I had wrought would come undone. I have not directed an assault to destroy a life. By a soul’s eternal and incorruptible nature I have only bidden to return the grief and strife caused against me. I have done no murder no bid anyone to slay on my behalf.
VII. I have not trimmed the measure
In the measure of chocolate desserts I have trimmed and stolen from the offering to the table in the late hours of the night. While crumbs and icing cleaved to my mouth I trimmed from the last piece of repast that lay mandated for another. I was told I had my fill and did not abide by the request.
Some days hunger drives me to no end and I forgo common sense, kindness, and boundaries. However the measure of my offerings to God is only trimmed by time and energy. What cannot be done in the day is planned for in the next offering. I tithe by time, talents, and services more often than by monetary means. When sickness and other obligations crowd the calendar I tend to take from my offering to God’s table. The day the Lord comes first in all day’s labors, my life and needs will have changed. In anticipation, I fear one day I may trim the measure with full mindedness to supply where human hands in the Lord’s oversight have failed. I am called Robin Hood and I have trimmed the measure.
VIII. I have not spoken lies I have not robbed God
I think through the physical depths over which the Delphic Oracle sat. In my mind, the steam, fumes, and stench from the caverns below are carried over the supporting ridge by the sea winds. The Oracle speaks truth to no end, sometime mindlessly, sometimes with intent. No lies fall from that tongue, but confusions about telling the truth abound in my mind especially related to personal caution and in silence. She is the known as a trained soothsayer and kept safe. I made personal pledges and constructed boundaries against the faults of speech and passion. I braced the violence of other’s tongues in that pursuit. For years the interchange led to series of third degree burns and abandonments. As a result, this temple sits alone at the base of the mountain. Biding truth brings discernment over possible offerings that come through my hands. I think not over what I want or what I am told God needs. Choosing paths in pursuit of honesty need end in Lord’s wake. I do not trim that measure or steal outright from that fold. Figuring the apportionment to the body is His work. Like the blade of grass, flowers and birds, I am provided for without question. I have not lied. I have not stolen from God.
IX. I have not caused the shedding of tears
I have not caused embarrassment or shame by what I do. To my knowledge, no tears have come from my own eyes or another’s regarding my actions or beliefs. I try to walk upright in the light of the sun. I have committed no wrong against any person, household, establishment, or institution. I walk upright in the light of the sun. I raised no hand against the meek, the poor, the indigent, or the wise. I walk upright in the light of the sun. The brine that covers my cheeks in the reflection of golden rays stains not my garments or the earth. I have not blasphemed my mother or her children. I walk upright in the light of the sun. I have not caused the shedding of tears.
X. I have not dealt deceitfully
I have lived as a shadow amongst the trees and under the roofs of houses. I have spoken the tongue of a shade so as not to alarm the Devil’s minions; nor to disturb human kind. For the sake that I have quelled my appetites in the darkness of the night, I cannot say with a full heart that I have not dealt deceitfully. While admitting knowledge of the nature of madness in the night, what is spoken may not be what is and what is seen may easily be forgotten. To save myself form darker shades I may have spoken ill and with deceit, though not to harm but to find safety. Therefore I admit to having dealt with guile. I have not used cleverness for the sake of harm and destruction. I have dealt with double mindedness, but I have not dealt deceitfully.
Closure
After journaling through a portion of the Negative Confessions, I can conclude that the Ace of Wands is a portent to preparation for a great work. Despite the hidden lain in making assessments and taking up tools, know these efforts are the fundamental practice of a workman who knows his labor’s worth. Thinking forward through the body of wands, we know not to be afraid of committing to effort and follow through. It can only yield to accomplishment. Securing that for every psychological read of the cards, what we can be sure of in the Ace of Wands is to foster a desire to work and pair it with clarity of purpose to direct all aims to success.
~As ever, stay hungry and curious