Suit of Wands Tarot Card Meanings and Keywords
The Suit of Wands represents our inner life force or vitality, our creative urges, libidinal energy, and the task of bringing our authentic inner selves out into the world. This suit speaks to the challenge of maintaining our inner flame so that it doesn’t become extinguished by the demands or projections of others or the voice of our own inner critic. As one of the four suits of the tarot deck’s Minor Arcana, its function is to describe the way that we externalize, channel, and manage our energy, unlike the Major Arcana which reflects spiritual lessons to be integrated.
An abundance of Wands cards in a tarot reading indicates a focus on what you’re building in the world and the demands that this work makes on your energy. The Wands cards describe a concern with developing the self-confidence necessary in order to take risks and creatively realize one’s dreams, as well as the ability to persevere through challenges and confront opposition from others or from oneself.
The Wands are connected to the element of fire and to passion, enthusiasm, vitality, and creative manifestation. They represent the ways that our energy can be channeled toward expansive ends or become stagnant due to self-doubt, scattered focus, or haste. Through the development of the suit, the Wands illustrate the ways that we can externalize our life force by cultivating our talents, creative visions, and drive.
Suit of Wands: Key Attributes
The key attributes of the Wands cards include creativity, vitality, enthusiasm, self-confidence, motivation, and expansion.
Positive traits: The positive qualities associated with the Wands cards are the cultivation of healthy self-confidence and pride, the desire to realize one’s creative ideas, the possibility of achievement and acclaim, an expanded sense of self and possibility, unapologetically taking up space, relational charm and charisma, and creative manifestation.
Negative traits: The negative qualities associated with the Wands cards are self-doubt, a preoccupation with the future, visions of grandeur, pushing past one’s limits, creative conflicts, defensiveness, the presence of heavy burdens, difficulty asking for help or delegating responsibilities, lack of self-confidence, scattered energy, or hasty decisions.
Correspondences: The Wands cards are connected to the fire signs of the Zodiac: Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius, which are associated with taking bold initiative, independence, creative self-expression, and the desire for expansion through journeys of the mind, body, and spirit.
Suit of Wands Tarot Card Meanings
The Suit of Wands includes nine numbered cards (Ace to 9) and four court cards. Within the Suit of Wands, each card has a specific meaning, which is outlined below:
